THE COMPANY YOUR PUNDITS KEEP

A story from the religious-right news site OneNewsNow:

UMC ripped for partnership with Muslim Aid

The United Methodist Church is being blasted for partnering with a Muslim group that is blatant about its mission.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, recently announced a partnership with Muslim Aid, a British-based relief organization. The Muslim group is "very clear about its Islamic mission -- and on its website there are numerous references to the Koran and the false god, Allah," says Mark Tooley with the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD)....

I just want to point out that the IRD, whose spokesman says that Islam has a "false god," is an organization with many prominent board members, including Fred Barnes of Fox News and The Weekly Standard.

Hey, Fred, would you defend that statement on national TV? And if not, why not?

More from the story:

...Tooley points out that while Muslim Aid is vocal in its beliefs, UMCOR has virtually no mention of God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible on its website. "No wonder there is such easy agreement between them," he comments.

An IRD press release says:

UMCOR's web site seems to contain no references to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible.

In fact, a search of the UMCOR Web site finds 109 references to God, 36 to Jesus and 9 to the Bible.

Muslim Aid is a British organization whose trustees include Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, who has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Its Global Ambassador for Children is Jermaine Jackson, formerly of the Jackson Five. We're not talking the Taliban here.