"If heretics and non-believers follow our beliefs, why can't we?"
The Muslims are
not following our beliefs, though. That is the entire reason why Bishop Bishoy is wrong in invoking their example. Or are you saying that Bishop Bishoy has the average Islamic apologist's understanding of how our faith relates to Islam such that if Muslims wear the hijab and St. Mary also covered, then Muslims are "better Christians" than Christians are? Because that is an argument I have heard from Muslims
in favor of Islam, and may God help us all if that is what Bishop Bishoy is getting at! (But I don't think it is, or else he would not have included that St. Mary and St. Demiana also dressed modestly. All I'm doing is being baffled at why, since that is the case, he felt the need to include Muslims at all. Again, Christian saints for Christian people, and if Muslims want in too, let them put away their blasphemies and join the truth faith. Or is that too "unloving" of me, to want for them the greatest thing that a person can have?)
Further, in drawing upon examples from Muslims, I understand you're upset that HG is choosing to overtly legitimize Islam as an example, but in the same light it seems HG is only following HH legacy and example of humanizing relationships with our Muslim neighbors.
No. Just no. Unless you have a particular statement at the ready in which HH Pope Shenouda III advises Christian girls to follow Muslims, then you are way over the line here. We are not talking about some generic humanization of relationships with Muslims (as though HH or HG would need to do that! Are Muslims not humans already?), but about the actual substance of the statement that Christian girls should look up to Muslim women and imitate them. Please stick to that and if you can find anything that says that in HH's speeches and writings, okay. If not, do not make any more false equivalencies for the sake of making yet more kumbaya posts about Islam, and dragging HH's blessed name through the mud in the process. If HH's loving and prudent actions towards Egyptian Muslims show us anything, it is proper Christian behavior toward that community:
Love without compromise. Not, as HG Bishop Bishoy's statement seems to have it, compromise for the sake of doing what Christians should be doing anyway.
Throw a little cool water on all that hotta fyah, for the fyah is not partial, not even to them that burn the fyah. And if all of us are going to be the fyah man, then we all got to stick to the same fyah plan .
I'm sorry, I don't speak Reggae affectation. What is your point here? More stuff about how I'm hateful because I love Christ, the Word of God and the true light, and do not love those things that would separate us from Him?