THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 191, August 4, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
"CHRISTIAN TERRORISM?
By Raymond Ibrahim
ISLAMIC TEACHINGS & ISLAMIC TERRORISM: WHAT MUSLIM DOCTRINES SO UNEQUIVOCALLY TEACH CONCERNING
THE JIHAD & NON-MUSLIMS, TELLINGLY KNOWN AS "INFIDELS" -- WHY WESTERN RELATIVISTS & SECULARISTS CANNOT BE
DEPENDED UPON TO ACCURATELY ANALYZE OR UNDERSTAND ISLAMISM & THE ISLAMISTS, CONSIDERING THE INABILITY
OF THE FORMER TO TAKE RELIGION SERIOUSLY OR FATHOM THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCTRINE TO TRUE BELIEVERS,
ESPECIALLY HIGHLY POLITICIZED RELIGIOUS FANATICS -- THE TENDENCY OF RELATIVISTS & SECULARISTS TO PROJECT
THEIR FUZZYHEADED, INDECISIVE WORLDVIEW ONTO THE OPPOSING FORCE EQUIPPED WITH A DECISIVE WORLDVIEW,
MUCH, IRONICALLY, TO THE DETRIMENT OF SECULAR VIEWS & INSTITUTIONS -- FAILURE TO KNOW THY ENEMY
FULL STORY:
In light of the Norway terrorist attack, there has been a hail of religious relativism — the idea that, if a "Christian," such
as Behring Breivik, commits terrorism, then it is folly to assert that certain Muslim doctrines inspire violence and terror.
All becomes relative. A recent Associated Press report titled "'Christian terrorist'? Norway Case Strikes Debate,"
makes this clear:
"As Westerners wrestle with such characterizations of
the Oslo mass murder suspect, the question arises:
Nearly a decade after 9/11 created a widespread
suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a
fanatical few, is this what it's like to walk a mile in the
shoes of stereotype? 'Absolutely,' said Mark Kelly
Tyler, Pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. 'It clearly puts us in
a position where we can't simply say that extreme and
violent behavior associated with a religious belief is
somehow restricted to Muslim extremists. It speaks to
cultural assumptions, how we are able to understand
something when it (comes from) us,' Tyler said.
'When one of us does something terrible, we know
that's not how we all think, yet we can't see that with
other people.' Psychologists say stereotypes come
from a deeply human impulse to categorize other
people, usually into groups of 'us' and 'them.'"
The report goes on to give the opinions of an array of sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists, who regurgitate
the same aforementioned themes on "a fanatical few," "extreme and violent behavior," "cultural assumptions," and
"stereotypes." Not once do any of these soft-scientists bother investigating, let alone pointing out, what Christianity
and Islam actually teach regarding violence.
Nor do they seem cognizant that there is a major difference between what people do in the name of religion and what the
religion itself commands — just as there is a major difference between historical descriptions of war in the Bible
and timeless prescriptions to wage war in the Koran (see "Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?" for
a full treatment of these issues).
Nor are these important differences limited to theory, but rather manifest themselves in reality: when jihadists attack in
the name of Islam, such as on 9/11, high-ranking Muslim clerics praise them and Muslims celebrate in the streets;
conversely, no Christian preacher has praised Breivik's terrorism, nor are Christians dancing.
The report continues:
"'Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one
believing in Jesus commits mass murder,' Bill O'Reilly
said on his Fox News show. That makes sense
to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center
for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also
makes sense that 'millions of Muslims say Osama bin
Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in
the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder.'"
Note again how the stress is entirely on what people "believe" and "say" — not what Christian and Muslim doctrines so
unequivocally teach. Worse, that "millions of Muslims say Usama bin Laden is not a Muslim" is a curious assertion,
considering that the Obama administration saw that he was given an Islamic burial so as not to anger the Muslim world
(jihadists who go down in sea receive double the brownie points that land-dying jihadists receive — which are already
considerable, a la 72 celestial concubines, etc.).
The one rare mention in the report of actual teachings comes from another psychology professor:
"If you're a Christian and you see this Norway murderer,
you say, I have these teachings and I haven't murdered
anyone, so the teachings can't be the problem. But if
you're talking about the 'other,' it's different. And if you
don't know what the actual Muslim teachings are, it
seems like a plausible explanation."
Quite the contrary, if you know what Islam teaches concerning the jihad and the non-Muslim — tellingly known as the
"infidel" — violence becomes a very "plausible explanation."
If lamentable, none of this is surprising: because Western secularists cannot fathom the importance of doctrine to
believers; cannot take religion seriously — seeing all scriptures as little better than poetry to be interpreted any which way
— they project their indecisive worldview onto the decisive other, much, ironically, to secularism's own detriment.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom
Center, an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum, a guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, and
the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist movement.
Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and political propaganda comprising this collection help readers comprehend
the origins, development, history, and serious danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida and implacable enemies of the U.S.A. and the West.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Jihad Watch, August 3, 2011, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2999/christian-terrorism)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 4, 2011
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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