Yes, Iran for Week Six, Of Course!

If Week Six were an anomaly, we would not be concerned. Unfortunately, it represents a forced trend away from Chautauqua’s roots and towards an empty multiculturalism that consciously alienates many of the Institution’s Christian and Jewish visitors.

Last summer, the ever-fashionable Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, director of the department of religion, continued her quest for “interfaith dialogue” by welcoming an initiative by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of Ground Zero Mosque fame to open a Muslim House on the grounds.

"We base our own support at Chautauqua on the freedom of religion," Campbell told the Jamestown Post-Journal, "and it is part of our Christian responsibility to protect the faith of everyone." If Campbell had not actively worked to silence the voices of conservative Christians and Jews for the last ten years, we might take her boast more seriously.
http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/564080.html

This summer, the interfaith dialogue continues with a full week dedicated to Iran. This is not problematic in itself, but the line-up of speakers lacks anything like balance. This is Iran we are talking about, not the Netherlands.

• Hussein Mousavian: Mousavian is an Iranian policymaker who served most prominently on Iran’s nuclear diplomacy team in negotiations with the EU and International Atomic Energy Agency. He is also the author of the timeless classic, Imam Khomeini: His Life and Leadership.
• Farideh Farhi: According to National Review’s Michael Rubin, “Farhi worked some years for the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, her work at the Foreign Ministry coincided with Holocaust revisionist conferences.”
• Azar Nafisi: A good choice, Nafisi is the best selling Iranian-American author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Still, she reacted to criticism that she was a neo-conservative by asserting her liberal credentials and insisting that she opposed the Iraq War.
• Karen Armstrong: Raymond Ibrahim calls Armstrong “Islamic apologist extraordinaire.” Jihad Watch calls Armstrong the “world's greatest dhimmi.” Campbell calls her just about every summer.
• Charles Kimball: Kimball is author of the forthcoming book, When Religion Becomes Lethal: The Explosive Mix of Politics and Religion in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which promises to be a new classic of moral equivocation. According to one Jewish Chautauquan, Kimball, when he spoke at Chautauqua, “caused an uproar for his anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Islam stand.”
• David Ignatius: The softly liberal Ignatius from the Washington Post completes the line-up. In his new novel, The Increment, the hero is a CIA officer, in Ignatius’s words, “anguished by the agency’s failure, and his own, to stop the rush to war in Iraq in 2003, and he is determined not to let it happen again,” this time in Iran.

Chautauqua promises still another summer of interfaith dialogue in which everyone agrees on the progressive agenda.

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Thank You

Thank you so much for this forum. Your bravery will, indeed, be rewarded by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we do His Kingdom's work here on earth.

I have been coming to Chautauqua on a regular basis, now, for 54 years and have witnessed your honestly-stated position on these unacceptable changes to the programming and general attitude of the institution. My wife and I still come to Chautauqua to enjoy family memories, its beauty and the wonderful quiet reflection opportunities, but lately also to hear what the progressives are saying in order to strengthen our own convictions and beliefs. I also change my mind on occasion if I hear a compelling argument, but these are few and far between.

About 4 years ago I took some time in the library to research Sunday sermon content, and listened to a 1980 sermon given by Rev. John Guest that ended with an alter call to give one's life to Christ. I was surprised to see that that was the last time Rev. Guest appeared on the list of Sunday morning preachers. I had an opportunity to speak with John within the last 10 years at the Hall of Philosophy, but he has not been welcome in a large setting. A couple of years ago I was also saddened to be in the audience at the Hall of Philosophy to hear Rev. Richard Lamb of the Southern Baptist Convention, and some of his comments were actually booed by "tolerant" audience members. The Christian message has been under attack for some time, and we now have its "progression" to the point where it is hardly recognizable. The only relief I have found is in the marvelous efforts of the Chautauqua Christian Fellowship, and any fellow believers who are still hanging on. And now this marvelous web site!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this ray of hope. Please know that there are those of us out here who are the "silent minority", but we have a power that will conquer all in the end - every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Your efforts are to be highly commended.

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PBS Documentary Ignores Mosque Controversy

The documentary, Chautauqua: An American Narrative, that premiered last night, January 31, on PBS nationwide missed the one drama that might have made the program interesting.

As I noted on these pages last summer, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- he of Ground Zero Mosque fame -- had been attempting to build a sawed-off version of the same on the grounds of the venerable and historically Christian Chautauqua Institution in western New York State... Read more at the American Thinker.

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PBS documentary airs January 31

A one-hour HD documentary, "Chautauqua: an American Narrative," reportedly "focuses on the contemporary story of Chautauqua while using its rich history to provide context and perspective." It will air nationwide at 10 p.m. EST, Monday, Jan. 31. Check the PBS website for scheduling information. Love to get your feedback.

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The Long March

For the last ten years, perhaps more, we have had the chance to see what an un-free Chautauqua looks like, and it is not pretty. We are promised civility, tolerance, diversity, and public dialogue-all of this wrapped in "compassion"-and we get something very close to the opposite in every case.

"Civility" has come to mean the ritual defamation-"hate-monger," "racist," "fundamentalist," "extremist," Islamophobe"-of those who do not hew to the progressive party line.

"Tolerance" is extended to the political allies of the moment and no further.

"Diversity" has come to mean philosophical uniformity, class homogeneity, one-minded programming, and, bizarrely, an almost complete absence of racial minorities.

As to "public dialogue," all too many of the decisions that have prompted the leftward trend-and other key decisions as well-are made with little, if any, input from Chautauquans. The result is a closed-loop of questionable information among like-minded people.

This is all, of course, done under the guise of "compassion." In promoting the same, Chautauqua leadership freely imputes "chauvinism," "self-interest," "spite," and "hatred"-the actual pejoratives used in the "Charter for Compassion"-to those who dissent from religious relativism and/or the progressive agenda du jour.

The programming-cultural, political, and theological-reflects this increasingly narrow mindset and is driving away both residents and visitors. Chautauqua is now widely seen as an elitist, left-liberal enclave largely indifferent, if not hostile, to its Judeo-Christian roots. Located in a center-right region of a center-right country, this orientation makes little marketing sense and no moral sense whatsoever.

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