Indiana has roughly 41,000 Muslims out of a state population of 6,970,000. That is 0.58%, or about 1 out of every 170 Hoosiers. Yet, Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith has been attacking Islam, insulting Muslims and claiming he was protecting Indiana from Sharia law.
It is time for GOP leaders to speak out against this.
Muslims in Indiana are a minority population, among the smallest in the state. There are fewer mosques than Quaker congregations, and there are three Amish residents for every two Muslims.
Islam, the world’s second-largest religion, is a tiny presence in Indiana. Muslims in the Hoosier State are highly educated and, in my community, are primarily physicians, professors and small-business owners.
Indiana’s Muslim community is fully integrated into American life, far more so than other religious minorities. Take, for example, the Amish, who do not participate in civic life and don’t serve in the military or submit to payroll taxes. Muslims do all these things.
The Amish are the single-least integrated immigrant group in America despite having been here for nearly three centuries. If you were honestly concerned with a religious minority spreading laws over the nation, you’d focus on the Amish.
Beckwith doesn’t believe Muslims in Indiana will bring Sharia law. He’s not that stupid. He does believe many of his supporters are stupid enough to believe that.
I have written before about the dangers of Christian Nationalism in Indiana — how it hearkens back to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and how it risked eroding the very freedoms of religion that make America great.
Thomas Jefferson, citing John Locke, told us that, “neither Pagan nor Mahometan (Muslim) nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.” He proclaimed in legislation that “civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions.”
That’s not what Beckwith wants, which is odd because Indiana’s Constitution makes clear in Article 1 that, “All people shall be secured in the natural right to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences.”
Beckwith took this oath of office: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana … so help me God.”
His failings on this matter are an issue of broad political concern. In due course, he faces the questioning of a higher authority.
The strongest opposition to Beckwith’s words and actions should come from Hoosiers, but not because we disagree with him politically. The opposition should come from the roughly 3.5 million of us who are Christians, because his words damage our witness. They also risk the very freedom of religion that allows the Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, along with the Amish, Pentecostals and Quakers, to live freely in this great land.
First, the witness problem. If Beckwith believes his pathway is the sole source of salvation, his obligation is not to condemn others. Rather, it is to take up the Great Commission from Matthew 28 to “make disciples of all nations.”
C.S. Lewis observed that, “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through.”
Suppose you are atheist, Catholic (whom Beckwith also thinks are heretics) or Muslim and wish to listen to the powerful words of the Gospel. Would you go to Beckwith’s church to hear about the parable of the Good Samaritan or the Golden Rule from Matthew 7? You would not. He does not want you there.
And, if he really believed the followers of Islam in Indiana were his enemies, the Gospel of Luke has clear guidance on the matter: “Love your enemies.”
Beckwith’s calculated lies also risk eroding freedom for each of us to follow our own conscience. It is un-American.
George Washington’s most famous words on the matter were from the Newport letter of 1790 in which he wrote to a Jewish Congregation that the government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” Jefferson wrote to John Adams that “bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds.”
I do not compare Beckwith to Washington or Jefferson, nor do I expect he’ll change, apologize or temper his intemperate words. Beckwith is a failure as an elected leader. He fails even worse as a spokesman for the Gospels. He is precisely the sort of man Jefferson warned us about.
Hoosiers, particularly those who are followers of Christ, should loudly and uniformly condemn his words. We should do so from the governor’s mansion, the voting booth, the halls of the Capitol building, in the pulpits and in our homes.
In so doing, we do not need to defend Islam, the Amish or the Catholics. They don’t require our defense.
The freedom to worship as one sees fit isn’t merely a passage in a dusty reliquary of America. It was given to us by our Creator, and our government exists to protect that right. Beckwith’s attacks upon it are un-Christian, un-American and unhinged.
Michael J. Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Hicks: Attacks on Islam are un-Christian, un-American and unhinged
Reporting by Michael Hicks, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
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By Michael Hicks, Muncie Star Press | USA TODAY Network
