Can’t take a joke? PC cat got your tongue? Don’t like religious humor in a jugular vein? Then don’t drive by the Rev. Gary Murrell’s Good News Independent Baptist Church of Spring Hope, North Carolina. The Reverend combines wit with a touch of 21^st Century reality. The one-liner he posted on the message board in front of his church could have come from Jackie Mason. “When is the last time you heard of a Jew or Christian with a bomb strapped to their body?” That’s what it said. Hilarious! Mason pays five cents-a-piece for jokes like that. Of course, he’s already used that one. 

It’s also a brainteaser. Who was the last Jew or Christian to pack his swaddling clothes with plastic explosive? It wasn’t Woody Harrelson; he’s still alive—at least that’s the rumor. It wasn’t Michael Moore. And it wasn’t Roseanne Barr. They are classic non-lethal bomb throwers, but are they Christians? Harrelson and Moore? Please, folks, give them the benefit of the doubt; it’s the Christian thing to do. Christ pitched a large tent. Look—isn’t that Nancy Pelosi browsing in the Social Gospel section? Okay—so how about the Jesuits?  The Jesuits? Please—they were eggheads, not men of action. It was the Christians that got tossed to the lions—remember? Take a good look at the religious map of the United States, there is not—contrary to what Rosie O’Donnell might say—a single Christian Mad-Rats-Asses school located anywhere between sea and shining sea. It there were, Maureen Down and Frank Rich would be sniffing around like bluebottle flies in Ted Turner’s anti-Christian outhouse.  

Another question—thanks to Woody Harrelson’s Natural Born Killers—are suicide bombers born or made? Thankfully, the US Government has studied the phenomenon. In a recent briefing paper, Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers, the Pentagon came to the conclusion that the bombers were ‘rational’ actors following the dictates of the Qur’an—they committed their crimes in defense of Islam. “His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God. The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise.” He also secures financial security for his family—those Saudi pensions are nothing to sneeze at.  

Allah’s Great Whorehouse in the Sky is an attractive place for healthy unmarried Muslim men. Potsy and Ralph Malph relieved their sexual tensions at Al’s Diner or they followed in the wake Richie and the Fonz in the hope of gathering up leftovers. Abdul and Abdullard have to be satisfied with the porn they find in Internet cafes. The Mad Mullahs don’t like that. What does the Qur’an say? Ah… 

Bukhari V4B52N53: “The Prophet said, ‘Nobody who dies and finds Paradise would wish to come back to this life even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it, except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to get killed again in Allah’s Cause.’” 

Spanky ate ten fudge sundaes at one sitting, got sicker than a dog. The eating part was great but he never did it again. Spanky would not have made a good Muslim.

But how does one explain Hanadi Jaradat, the Muslim woman, who blew herself up in a Haifa restaurant, killing 19 people, including children? Would the transition from life to death be an improvement? The Muslim afterlife has not won the approval of the National Organization of Women. It is not the place Gloria Seinhem would choose to spend eternity. Did Hanadi prefer making beds and sweeping floors in Allah’s Great Whorehouse in the Sky to life in the Gaza Strip? It would seem they would be equally odious—to a feminist.  

The Reverend Murrell was more serious on the reverse side of his message board. (It’s tough being Jackie Mason all the time) “Don’t be deceived,” it said. “The message of Islam is submit—convert or die, not salvation...” 

The message disturbed Debbie Jaunich, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center in nearby Raleigh. “I would really say that the actions of one individual do not represent the Islamic faith,” she said. “The Islamic faith really calls for peace.” And all Hitler wanted was a peaceful lebensraum—a sort of thousand-year dar al-Reich. 

The Center’s youth director is Hisham Sarsour—a man of all seasons, a scientist, a pedagogue, a comic, a patriot and only Allah knows what else. “The failure in Iraq,” he says, “…is good for the world and good for the American people and good for Muslims.” Well, if that’s patriotic, it’s Howard Dean-patriotic! 

Freedom is “free dumb,” he says. Is that supposed to be funny? It’s sound like something Michael Richards would say. And Sarsour’s a comic? Expect Jackie Mason and get Cosmo Kramer on a bad day! Well, maybe he’s a pedagogue; they have lower standards. Stay tuned. 

“What is a terrorist?” he asks. “How can we fight terrorists? If Iraq is defending its own country, its own people, its own being, its own heart, is this a terrorist?” Isn’t that what Rosie O’Donnell said? Clearly, Sarsour has mastered Orwell’s art of doublethink. A lot of Iraqis are dying and if the terrorists aren’t killing them who are the guilty people—George W. Bush…Jimmy Carter…Teddy Roosevelt…Thomas Jefferson…Pontiac?  One can only go back so far. Sarsour ought to take a ride past the Reverend Murrell’s church, not to view the message board, the thought for the day has already been changed, but the fresh air might remove some of the collateral damage the war on terror has done to his—should one say—psyche. Sure, blame the war on terror. What does the Qur’an say?   3:150 “Soon We shall strike terror into the hearts of the Infidel…their abode will be in the Fire.” 

Another fine fellow who spent some time at the Islamic Center in Raleigh was Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa al-Nashar, a chemist from Egypt. El-Nashar was a suspect in the London bombings and may have been the wretch who supplied Richard Reid with the chemicals that could have turned Reid’s sneakers into Atomic Air Jordans if the lout had been able to master the art of tying his own shoelaces. El-Nashar was detained in Cairo but was released for ‘lack’ of evidence. 

Sarsour is a consultant in the field of nuclear energy. He has been a member of the Muslim Student Association. Can he be trusted as a youth director? The Sweat Hogs had Kotter; Pinocchio had Jiminy Cricket; the Hitler Jugend had Baldur von Schirach and the Islamic Center at Raleigh has who? John Travolta and the Puppet were blessed. 

“Don’t be deceived. The message of Islam is submit—convert or die, not salvation...” Saying Islam is a religion of peace does not change that. Even Rosie O’Donnell will eventually come to the right conclusion. The US needs more message boards like the one at the New Hope Independent Baptist Church and less mindless propaganda—and it is mindless—from Islamic Centers like the one at Raleigh, North Carolina.