The Star Tribune reported on Friday that a perceptible change had taken place in the image of Saddam Hussein from a secular strategist to a Muslim zealot in these words, with the outbreak of war some sense an almost messianic tone, particularly in his speech Thursday

after the first wave of Allied bombing raids using images of President Bush as Satan and courageous Iraqis as descendants of prophets and believers,

close quote.

What that does is make crystal clear for us that we live in a world of radical pluralism

in which radically contradictory claims are being made on our lives.

It's a global village you can follow the war moment by moment halfway around the world, is President Bush Satan.

Are zealous patriotic Muslim Iraqis true sons of the prophets and true believers? Is another way of asking, is Allah the one true God and is Mohammed,

his prophet? Which is another way of asking, is Islam a pathway to God or the pathway to God.

Now I want to be real clear at the beginning and I'll say this again at the end that in what I'm saying here I'm not implying or saying that the war is a conflict between Christianity and Islam.

I don't believe that it is because I don't believe America is a Christian nation. One of the glories of our faith is that it has

no national identity, it has no geographic center, it has no national shrine.

Christians, if they are real Christians, are aliens and exiles in every country and are out of step with every human authority and every human institution

even when we submit to them.

Is that clear? America is not a Christian nation and Christians cannot be identified

with any national or ethnic group. We are aliens and exiles upon the earth. Out of step with every government

and every human way of thinking.

But there is a powerful religious impulse to this conflict.

President Bush did... religious impulse to this conflict.

President Bush did call Billy Gray,

Hussein did kneel on his carpet, and he does want to cast the war in terms of a holy war.

But all of that points to this crucial fact.

We live in a world that is radically

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