The Surrender of Breda is one of the best known paintings of Diego Velazquez. A Dutch governor surrendered the city in 1625 to de Spinola, the Spanish commander. (Historical note: The Twelve Years Truce between the Netherlands and Catholic Spain expired in 1621, and the gathering storm clouds of war was a factor that drove a little band of Protestants to leave Holland in 1620 and seek religious freedom in the New World. You remember them as “Pilgrims.”)

We might need to break out the brushes and oils again. Another surrender is brewing in Breda.

A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word “Allah” while celebrating Mass.

“Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? … What does God care what we call him? It is our problem.”

What does God care? For one thing, He must be so proud that one His priests is tossing Him into a stew of whatever religions happen to sitting in the pantry and boiling them all down to a watery glop. The Old Testament had much to say about priests failing in their duty of teaching the people about God. Here is Ezekiel 22:26:

Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean…

The great Mark Steyn has written a great deal about multiculturalism. Here’ s a spot-on example:

That’s what the war’s about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder”–as can be seen throughout much of “the Western world” right now. The progressive agenda–lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism–is collectively the real suicide bomb. Take multiculturalism. The great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn’t involve knowing anything about other cultures–the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malawi, who cares? All it requires is feeling good about other cultures. It’s fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis.

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Others commenting are Belmont Club, Fausta’s blog, Wizbang, The Glittering Eye, Blue Crab Boulevard, Hot Air, normblog, Macsmind, Wake Up America, Protein Wisdom, Ace of Spades and Blogs of War