Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy in Faith, Freedom and Politics

  By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Evangelical Christians were influential in determining the predictable outcome of the South Carolina GOP primary on February 20, when Donald Trump won with 32.5% of the vote, and Senator Ted Cruz came in third with 22.3%, for a combined 54.8% of the votes cast.  Trump was endorsed by Jerry Falwell, Jr. of Liberty University, and Cruz, the son of an evangelical pastor, was endorsed by Dr. James Dobson; and exit polls indicated that 74% of voters supported a ban on Muslim immigrants to the U.S.

            These statistics are not unique to S.C.  National polls indicate that Trump and Cruz have similar support nationwide from voters frustrated and angry with politics and fearful of immigrants, especially Muslims.  Religious polarization is on the rise in the U.S. and Europe with the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian civil war, and it is exacerbated by the prediction that Islam will surpass Christianity as the world’s largest religion by 2070.  To avoid further polarization and coexist in peace, Christians and Muslims must be reconciled with a common word of faith, freedom and politics.

            Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions of the book based on ancient scriptures that predated the advances in knowledge and secular political concepts of the Enlightenment.  Libertarian concepts have since transformed both politics and religions in the West, but not in the Islamic East where the virtue ethics of the Qur’an continue to define concepts of legitimacy (what is right).  The resulting conflicts in legitimacy are palpable, and they center on the role of freedom in both faith and politics.

            The fundamental freedoms of religion and speech are essential to both free will in religion and political freedom.  This requires that religious standards of legitimacy are voluntary moral standards and not coercive laws.  So long as religious rules are voluntary and not imposed by law on others, they do not inhibit the freedom of belief or political freedoms.  But when virtue ethics are dictated by ancient scriptures and imposed by law they deny both free will in religion and the fundamental freedoms defined in the U.S. Constitution and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

            The true virtue of any faith is based on what its believers voluntarily choose to do, not on what they are coerced to do by law.  Libertarian democracy allows believers the right to shape their own government and make their own laws, but theocracies do not.  Islamic law, or Shari’a, denies fundamental freedoms with apostasy and blasphemy laws.  In the U.S. political freedom has been taken to the extreme by emphasizing individual rights to the exclusion of providing for the common good.  The rights of freedom must be balanced with the responsibility to provide for the common good, or the virtues of both faith and freedom are lost.

            The virtue ethics of Judaism are defined by Mosaic Law and those of Islam defined by Shari’a.  Jesus was a Jew, but his teachings emphasized love over law in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors—even our unbelieving neighbors—as we love ourselves.  And Paul affirmed that love is the fulfilment of the law (Romans 13:8-10).  Only the altruistic love for others can reconcile conflicting standards of legitimacy and virtue ethics.   

            Fundamentalist Muslims, or Islamists, have prevented both free will in faith and political freedom by using government powers to enforce Shari’a, including its apostasy and blasphemy laws and laws that discriminate against women and non-Muslims.  Fundamentalist evangelical Christians have gone to the other extreme and used exaggerated concepts of individual freedom to ignore the role of government to provide for the common good, including care for the poor and needy.  Both Muslims and Christians need to balance the requirements of faith and freedom with the moral imperative to love God and love their neighbors as they love themselves.

            Jews, Christians and Muslims must learn to balance the conflicting concepts of individual freedom with providing for the common good in both their faith and their politics.  If and when those people of the book can put love over law and apply the greatest commandment to love God and their unbelieving neighbors as they love themselves, then they can begin to reconcile their religious differences and learn live together in peace.             

Notes and References to Resources:          

Previous blogs on related topics are: Religion and Reason, December 8, 2015; Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love Over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25, 2015; Is Religion Good or Evil?, February 15, 2015; Religion and Human Rights, February 22, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, The Kingdom of God, Politics and the Church, March 15, 2015; May 10, 2015; God and Country: Resolving Conflicting Concepts of Sovereignty, March 29, 2015; Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy, April 12, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities, August 9, 2015; How Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights, August 16, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; What Is Truth?, August 30, 2015; Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; The Power of Freedom over Fear, September 12, 2015; God in Three Concepts, January 2, 2016; Who Is My Neighbor?, January 23, 2016; The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, January 30, 2016; The Evolution of Faith, Religion and Spirituality, February 20, 2016; and Jesus Meets Muhammad on Issues of Religion and Politics, February 7, 2016.

On one view of what motivates evangelical Christians to vote for Trump, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelical-christians-are-so-sick-of-losing-that-theyre-voting-for-trump/2016/02/26/d0efa184-da39-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

On Trump’s threat to limit the freedom of the press for those who criticize him, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/02/26/donald-trump-just-declared-his-intent-to-destroy-american-democracy/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

Suggested readings on the evolution of the American religion in matters of faith and politics: Harold Bloom, The American Religion, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1992; Mark Noll, America’s God, Oxford University Press, 2002; Stephen Prothero, American Jesus, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2003; Jon Meacham, American Gospel, Random House, NY, 2006; Matthew Paul Turner, Our Great Big American God, Jericho Books, NY, 2014.

The Evolution of Faith, Religion and Spirituality

  By Rudy Barnes, Jr., February 21, 2016

            Faith, religion and spirituality are similar but have important differences.  Faith is a personal belief in supernatural matters that are beyond rational understanding (see Hebrews 11:1).  Religion is an institutionalized faith that is defined by doctrine, while spirituality is the faith of an increasing number of nones who have rejected institutional religion.

            Religions are diverse, and except for fundamentalist religions that resist any change to their traditional doctrines, most religions evolve with changing times.  American forms of Christianity evolved from Roman Catholicism, which has itself evolved from earlier forms.  All modern forms of Christianity are amalgams of local culture and traditional Christian doctrines, so that American forms of Christianity are quite different from their African counterparts.

            Islam, like Christianity, has many forms that are shaped by their surrounding cultural values.  In libertarian democracies like America, Muslims have adapted their Islamic beliefs to libertarian democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law values, but most Muslims in Islamic cultures are fundamentalists who have rejected modernity and retained Islamic Law, or Shari’a, which stifles libertarian human rights with apostasy and blasphemy laws that prevent any freedom of religion or speech and deny equal justice under law to women and non-Muslims.   

           

            Polls indicate that institutional religion is declining and personal spirituality increasing in libertarian cultures where the freedoms of religion and speech allow free discussion and choice in matters of faith, religion and politics.  The increasing number of nones in libertarian democracies reflects a decline in religion but not in personal faith.  By way of contrast, in Islamic cultures an increasing number of fundamentalist Muslims, known as Islamists, continue to allow Shari’a to define the rule of law and deny themselves libertarian human rights.

            Fundamentalist believers consider advances in knowledge and reason a threat to the sacred truths of their ancient scriptures and traditional doctrines.  They are minorities among Jews and Christians in libertarian democracies, but they are in the majority among Muslims in Islamic cultures, ranging from moderate Islamists to more conservative Salafists and Wahhabis.   

            Islamist terrorists like those of al-Qaeda and ISIS are motivated by radical forms of Islamism and use violence to impose Shari’a worldwide.  Like other religious fundamentalists, Islamists consider their holy book, the Qur’an, to be God’s perfect and immutable truth, and they resist any progressive interpretations of the Qur’an or Shari’a.

            Just as progressive religions reflect their cultural context and evolve with changing times, the faith of individual believers also evolves with their personal experience and reason—at least for progressive believers.  Fundamentalist believers resist any change to their traditional beliefs unless and until they open their hearts and minds and become progressive believers.

            The United Methodist Church offers a paradigm for progressive believers in their evolution from religion to faith and spirituality.  It is described as Our Theological Task and is set forth in The Discipline of the United Methodist Church, and it is based on the four elements of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason.  It is a useful paradigm for all people of faith, even those who choose to cross the boundaries of church doctrine and risk entering the undefined realm of spirituality.

            Scripture and the traditional interpretations of scripture are the beginning point for all believers, even fundamentalists.  But progressive believers go beyond scripture and tradition and use experience and reason to expand the boundaries of their faith.  That takes believers into uncharted areas beyond church doctrine where they may become nones who reject their original religious preferences; but many if not most nones retain a personal faith, or spirituality.

            Seeking new spiritual truths based on experience and reason is a natural part of our journey of faith, but historically this has been denied by laws prohibiting heresy, apostasy and blasphemy that deny the freedoms of religion and speech.  Such laws are relegated to history in the U.S., but apostasy and blasphemy laws are currently enforced in Islamic cultures where they provide underserved legitimacy to Islamist terrorists and to authoritarian rulers who use them to deny fundamental freedoms to all Muslims and to counter political opposition.

            Muslims in Islamic cultures should take a lesson from libertarian democracies and insist upon the freedoms of religion and speech at the foundation of their rule of law.  Those freedoms would not only allow the evolution of individual faith, religion and politics in Islamic cultures, but also undermine the legitimacy of Islamist terrorists and authoritarian rulers who use apostasy and blasphemy laws to promote their nefarious purposes.

Notes and References to Resources:          

Previous blogs on related topics are: Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25, 2015; Is Religion Good or Evil?, February 15, 2015; Religion and Human Rights, February 22, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Faith and Religion: The Same but Different, October 4, 2015; and Jesus Meets Muhammad on Issues of Religion and Politics, February 7, 2016.

    

On how the Pew Research Center sees that Americans may be getting less religious, but feelings of spirituality are on the rise, see http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/americans-spirituality/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=20b4f19e7c-Religion_Weekly_Jan_20_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-20b4f19e7c-399971105.

Egypt’s authoritarian military regime uses censorship and apostasy and blasphemy laws to discourage opposition to its oppressive religious and political doctrines.  See Documenting Oppression Against Muslims at http://www.doamuslims.org/?p=3861 and Egypt’s Liberals Being Sacrificed on the Altar of Religion, Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, February 15, 2016 at http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-1.703532.

We Are Known by the Friends We Keep

  By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            We are known by the friends we keep, and that saying applies to us not only as individuals but also as a nation.  We claim Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan as our friends but do not criticize their use of apostasy and blasphemy laws to deny the fundamental freedoms of religion and speech, even as we claim to promote those fundamental freedoms worldwide. 

            Our hypocrisy is palpable, and it is a matter of both faith and politics.  In matters of faith, few sermons are preached on human rights today.  That’s because our scriptures say nothing about human rights, only about human obligations.  Slavery illustrates how religion can distort moral concepts of what is right, or legitimate.  Because ancient scriptures speak of slavery as an accepted institution, churches in both the North and South of the Antebellum U.S. were reluctant to condemn slavery.

            In America, our faith has always shaped our politics, and vice-versa.  Our concepts of legitimacy were transformed by the libertarian political ideals of the Enlightenment, but those ideals originated in secular natural law, not religion.  Even so, the concept of love over law is at the heart of the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, so that if we value human rights for ourselves, then we should make those rights available to our neighbors. 

            Libertarian human rights, beginning with the freedoms of religion and speech, were affirmed as national priorities in the First Amendment to our Constitution.  But today those freedoms have mutated into almost unrecognizable forms.  The Supreme Court has supported religious conservatives who have used the freedom of religion to deny serving homosexuals, and liberals in colleges and universities have carried political correctness to the extreme by prohibiting any speech that is offensive to students.

            We are just as hypocritical as a nation.  The U.S. has provided substantial security assistance to Egypt and Pakistan that have apostasy and blasphemy laws, and President Obama has waffled on human rights as a priority in U.S. foreign policy.  The leading GOP candidate for President, Donald Trump, has advocated outlandish and xenophobic policies that pander to public fears and frustrations, and Jerry Falwell, Jr., an evangelical Christian who is President of Liberty University, has endorsed Donald Trump as an exemplar of the greatest commandment.

            If we are known by the friends we keep, then we are known to be hypocrites when we advocate human rights.  

            Part of the problem is in how different cultures understand human rights.  The civil and political human rights that protect fundamental freedoms (libertarian human rights) are quite different from the economic and social human rights that provide welfare benefits.  Both are recognized in international treaties, the former in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the latter in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).  The U.S. is a party to the ICCPR, but not to the ICESCR.

            Every nation has a moral obligation to provide the basic economic and social needs of its people as well as protecting their fundamental freedoms; but there are no universal standards for social welfare benefits since they depend on a nation’s resources, while there are universal standards for fundamental freedoms.  International law can prevent a government from violating fundamental freedoms, but it cannot force a government to provide specific economic benefits.

            As alluded to above, ancient Jewish Mosaic Law and Islamic Shari’a mandated caring for the poor and needy, but did not mention political freedom.  To their credit, Jews have not allowed Mosaic Law to stifle libertarian democracy in Israel; but in neighboring Islamic nations the apostasy and blasphemy laws of Shari’a have prohibited the freedoms of religion and speech and denied women and non-Muslims equal justice under law.

            We are known by the friends we keep.  In the Middle East we consider Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Israel as our friends.  Israel provides the freedoms of religion and speech while the Arab nations of that region do not.  They are hostile to Israel and their religious laws deny fundamental freedoms; and the Islamist terrorism spawned by the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia utilizes rigid and barbaric versions of Shari’a to further its nefarious purposes.

 

            It is time for the U.S. to oppose authoritarian and oppressive regimes in the Middle East and Africa by conditioning U.S. foreign aid on adopting libertarian human rights and the secular rule of law.  Libertarian values can undermine the legitimacy of Islamist terrorism and enhance the prospects of peace in the region.  They promote U.S. national security objectives and are the right thing to do.  To do otherwise is pure hypocrisy and only strengthens our enemies.      

Notes and References to Resources:          

Previous blogs on related topics are: Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25, 2015; Religion and Human Rights, February 22, 2015; God and Country: Resolving Conflicting Concepts of Sovereignty, March 29, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; The Muslim Stranger: A Good Neighbor or a Threat?, October 25, 2015; The Four Freedoms, Faith and Human Rights, January 9, 2016; The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, January 30, 2016; and Jesus Meets Muhammad on Issues of Religion and Politics, February 7, 2016.

In a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State John Kerry “reiterated [U.S.] support for ally Saudi Arabia” and said that “the two nations have as strong a relationship as ever.”  See http://www.voanews.com/content/us-gulf-allies-move-forward-on-syria/3159556.html.

   

On liberal intolerance that is limiting free speech on campus, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/liberal-but-not-tolerant-on-the-nations-college-campuses/2016/02/11/0f79e8e8-d101-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

Jesus Meets Muhammad on Issues of Religion and Politics

  By Rudy Barnes, Jr., February 6, 2016

            Can Jesus and Muhammad meet today and reconcile their differences on religion and politics?  It depends on how Christians and Muslims understand the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad on God’s standards of legitimacy (what is right).  In the ancient scriptures, Moses and Muhammad emphasized God’s laws, while Jesus emphasized God’s love over law.

            There are many variations of Christianity.  Jerry Falwell, Jr. is an evangelical Christian who is President of Liberty University, the largest Christian University in the world.  He endorsed Donald Trump to be President of the U.S. and referred to him as an exemplar of the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. By Falwell’s fundamentalist standards of Christianity, moderate and progressive Christians are heretics.

            There are similar differences within Islam.  Polling data provided by the Pew Research Center indicates that most Muslims are fundamentalists who believe that Muhammad dictated the Qur’an as the perfect and immutable word of God.  Most Christians believe that Jesus taught and exemplified the word of God, but they are not fundamentalists who consider the Bible to be the inerrant and infallible word of God.  Few Christians believe that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel accounts are a verbatim account of his teachings.

            Islamic scholars have asserted that the greatest commandment is a common word of faith for Christians and Muslims alike.  But how to relate the moral imperative to love our neighbors--including our unbelieving neighbors--to our politics has proven to be problematic.  Most Islamic scholars reject libertarian concepts of democracy and human rights since they conflict with the dictates of the Qur’an and Islamic law (Shari’a) that includes apostasy and blasphemy laws that prevent any freedom of religion and speech.  This represents a basic conflict of religious and political values that impedes better interfaith relations, and is a theme of Islamist terrorists.

            Such a toxic mix of religion and politics is not limited to Islam.  The current political season in the U.S. has produced GOP politicians like Trump who claim that God is on their side as they seek the support of fundamentalist evangelical Christians.  It is nothing new.  Christianity and political power have had an incestuous relationship ever since Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4^th century; and even though Jesus avoided mixing the power of God’s kingdom with that of worldly kingdoms, the Church has done just that.  Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority in the 1980s and his son’s endorsement of Donald Trump this year are only the most recent examples of Christianity mixing religion with politics.

            Islam has been more consistent than Christianity in imposing the divine mandates of religion on its politics, blurring any distinction between the two.  Unlike Western democracies, Islamic cultures were not transformed by the libertarian concepts of the Enlightenment.  Even following the political upheavals of the Arab Spring of 2011, libertarian democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law are largely absent in Islamic cultures.  Shari’a continues to stifle fundamental freedoms with apostasy and blasphemy laws, and has sanctified authoritarian regimes like that of President (and former General) El-Sissi in Egypt.

            El-Sissi has used religion to suppress political dissent and incarcerate opponents of his authoritarian regime.  And the bitter and vociferous dispute between two prominent Islamic clerics, Sheikh Ali Gomaa and Dr. Qaradawi, the former supporting El-Sissi and the latter opposing him, is testimony to the pervasive and corrosive role of religion and politics in Egypt, the bellwether of Sunni Islam.  Saudi Arabia is another ally of the U.S. in the Middle East that makes no pretense of democracy, human rights or the secular rule of law as it exports its version of fundamentalist Islam (Wahhabism) worldwide.

            How do we define Jesus and Muhammad in today’s world—or more appropriately, how do we define the many and diverse variations of Islam and Christianity that have developed around their teachings—in order to reconcile the religious differences that have created so much hate and violence?  Secretary of State John Kerry has called the Islamists of ISIS apostates, using their own terminology to condemn them, but that is not helpful since Kerry is not a Muslim and has no standing to define true Islam.  The same can be said of those Islamists who condemn Christians in the U.S. as minions of the Great Satan.

            We cannot define either Jesus or Muhammad today in a way acceptable to all Christians and Muslims, but if the greatest commandment is truly a common word of faith then we can define what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves—including our unbelieving neighbors—as a common religious and political value and learn to practice what we preach.  That’s a big order, and there is little evidence that religious leaders are willing to do that; but it’s the only way that Jesus and Muhammad can meet today and reconcile contentious differences in religion and politics.  If religious leaders were committed to that kind of reconciliation, they could transform religion and politics as we know them and make the world a better place.         

Notes and References to Resources:          

Previous blogs on related topics are: Faith and Freedom, December 15, 2014; The Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25, 2015; Religion and Human Rights, February 22, 2015; God and Country: Resolving Conflicting Concepts of Sovereignty, March 29, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; The Muslim Stranger: A Good Neighbor or a Threat?, October 25, 2015; Faith, Hope and Love in a World of Fear, Suspicion and Hate, December 5, 2015; Who Is My Neighbor?, January 23, 2016; and The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, January 30, 2016..

On Jerry Falwell’s praise for Donald Trump as exemplifying the greatest commandment, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/26/evangelical-leader-jerry-falwell-jr-endorses-trump/?tid=a_inl. 

On The gospel according to Donald Trump, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gospel-according-to-trump/2016/01/19/b63977b4-bef7-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

On Sheikh Ali Gomaa’s praise for President al-Sissi’s oppressive policies in Egypt and his condemnation of the opposition.  See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/middleeast/egypt-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-islam.html.

On how U.S. support for al-Sissi’s repressive regime has undermined democracy, legitimacy and the stability of Egyptian politics by strengthening rather than weakening terrorist groups, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to-rescue-egypt/2016/01/28/183fc432-c3a7-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.  See also, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-years-after-a-revolution-egypts-regime-is-far-from-restoring-democracy/2016/01/25/cb18a75e-c389-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions; see also, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/egypts-state-of-repression/2015/12/03/6fbf98dc-991c-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.

For an in-depth analysis of how al-Sissi’s repressive regime is undermining Egyptian stability and what the U.S. can do about it, see http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2015/11/03-us-egypt-relationship-hamid.

For the fiercely competing views of Sheikh Ali Gomaa and another respected Islamic scholar, Dr. Yusuf  Al-Qaradawi, on the legitimacy of the Sissi regime under Islam, see https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/africa/8421-ali-gomaa-kill-them-they-stink and http://iumsonline.org/en/iums123/news/d4052/.

Sheikh Gomaa has an unlikely ally in Senator Ted Cruz, who has praised al-Sissi as “…a tough, terror-fighting commander who should both be befriended and emulated.  Here's Cruz, from the Post's annotated transcript of the whole debate.  ‘... let me contrast President Obama, who at the prayer breakfast, essentially acted as an apologist. He said, "Well, gosh, the crusades, the inquisitions —"  We need a president that shows the courage that Egypt's President al-Sissi, a Muslim, when he called out the radical Islamic terrorists who are threatening the world.  Sissi, you see, is no sissy. The Egyptian president came to power in 2013 through a coup that ousted the country's first democratically-elected leader — Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sissi's takeover was spurred in part by rising anti-Morsi sentiment and mass protests and saw only muted condemnation from a few circles in Washington.” See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/07/gop-debate-highlights-republicans-obsession-with-egypts-sissi/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1   

On Secretary Kerry condemning supporters of ISIS as apostates, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/02/03/john-kerry-keeps-calling-the-islamic-state-apostates-maybe-he-should-stop/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.