America is indeed at war. It appears that it will be a long, bloody and costly war. The United States is on a war footing unlike anything seen since the outbreak of the Second World War. Indeed, on Monday, King Abdullah of Jordan, speaking of his nation's support for the United States, described the war on terror in its proposed breadth and scope as being the "Third World War."
But against whom are we at war? Is this a war against Muslims? A war against Islam? That is what the radical Islamists would have us believe. It is not. It is against a particular brand of Islam. Within Islam, there are as many different kinds of Muslims as there are divisions under the banner of Christianity.
To those outside of Christianity, Baptists are no different than Mormons, Episcopalians indistinguishable from Jehovah's Witnesses and Methodists the same as Christian Scientists. In many parts of the world, all these are considered Christians. Some view all of them as elements of Catholicism and subject to papal authority.
Among Muslims, there are as many different sub-groupings as there are sub-groupings under the general heading of "Christian." And they are about as widely dissimilar.
I was troubled at the news of Muslims being murdered because they were Muslims in various places in America in wake of the attacks in New York and Washington. This is not an issue of all Muslims. It is what is commonly called radical Islam which is indeed dedicated to the destruction of the United States. There is no justification for "vigilantes" taking the law into their own hands. If you see something suspicious, report it to the FBI or the local police. They will respond, but within the scope of the Constitution. This is what makes us a different society than the barbarians we are seeking to combat.
Radical Islam teaches that democracy is the Great Satan, since democratic societies are free. Free societies cannot and do not require submission to Islam. Radical Islamists are as horrified that there are Christians and Jews living free in America as they are that there are atheists in America. The fruits of radical Islam are evident in the fact that there are nearly 100 Christians right now awaiting execution in Afghanistan for the crime of "promoting Christianity." Such is radical Islam. That is our enemy.
Now, I have grave theological differences with Islam of all stripes. I vehemently disagree with the notion that the God of the Christians and Jews is the same deity as that worshipped as Allah by the Muslims. But I have grave theological differences with adherents to secular humanism, atheists, Satanists, Mormons, Hindus, Jehovah's witnesses, Buddhists and so on. This does not make me want to kill them, or restrict their right to believe what they want to believe.
Neither are we at war with Arabs. Not all Arabs are Muslims, neither are all Muslims Arabs. Within both groups are radical Islamists. The theocratic regime of Iran is one of radical Islam, even though Iranians are not Arab, but Persians. Iranians share the Islam of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Taleban and a dozen other groups.
The basic meaning of the world Islam is submission. Radical Islam takes this meaning to the ultimate extreme. It says that this submission to Allah and his words is not voluntary. It believes if one does not submit willingly, he must be forced to submission at the point of a sword. That distinction makes radical Islam the enemy of democracy in general, and the United States and Israel in particular. The United States is the Great Satan, as we are viewed as the founders of the democratic principle. Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of radical Islamic sheikdoms.
It isn't only America, or Israel that radical Islam hates, it is our political system and the culture that system spawns. They really do not like the advances of modern inventions, except for the weapons. Islam is wrapped around the culture of the Arabian Desert tribes with a benevolent but all powerful sheik in control. It feels most at home there. The more fundamental a Muslim becomes, the more he moves in his heart back to the 7th-century desert.
The Shah led Iran into the modern culture of the 20th century. The people had a good life and nearly all were prosperous. But they still embraced the Ayatollah Khameini who promptly plunged them headlong back to the 7th-century culture of radical Islam. Economic prosperity does not have the same appeal to these fanatics as it does to others.
The world is, by and large, not made up of representative republics, but of dictatorships. America makes up less than 4 percent of the world's population. Apart from us there are only a handful of European nations that are functional democracies. None of those systems are any older than we are. France, among the first Europeans to become democratic republics, did so in 1789 after America did. And the functional democracies are the richest and most successful in the world. Why?
Are we just smarter than they are and therefore more successful than those nations? Or is it free democratic society that is based on Protestant Christian principles? African and Middle Eastern societies are thousands of years old. Even the Catholic based societies of Latin America have not achieved our level of success and freedom. Most nations that do not live in freedom live in squalor. America is less than 300 years old. Judge for yourself which system works better.
America is not the one responsible for beginning World War III. It was begun on Tuesday, September 11, in exactly the same way World War II was begun on December 7, 1941.
To do other than the course already chartered by our government would be tantamount to permitting our foreign policy to be dictated by these ruthless fanatics.
If we do nothing, we may as well take down our flag ourselves and send it to those who attacked us to save them the inconvenience. History proves beyond doubt what happens when a nation appeases aggressors it only stalls a war. It has never in history, ever not once prevented one. Not even one time.
Many well-meaning Christians are advocating a Christian solution to a political problem. I've heard from many who say I should be advocating a policy of "turning the other cheek." This was written for interpersonal relationships, not for relations between nations.
We are at war, but not with all Muslims. We are at war with an ideology that claims Islam as its spiritual father. An ideology that permits any crime, any injustice, any atrocity provided it claims as its ultimate end the forcing of the "infidels" to submit to Islam as they define it.
God did not ordain theocracies for the gentile nations. God established the authority of secular governments. When the Apostle Paul penned the following, he was himself a subject of Imperial Rome under Caesar.
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
Romans 13:1-4
Today this means the government does not bear the M16 in vain. Governments are commanded of God to punish evildoers with deadly force. And it is hard to imagine evildoers worse than those responsible for the murder of the thousands of innocent civilians on September 11, 2001. If we do not act wisely and decisively now, the next strike may kill hundreds of thousands, because these religiously motivated fanatics have weapons of mass destruction.
