Once again, Christians are being reminded that their sole and exclusive function is to behave like doormats for all and sundry.

One of Super Bowl Sunday’s ads, titled “Foot Washing,” consists of several consecutive images of people washing the feet of other people.

As might be expected, the ad was infused with a very not so subtle political element: the majority of those washing feet were white or seemed to fit an “American” profile, whereas an inordinate number of those getting their feet washed were not.  Images included a white woman washing the feet of a recently arrived and annoyed-looking Hispanic migrant, a white woman washing the feet of a Muslim woman in hijab, and a white male Christian clergyman washing the feet of a black “trans” man/woman.

At the very end, the point of the commercial was made clear by the following words: “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate.  He Washed Feet.”

So he did.  But he also taught so many other things — including that people must repent of their sins or face the fires of Gehenna — and even engaged in violence, as when he flipped tables over and whipped money-changers out of the Temple.

As such, and seeing that Jesus said and did many things, why is it that Christians are always and only reminded of feet-washing and cheek-turning?

Could it be because those sponsoring such messages actually hate and seek to paralyze Christians and their impact on society?

For example, one of the commercial’s images depicted a woman washing the feet of another woman who had apparently just performed an abortion at a “Family Planning Clinic.”  The message is clear: the true Christian doesn’t protest on behalf of the unborn outside abortion facilities; the true Christian shuts up and does whatever to accommodate those choosing to abort their progeny. 

Stripped of its pious veneer, such messaging is tantamount to saying true Christians do not resist, but rather accommodate evil.  After all, and to be clear, the claim that Christians — anybody, for that matter — should not “hate” is a complete smokescreen.  Christians protest at abortion facilities, or against illegal migration, or against Islam, not because they are haters, but because they oppose the killing of the unborn as well as the subversion and destabilizing of their nation.  Big difference.

And surely the commercial is not saying that opposition is always inherently wrong?  For if so, no one would have the right to oppose even a Hitler, but would rather, under the logic of the commercial, be required to wash Nazi feet!

At any rate, such is the diabolical genius: because Christianity is, indeed, a religion of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness, its enemies — including not a few wolves in sheep’s clothing — have learned to exploit and manipulate Christian virtue against itself.

Their success is predicated on the fact that so many Christians are ignorant of the complete teachings of their own religion.  Put differently, if passivity were all there is to Christianity — foot-washing and cheek-turning — it would have been overwhelmed and swallowed up by evil a long time ago.  A quote from President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt comes to mind:

Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If the peoples of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, and on up to and including the seventeenth century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated. Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared.

Such an assertion is, of course, demonstrably true.

But because so many overly comfortable Western Christians are naïve of the perennially embattled nature of their religion, their guard has been systematically brought down — even as all of their traditional enemies continue to make inroads, bringing to mind yet another quote, from Winston Churchill:

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Image via Raw Pixel.