Apparently I was wrong about there not being any new riots, though there weren’t any going on when I wrote yesterday’s entry. The Cartoon Jihad in Pakistan:

Elsewhere in the Muslim world on Sunday, demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.

Complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam?? I would still be considering the irony of that statement if the next paragraph hadn’t made me forget all about it:

Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of the victims were beaten to death by rioters.

And via Drudge:

Christians also have become targets. Pakistani Muslims protesting in the southern city of Sukkur ransacked and burned a church Sunday after hearing accusations that a Christian man had burned pages of the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

The Muslims are trying like mad to pick a fight. Apparently, they’re under the impression that Islamic fundamentalism won’t be able to survive intact against passive but pervasive secular materialism (which, as I said, I think they’ve got right). Faced with change and a kind of extinction, they want to fight. The secular world won’t fight the religious war they’ve got in mind. But if Muslim radicals start attacking Christians in great numbers, the battle switches from Muslim vs. secular West to Muslim vs. Christian. (John Mark Reynolds has a much more informed and interesting take on this HERE, which I think I’ll try to take on in a later entry.)

These are the things that Touchstone usually includes under the heading “The Suffering Church.” Lord, have mercy.

Here, via Michelle Malkin, is an interactive map of the areas of the world where the riots have taken place.

Oh, and by the way, if this all seems too distant and removed, here’s the story that doesn’t seem to merit much space in the papers: 10 Baptist churches burned in Alabama