It seems like the daily news regularly reports that some jihadi somewhere blows himself/herself up killing countless others in the name of God and their religion. Jihadi, or jihadist, refers to a person who believes that an Islamic State governing the entire community of Muslims must be created, and that this necessity justifies violent conflict with those who stand in its way.
In 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Muslims while they were worshiping at the Ibrahim Mosque. Domestically, we just recalled Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995, which killed 168 people and wounded many more. Recently there is ISIS, bragging about the execution of Egyptian Coptic Christians, and they parade to the world their recently executed Ethiopian Christians. No Country, Nationality, or religion has a monopoly on homicidal religious extremist.
There are people who talk about “holy war,” as if war could possibly be holy. The meaning of jihad has been corrupted. It is meant to express striving, giving one’s best effort. Holy jihad would be giving one’s best effort to live as God desires us to live. For the Buddhist, it is one of the noble, eight-fold paths known as “right effort.” Christians, too, are urged to strive for holiness.
Religious extremism is not a new phenomenon. Unfortunately it exists in all the great religions, not just Islam. There are many examples that can be cited throughout history. In the 66-70 C.E. Jewish-Roman War, the rebellious Jews slaughtered the Sadducees, fellow Jews they thought were being too friendly toward the Romans. Christians had “holy” crusades beginning in 1095 C.E. In 1204 the Pope’s crusade went awry and ended up with the sacking of Constantinople. This had some unintended consequences that still exist today.
Christians burnt heretics at the stake–a practice they inherited from the Romans. Some time about 1487, two Dominican friars wrote a manual about how to discern who is and is not a witch, called Malleus maleficarum. For the next couple hundred years, Christians were hanging witches. Early Christian bishops, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Ambrose of Milan, and Augustine of Hippo, supported slavery. All were confident they were preaching “God’s will.” Were they?
These same people presumed to be speaking for God. Unfortunate, modern day examples would be
- James Warren Jones of Jonestown, Guyana, infamy who orchestrated the mass suicide of his 902 followers in 1978
- Vernon Howell, a.k.a. David Koresh, of Waco, TX, infamy who fired on A.T.F. agents, leading to the death of 79 of his cult members.
They, too, believed they were speaking for God; so did their followers. Looking at the results, undoubting people would piously say, “It must have been God’s will.” Others think, “This is crazy nonsense.” Still others saw this as religious extremism and nonsense. Which is it?
So the question arises, “How does one know what is God’s will?” What are the criteria for determining this? I would submit that for the Christian, one has only to look at the life of Jesus. What comes to us from the Gospels is a Jesus who is loving, compassionate, and merciful; a Jesus who heals, forgives, and loves; a Jesus who reaches out to women, foreigners, and heretics–not to condemn them, but to show them the love of a God he calls Father.
To answer the question “Is this from God; is this God’s will?” we should apply these criteria:
- Is it loving?
- Is it compassionate?
- Is it merciful?
Unless the answer is yes to all three, it is not God’s will. There is nothing loving, compassionate, and merciful about blowing up yourself and others. There is nothing loving, compassionate, and merciful about beheading someone you consider an “infidel” or a “heretic.” It presumes you are the judge, not God.
God have mercy!