Chautauqua Institution let its guard down. The security in place at the time made Salman Rushdie a soft target. It appeared to mirror the “Re-imagine the Police” movement in crime-riddled major cities. It was like a microcosm of our nation’s unsecured border policy.

In addition to security, Chautauqua has dropped its guard over Islam.

The institution approaches the two monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Islam as superficially different but substantially the same when, in reality, Christianity stands substantially different from Islam and superficially the same. Christianity being monotheistic is trinitarian, but Islam also being monotheistic is unitarian.

Christianity teaches salvation by God’s grace through Christ, but Islam teaches salvation by merit through man’s effort. That’s substantially, not superficially, different.

Adding to the differences, Christianity is “fair game” to practically any kind of kind of verbal attack, insult and ridicule. You’re hardly hearing anything about Christophobia as you do constantly about Islamophobia, “thanks” to the media, academia and especially left-leaning politicians and clerics.

Dennis Prager, an Orthodox Jew, said, “If Christians were given the ‘green light’ to kill anyone who insulted their faith, there would be genocide in America.” It’s not happening because Christians are commanded to love, not kill, their enemies. Yet “love your enemy” is distorted by the Left to mean tough questions about, challenges to and critiques of Islam are off limits. “We mustn’t stigmatize Islam” is code language to keep uncomfortable truth muzzled. Religion is substituted for Islam and to bring up Islam regarding the Rushdie incident sets you up for being called an “Islamophobe.”

We’re getting a soft-sell version of Islam from Chautauqua. The religion’s jagged edges of jihad violence in history, the Koran and Hadith are given the sanitized smoothed-over treatment. It’s as if the chapter of jihad (Koran 9) isn’t there or Koran 47: 4 doesn’t really command Muslims to behead infidels and fatwas magically disappear on Chautauqua’s grounds. It’s true: all Muslims are not terrorists. Thankfully, they don’t fulfill everything the religion demands. Unfortunately, some do, like Rushdie’s attacker who allegedly accepted the violent demands of Islam fully after being schooled in Lebanon by Hezbollah.

If someone gave you a bag of M and M’s, warning that two of them were laced with deadly poison, would you say, “No thanks” or would you take your chances? Unprepared, Chautauqua took a chance, but Rushdie managed to escape death.

As far as bringing Chautauqua’s guard up about Islam, why not have someone like Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch as a speaker or for a robust discussion with an Islamic apologist?

The Rev. Mel McGinnis is a Frewsburg resident.