The majority of a religious minority,
“…the proportion of White Christians in the population has now shrunk to 44%, PRRI research shows.” — 2/28/2021 CNN article citing the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy
are advocating for,
“Instead of condemning the idea of physical resistance, White evangelical Republicans embrace it, the AEI survey showed. Fully 60% agreed that ‘the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.'” — 2/28/2021 CNN article citing the conservative American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world
Is this our future? Not a race war, not a class war, not an ethnic war, but the mother of all wars — a religious war of intolerance that will march behind its banner of Christ to wage those other wars within their righteous cause. How many times in history, and even at this very moment, has this gone well for the world?
Who is the Satan these Christian soldiers are planning to march onward towards? Where is the hell’s foundation that will quiver at their shout? Make no mistake about it, anyone other than those holding this minority’s political beliefs swaddled in the cloth of their religion is considered Satan. And that hellish foundation? You can find it holding up Liberty Enlightening the World in the waters off New York.
READ: The Calling of Transformation
Those masses that huddled under the New Colossus are our America, and our “traditional American way of life” has been to welcome the lesser of our brothers and sisters: to shelter, feed, clothe and care for strangers. All of our siblings. Period.
Where is the enlightenment in using force to preserve the way of life for a minority that will not espouse these self-evident truths? Where is the justice in allowing this claim of violent righteousness to go unanswered now, when not too long ago a person of different color and religious belief was criminalized for promoting justice by any means necessary in the face of unlawful oppression? Indeed, why is the U.S. tolerating this particular jihadist movement? (Jihad: “In classical Islamic law, the term refers to armed struggle against unbelievers…” — Wikipedia)
This movement includes the radicalization of followers, not unlike the process usually associated with America’s popular view of jihad. It has been called out by a broad gathering of faith leaders as “heretical’ and a “perversion of Christian faith.” It has also been called out by Homeland Security experts who issued a national terrorism bulletin in late January 2021 warning of “Domestic Violent Extremists.” Read that again: Domestic. Violent. Extremists. Not some radical band of infiltrators from another land.
As these concepts are at odds with the very basic tenets in the teachings of Christ, as is violent Muslim extremism an antithesis to the teachings of Muhammad, I have to ask to what end are people taking up the cross in an attack on the United States, all of it? If it is not aligned with Christ, is it Christian? And if it is not Christian, what is it? I say we need to exorcise this demon with all of the righteousness we can muster under the new covenant that Jesus gave us in his teachings, honoring the souls of those who fought and died for basic freedoms everywhere for everyone, and amplifying all voices that call out against this scourge upon the U.S.
Let our thoughts, words, presence, and writings serve as a shofar to bring down this terrible wall of violent intolerance that is being built by beloved siblings.