Halloween 2017, eight people murdered and 11 injured by an islamic terrorist proving what diversity can mean for the unwary.
Legend has it, that on the same day, 500 years earlier, Martin Luther published his thesis on the ails and ills of the Roman Catholic Church. His work was soon reprinted and distributed to begin what we now call the Protestant Reformation.
Whatever we think of the effects of that publication and the subsequent upheaval it initiated, there is no dispute that the words and ideas expressed resulted in a seismic shift in Christian thinking and history.
Back to the Manhattan murderer:-
He departs his killing machine, brandishing 'weapons' designed, not to kill more people, but to provoke his demise by a policeman's bullet, and entry to whatever his religion calls an afterlife; so convinced is he of martyrdom, that he shouts aloud that his god is greater [than that of those he has just slain] and waits to be shot dead. This doesn't happen, but his commitment to jihad remains.
And what does his community say? Are they appalled and dismayed by his actions, or are they committed to preserving their treasured status of victimhood?
So a question arises. Why does such a heinous crime, in the name of a 'religion of peace', not produce an outcry from his coreligionists?
If one document could so fundamentally change Christianity, how can so many acts of barbarism (more than 30,000 since 9/11), not change islam? And think about 9/11, almost 3000 killed and over 6000 injured, just a few blocks from this latest attack. Where was islam's introspection and debate following that earlier rendition of allahu akbar?
Surely, no true Religion of Peace could possibly continue unashamed and unabashed in the face of such brutality, without at least examining the possibility that so many koranic verses extolling the virtues of murder and mutilation might be having an effect on it's followers?
It might be a 1400 year old question, but it still requires asking: when will islam have it's own reformation?
Or to put it another way, just how bad does this have to get?