Why no Christian suicide bombers? — and other thoughts on Islamic terror

Jewish World Review ^ | April 5, 2004 | Dennis Prager

[SJackson]

Golly gee, Muslim terrorists tried to attack Madrid again. How can that be? Wasn't Muslim terror in Spain supposed to end once Spain appeased the terrorists by voting in the socialists?

Only those who do not understand Muslim terror could fool themselves into believing that.

So, to better understand the subject, I offer three conclusions I drew about terror during my week of broadcasting from Israel last month.

First, Islamic terror is caused by Muslims, not, as Islamic and leftist apologists would have it, by the non-Muslims against whom it is directed. In our morally confused world, Spain, Israel and America are blamed for having their men, women and children blown up: What did these countries do to arouse such enmity among otherwise tolerant Arabs and Muslims?

Palestinian terror provides the answer. About 25 percent of Palestinians are Christian, yet if there are any Palestinian Christian suicide bombers, I am unaware of them. Now why is that? Don't Muslim and leftist apologists incessantly tell us that the reason for Palestinian terror is "Israeli occupation and oppression"? Why, then, are there no Palestinian Christian terrorists? Are Christian Palestinians less occupied?

The answer is obvious. There is Palestinian terror for the same reasons there is Muslim terror elsewhere. A significant part of the Muslim world wishes to destroy those non-Muslims -- Americans, Israelis, Filipinos, Nigerians, Sudanese blacks -- who prevent Islam from violently attaining power.

Palestinian Muslim terror emanates from a desire to destroy Israel, not to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Other Muslim terror is aimed at weakening the West, America in particular, so that militant theocratic Islam can dominate Muslim-majority societies and then take over other societies, as it is slowly doing in Western Europe.

Second, despite the Spanish cave-in to terror, in the long run, terror doesn't work. By any rational calculation, to take the Palestinian example, it has become the most self-destructive policy Palestinians could pursue. Palestinian terror has convinced almost all Israelis outside of academia that the moral gulf between them and the Palestinians is so wide that there is presently no hope for peace.

Nor has Palestinian terror terrorized Israelis. In what will surely be recorded as among the most impressive behaviors of a national group, Israelis have decided to live as normally as possible among people who aim to murder and maim as many of them as possible. In fact, I learned, many Israelis are now concerned that they have done this too well, that there is not enough mourning and rage after each atrocity.

Palestinian terror is self-destructive because it has morally, economically, religiously and politically destroyed Palestinian society and led to its present state of chaos. The mayor of Nablus resigned two months ago, declaring that gangs of thugs now govern Palestinian society. Any society that encourages terror ends up consumed by it. Ask the Saudis.

[smith288]

Oddly, my opinion as a Christian regarding suicide is that its a sin but once saved, all sins, past, present and future are forgiven. Suicide, to me, is a harsh sin but forgivable based on Jesus' ultimate sacrifice.

With this thought in mind, you would think there would be at least ONE Christian who would blow themselves up "for God" based on my belief. There is just something about my faith that causes us to look at life differently I guess.

[ClearCase_guy]

Guerrilla warfare has more pluses than minuses

AAARRGG! This exactly the opposite of what I meant to type. D'oh!

[SJackson]

Good article....and I must say that I didn't know 25% of Palis where Christian...see, you do learn something new everyday.

That's likely a typo. The CIA factbook puts the number of Christians at 0.7% (of 1.25 million)in Gaza and 8% (of about 2.2 million) including others in the West Bank. 3% to 5% is probably a good guess.

[DannyTN]

"my opinion as a Christian regarding suicide is that its a sin but once saved, all sins, past, present and future are forgiven."

I agree, with smith that a Christian who suicides is still forgiven. Judgement Day for the Christian occurs when he accepts Jesus. On that day he receives a full pardon. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Psalm 32:2 Romans 4:8

That doesn't mean that a Christian can't sin or that sin won't have consequences. Sin will bring chastisement from God. However in the final analysis a Christian has already been forgiven.

With this thought in mind, you would think there would be at least ONE Christian who would blow themselves up "for God" based on my belief. There is just something about my faith that causes us to look at life differently I guess.

Again it gets back to motive. Jesus said, "No man has greater love than to lay down his life for a friend". I'm sure there have been many Christians who have suicided themselves in this fashion especially during war such as jumping on a hang grenade. The people who took down the one flight on 9/11 before the plane could be crashed into a building killing more people. etc.

And during war, Christians do kill. In Iraq, we weighed the cost of going to war verses the cost of not going to war and leaving Saddam who was promoting terrorism in power. The decision was made to go to war.

But Christian respect for life is why we risk our lives to try to target only the military and give the rest of the people of Iraq the benefit of the doubt.

And finally I suppose that there are Christians who could be convinced of the rightness of committing a terrorist act no matter how convuluted the logic might be. However the vast majority of Christians are familiar enough with God's word, that they could not be easily convinced that an act of terror is God's will.

[Blue Scourge]

Oh...thanks for the correction....like I said...it was a shock to me.

[MJM59]

The difference between Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists is that if a Christian fundamentalist leader were to tell one of us to strap on a bomb and waddle into a crowd of people only to blow up, we would tell him to pack sand. Those people cannot yet decide for themselves when their leaders are full of it.

[Valin]

Good point.
Example: The James/Younger gang. They learned their "trade" riding with Quantrill.

The train and bank robbers of the Old West sprang from the Civil War, primarily in Missouri. Disenfranchised, and disgruntled, ex-Confederates learned a trade of theft and violent raiding during the war and could not, or would not, give it up afterwards.

Many of the original Western outlaws had been guerrilla raiders during the war--which in the Missouri-Kansas border area stretched from 1854 to 1865. Cole Younger, and Frank and Jesse James had been with Quantrill's raiders, the most noted of the guerrilla bands. Both Cole Younger and Frank James did leave Quantrill and join the regular Confederate army later in the war, but both were present at the infamous Lawrence, Kansas massacre (though there is some dispute as to whether Jesse James was there or joined Quantrill later that year, most evidence indicates he was not at Lawrence).

Motivations and causes for why these young men did not return to normal lives after the war ended can be debated endlessly without result. The two main points of view are:

Vengeful Unionists harassed them, blaming them for illegal activities until they were forced into the outlaw life. They claimed they could not surrender to the law to defend themselves from early charges because in the atmosphere at that time and place they'd have been lynched, so chose the outlaw trail as a survival option.

or

They were bitter losers in the war, refusing to give up the Lost Cause, continuing the war after it was over by robbing banks and trains as pseudo-guerrilla raids.
http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History/jamesgang.htm

[Gritty]

BTTT

[dennisw]

All true especially your comment about lost in space libertarians. Any libertarian nation would be gobbled up the way the Morlocks ate up the Eloi

[ought-six]

"A significant part? Oh Really? What exactly does that mean, Mr. Prager?. Care to exaggerate some more?"

What exaggeration? There are an awful lot of Moslems who subscribe to just that.

[ml/nj]

The CIA factbook puts the number of Christians at 0.7% (of 1.25 million)in Gaza and 8% (of about 2.2 million) including others in the West Bank. 3% to 5% is probably a good guess.

Which edition of the CIA Factbook says this?

Here is something I just found on the 'net which agrees with the number I gave earlier in this thread:

The demographic situation has changed since the mid-nineties. Today [January 2004], we speak of the Palestinian Christians being less than 2% of the entire population. Some would even suggest that we are approaching the 1.5%. The decline is not simply due to emigration, estimated among Palestinian Christians in the last three years since the start of the Second Intifada at around 2600 Christians. There is also the fact of the continuing higher birth rate among the general population and the fact that the average age of Palestinian Christians is higher than that of the entire population. Besides the marriage habits of Palestinian Christians tend to take place later in life which means the number of children per Christian family is lower than that among the average family in the general Palestinian population. * The majority of Palestinian Christians reside in the West Bank with only 2,500 living in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation

ML/NJ

[Valin]

I've read (Daniel Pipes?) that "radical/fundamentalist" Islam amounts to 10% of the Muslim world.

[Aquinasfan]

Judgement Day for the Christian occurs when he accepts Jesus. On that day he receives a full pardon.

You're speaking for a fraction of the non-Catholic/Orthodox Christian world, which represents 25% of Christianity. Catholics account for 50% of all Christians. Orthodox Churches, 25%.

Matthew 7

17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

[SJackson]

The current online version, which is using mid 2002 . Gaza and West Bank. They're counting "Christian and others" as 8% of the West Bank, 2% or below could well be the correct number, depending on the "others", maybe 2.5%, an easy typo to the articles 25%.

[Sam the Sham]

To his great credit, Lee made the decision to give Quantrill the cold shoulder when he came to Richmond trying to pass himself off as a soldier. The surrender at Appomatox was a decisive rejection of continuing with a guerrilla warfare option because he saw in Kansas where that would lead. And that the kinds of leaders guerrilla warfare and terrorism throw forward are not the kind of people you want to be governed by in peacetime.

Valin, maybe guerrilla warfare just plain attracts lawless people. And war has a way of creating thousands of adrenaline junkies who can't go back to peace and domesticity and boredom. They tend to spend the ten years after the war wandering from the French Foreign Legion to being mercenaries to brigandage. The first motorcycle gangs were based on ex-WW2 flyboys.

DannyTN, you must mean the Maccabees, not Hezekiah.

Where guerrilla warfare has been used successfully it was in support of conventional operations with the guerrilla element separate and distinct. That way you do not have a total collapse of civil society under pervasive lawlessness.

[DannyTN]

If you will read the passage you just quoted to me. In verse 22, they say, "Look at my works". And in 23 Jesus's response is "I NEVER KNEW you". It takes a relationship with Jesus to be saved. That involves putting your trust in Him.

John 6:40 - And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

If you believe on him, you are doing the will of the Father. But by this I don't mean mere mental assent that Jesus is the son of God. For as James points out, even the demons believe that. But by belief, I mean putting your trust in Jesus for salvation.

That trust leads to works. Jesus said "He that loves me will obey me". Understand the order. God forgives first. That forgiveness generates love in the believer. That love generates obedience. That's the order. But the faith is all it takes for salvation. The thief on the cross next to Jesus didn't have time to change his life or generate works, yet he went to paradise.

Romans 5:8 - But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I do understand though that Catholics will usually respond to the question, "Why should God let you into heaven?" with "I hope I'm good enough." They do understand though that Jesus paid the price for their sins. But they do not have the confidence that they should have. They should be able to say as Paul said, "...neither life nor death...nor anything else can separate me from the love of God". It is not clear to me whether they are trusting in Jesus or their own works. And it causes me to fear for them.

[Aquinasfan]

It is not clear to me whether they are trusting in Jesus or their own works.

Some Catholics may be trusting in their own works. There are plenty of material heretics in the Church.

For Catholics, the bottom line is Church teaching, which can easily be found in the new Catechism.

For Catholics, salvation is by grace alone, manifested in faith/works.

James 2:24

"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."

However, since we cannot know with certainty whether we will ask God's forgiveness in the future when we sin, we cannot be absolutely certain that we will die in a state of grace.

[GoLightly]

Unlike the source you cited, I do not have to be politically correct. Polygamy is the logical explaination for the demographics. It is the surest way to increase a population & it will also lower the age of your demographic. On the downside, it produces "spare" males, spare *young* males, spare *angry* young males. War against an outside foe can be seen as an appropriate corrective measure.

[RightWhale]

Christians believe we are created with a fallen nature

Oh? Some do, some don't.

[DannyTN]

"However, since we cannot know with certainty whether we will ask God's forgiveness in the future when we sin, we cannot be absolutely certain that we will die in a state of grace."

You already have asked when you accepted Jesus. When Jesus died, he paid the price for all sin for all time. There is only one sin that remains, that of failure to accept the Lord Jesus.

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but IS passed from death unto life.

Notice in the above, there is not maybe. It Has happened. We ARE passed from death unto life.

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Rom8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

We are adopted children. God will not divorce us. He may chastise us though.

Rom9:30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. 31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. 7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Philippians 1:6 - Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

2 Timothy 1:12 - For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

It doesn't depend on us, it depends on the Author and Finisher of our faith. He will complete the work in us.

Should you continue to ask for forgiveness? Absolutely. It avoids chastisement. It does NOT avoid child abandonment. For the Lord will do no such thing. He is able to keep that which I've committed. That is the confidence the assurance that we have and should have.