Even Their Collagues are Ashamed

NY Times -- Top Evangelicals Critical of Colleagues Over Islam

Evangelical leaders meeting here today denounced as "dangerous" and "unhelpful" the anti-Islam remarks made in the last year by leaders in their own movement and proposed new guidelines for churches to follow in relating to Muslims.
It has been more than a year since major evangelical leaders, like the Rev. Franklin Graham, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Jerry Vines, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, began publicly branding Islam, or Islam's prophet Muhammad, as inherently evil and violent.

Mr. Graham, son of the evangelist Billy Graham and head of a global missions agency, Samaritan's Purse, said last year that Islam was "a very evil and wicked religion." Mr. Vines described Muhammad as "a demon-possessed pedophile."

The evangelical leaders here today issued what one of them called a "loving rebuke" to their colleagues for remarks that they said tarnished American Christians and jeopardized the safety of missionaries and indigenous Christians in predominantly Muslim countries.