Escaping Terrorism by Seeking Wisdom

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Aug 26, 2011 at 15:51

If there is one thing that remains in constant confusion, it is the continuing repetition that religion is the supporting ideology many use to propagate an agenda of the attempt to conform a world to the dominant mindset, a fallacy that cannot be maintained by reason of any religion that resorts to violence. Those that use a false interpretation of the Christian ethic to legitimize conquest in the name of that religion is just as guilty as any who do the same. So we can make the same allegation about Islam when its followers quote the Quran or espouse the fundamentalist tenets as required by many of the Muslim leadership.

Dr. Pipes has been quite careful to make a distinct separation of Islam the religion versus Islam the ideology, a distinction of which is harder to make for those of us who see the two in the same light, only the shading provides any distinction. Christianity has no mandate from Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ to conquer the world, so those that think they are doing Christianity a favor by using force to convert are in just as much danger of eternal judgment as any else who reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation. Following Christ calls for following His love-it is a commandment.

The Norwegian terrorist demonstrated his lack of love for the things of Jesus Christ in the perpetration of his evil deeds. The conflicts and confrontations he has motivated have no true Biblical substance, things which are in evidence in his own words. In contrast, when we read of an attack, let us say in Israel and the attacker shouts allahu akhbar as he/she is detonating, what are we to infer? In the United States of America, the Fort Hood assassin did the same thing as he shot American military personnel, resounding to the cheers of Muslims the world over. One might make the argument that the victims were military and the circumstances just-but what of the Korean Christians on a mission of peace for Christ gunned down in south Asia-what should be the judgment there as those assailants went free?

Now this argument has back and forth with no quarter given for the peaceful intentions of Christians desiring nothing more that to serve Christ and being shouted out for the effort. False Christian witness gets pointed to instead because no one in the ideological religious and secular world wants to hear about the Gospels and the love of Jesus Christ, just as it has been rejected by others in this forum. For this reader, it is there to be heard and understood; or otherwise the debates go on and on with no resolution and eventually the battles incited by the rhetoric of the Norwegian Terrorist will come to a head with those of the opposing ideologies. Just as he failed in his understanding of what it means to be a Christian by not understanding who Jesus Christ is, so too do Muslims who misunderstand who Jesus Christ is by the words of the Quran. And that is the central conflict.

Shortly, the world will try the patience of the eternal Sovereign of the Universe; and will fail for the lack of understanding. Religion will not help from either side: only knowledge will provide the way out, the kind of knowledge provided in the true words of Jesus Christ. Finding that wisdom in the Holy Bible is the only way to get above the conflict we see in the world today.

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