45 Sermon Illustrations on Hatred

If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you. Plutarch.

[Not your typical pastor's resource -- a photocopy of the article was given to me.]

“Ronald Reagan often called religion the world’s mightiest force for good, ‘the bedrock of moral order.’ George Bush said that it gives people ‘the character they need to get through life.’ This view is held by millions. But the truism isn’t true. The record of human experience shows that where religion is strong, it causes cruelty. Intense beliefs produce intense hostility. Only when faith loses its force can a society hope to become humane. The history of religion is a horror story.”

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 with the battle cry “Deus Vult” (God wills it). First Jews in the Rhine valley were persecuted, then all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were slaughtered. The ecstatic cleric Raymond of Aguilers wrote: “In the temple of Solomon, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses’ bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God.”

In the Third Crusade, Richard the Lion-Hearted slaughtered 3,000 captives from Acre in 1191. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: “The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified.”

In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched an armed crusade against Albigenses believers in southern France. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers reportedly asked their papal adviser how to distinguish the faithful from the infidel among the captives. He commanded: “Kill them all. God will know his own.” Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered - many first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, or used for target practice.

(The blood libel against Jews and other acts of anti-semitism are described.)

(The bloody practices of the Mayans and Aztecs are detailed.)

In the 1400s, the Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Witch hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations. Estimates of the number executed vary from 100,000 to two million. In the first half of the seventeenth century, about 5,000 “Witches” were put to death in the French province of Alsace, and 900 were burned in the Bavarian city of Bamberg.

Protestant Huguenots grew into an aggressive minority in France in the 1500s - until repeated Catholic reprisals smashed them. On Saint Bartholomew’s Day in 1572, Catherine de Medicis secretly authorized Catholic dukes to send their soldiers into Huguenot neighborhoods and slaughter families. This massacre touched off a six-week bloodbath in which Catholics murdered about 10,000 Huguenots. Other persecutions continued for two centuries, until the French Revolution. One group of Huguenots escaped to Florida; in 1565 a Spanish brigade discovered their colony, denounced their heresy, and killed them all.

Oliver Cromwell was deemed a moderate because he massacred only Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants. This Puritan general commanded Bible- carrying soldiers, whom he roused to religious fervor. After decimating an Anglican army, Cromwell said, “God made them as stubble to our swords.” He demanded the beheading of the defeated King Charles I and made himself the holy dictator of England during the 1650s.

The Thirty Years’ War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. Three decades of combat turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery. One estimate states that Germany’s population dropped from 18 million to four million.

When Puritans settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s, they created a religious police state where doctrinal deviation could lead to flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting off ears, or boring through the tongue with a hot iron. Preaching Quaker beliefs was a capital offense. Four stubborn Quakers defied this law and were hanged. In the 1690s fear of witches seized the colony. Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 others imprisoned.

(Persecution of the Baha’is.)

In 1984 Shiite fanatics who killed and tortured Americans on a hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at Tehran Airport said they did it “for the pleasure of God.”

“It’s fashionable among thinking people to say that religion isn’t the real cause of today’s strife in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India, and Iran - that sects merely provide labels for combatants. Not so. Religion keeps the groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would blur with passing generations. Children would adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them alien to one another. Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion serves that ugly purpose.”

In Judith Viorst's children's book "I'll Fix Anthony," the younger brother

complains about the way his older brother Anthony treats him:

"My brother Anthony can read books now, but he won't read any books to me. He

plays checkers with Bruce from his school. But when I want to play he says

"Go away or I'll clobber you" I let him wear my Snoopy sweatshirt, but he

never lets me borrow his sword. Mother says deep down in his heart Anthony

loves me. Anthony says deep down in his heart he thinks I stink. Mother says

deep deep down in his heart, where he doesn't even know it, Anthony loves me.

Anthony says deep deep down in his heart he still thinks I stink. When I'm

six I'll fix Anthony....

"When I'm six I'll float, but Anthony will sink to the bottom. I'll dive off

the board, but Anthony will change his mind. I'll breathe in and out when I

should, but Anthony will only go glug, glug,.... When I'm six my teeth will

fall out, and I'll put them under the bed, and the tooth fairy will take them

away and leave dimes. Anthony's teeth won't fall out. He'll wiggle and

wiggle them, but they won't fall out. I might sell him one of my teeth, but I

might not....

"Anthony is chasing me out of the playroom. He says I stink. He says he is

going to clobber me. I have to run now, but I won't have to run when I'm six.

When I'm six, I'll fix Anthony."

Most of us know the feeling of Anthony's brother. The Bible calls it

vengeance. #1883

*

There was a 12-year-old boy in California who witnessed the murder of his father and the brutal rape-murder of his mother. His life seemed ruined. Sent to a state institution for boys, he was apathetic and withdrawn, and did poorly in his work. Although he was paraded through the offices of several psychologists and attended numerous therapy sessions, nothing seemed to break through the shield of defenses his young mind had thrown up.

Then, shortly after graduation from high school, he attended a church youth meeting and heard the accounts of several young people about the difference Christ had made in their lives, particularly in how they could look beyond trying to get even with people who had sinned against them in some way. He listened intently, naturally, since it touched on his problem. In time he began to grasp this enlightened approach and his life began to turn from the bitter to the better. His personality brightened. Where he had been introverted and withdrawn, he gradually made new friends. He applied to a local college and was admitted. After college, he went on to law school. But he still didn’t have complete satisfaction.

Luckily, he was able to pinpoint the source of his incompleteness - he still harbored a residue of hatred toward the murderer who had killed his parents and messed up his life. He was wise enough to know it had to be dealt with. So, while he was in law school, he arranged to visit the man in prison who had committed what most would call “an unforgivable crime.”

The first visit was not a good one. They were both nervous and had a hard time talking to one another. But the young man was determined, and went back a second time. It proved to be a breakthrough. “I’ve made a bargain with God,” the young law student told the prisoner, “If God will wipe the slate clean for the awful hatred I’ve had for you, I’m willing to personally acquit you for the egregious crime you committed against me.”

The prisoner was astonished ... and deeply moved. It softened his hardened heart and after four more visits broke it open enough to where he wanted the same power that the law student had found. He aimed his life in that direction.

Some years later, when the prisoner was paroled, the law student, now an attorney in Modesto, California, helped him to get a job and start a new life.

________

(story told by John Killinger, in sermon, “A Festival of Forgiveness,” printed in THE GOD NAMED HALLOWED, Abingdon, 1988.)

A Gay March in Washington parallels the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery:

A few years back Philip Yancey happened to be in Washington, D.C., when 300,000 gay-rights activists were having a march. He was standing on the sidelines directly in front of the White House when a startling confrontation took place. About 40 mounted policemen had formed a protective circle around a small group of outspoken Christian protesters. Thanks to huge, orange posters announcing hellfire, the tiny knot of Christians was attracting most of the press photographers.

The believers began shouting, “Shame-on-you-for-what-you-do.” Then they switched to, “AIDS, AIDS, it’s comin’ your way.” Yancey, along with everyone else in the crowd, had seen the group of marchers at the head of the column: a sad procession of hundreds of people with AIDS - some in wheelchairs, some covered with purple sores or gaunt faces. Philip Yancey couldn’t imagine how anyone could wish that fate on another human being.

How did the marchers respond to the Christians? Some taunted or mocked them. But one group came to the spot, stopped to face them, and sang, “Jesus loves you, this we know, for the Bible tells us so.”

The irony was unsettling. On the one side were “righteous” Christians. On the other were “sinners,” many of whom openly admitted homosexuality. Yet one side spewed out hate and the other sang of Jesus’ love.

2,000 years ago Jesus himself faced two contrary parties.... (John 8:1-11)

On a normal Misssissippi Sunday afternoon last August, members from several Southern Baptist churches braved the summer heat and joined several hundred other churchgoers for a picnic. The crowd consumed dozens of hot dogs and hamburgers, kids sat still long enough to have their faces painted and families laughed together in a shaded park pavilion as they listened to Christian music over a portable tape player.

By all external appearances, this was a normal church picnic -- except for the black and white faces sitting side by side.

The picnic purposefully brought together African American and white Christians from a variety of churches and denominations throughout Jackson for one simple reason: Christian unity.

The multi-church picnic is just one example of how Mission Mississippi is helping the state change these days in regard to racial matters. Three years ago, Mission Mississippi rallied across racial and denominational lines to launch a ministry committed to reconciliation. Local residents call the group's efforts nothing short of "radical."

Their vision of unity encourages black and white Christians to come together "so that the message of Christ can be better seen in our communities throughout Mississippi," according to Lee Paris, chairman of Mission Mississippi's state board of directors.

"Reconciliation and unity does not happen by rallies," says Jarvis Ward, Mission Mississippi's executive director, "but rather, by right relationships -- first people who are rightly related to the one living and true God through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and then to each other."

To help foster such relationships, Jarvis and his staff of volunteers organize a variety of creative gatherings throughout the year, including weekly prayer meetings at one of the 100-plus churches participating in Mission Mississippi, 50 percent of which are African American and 50 percent white, representing a dozen denominations.

Each Thursday morning, an average of 30 to 50 pastors, leaders and supporters gather for prayer, devotions, fellowship and breakfast. If participants miss the Thursday morning meeting, they are invited to a Friday morning prayer meeting at the Salvation Army headquarters.

"The first Thursday morning prayer breakfast was held May 6, 1993," says Portia McGehee, co-chair of the Mission Mississippi prayer committee. "Since that time, we have prayed in 50 locations. Alternating between black and white churches has been enriching."

In addition to the interracial prayer breakfasts, Mission Mississippi holds an annual citywide rally in Jackson. Last Oct. 18-19, for example, 6,000 Christians from throughout the state attended the third annual, worship- oriented Mission Mississippi Reconciliation Rally at the Mississippi Coliseum. Black pastor E.V. Hill of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, called by Time magazine as "one of the most outstanding preachers in the United States," addressed the interracial crowd, along with Frank Pollard, pastor of Jackson's First Baptist Church.

The Baptist pastors shared messages focusing on grace and brotherly love. Pollard discussed how Christ's journey to the cross and his subsequent death are the key reasons how he can love his brother, E.V. Hill, as he did. "Our friendship is based on Christ and grounded in his love," Pollard said of his long friendship with Hill.

Hill's message centered on his early racist attitudes and how God removed his hatred of white people through the unconditional love of one man. "If God could break my heart, there is no person that God could not change," he said. Hill then called the audience to stand and repent of any racist attitudes they had ever had. Hundreds confessed their sin and accepted the challenge to meet with someone of another race on a regular basis.

The interracial Mission Mississippi Mass Choir sang at the rally, under the direction of a host of local choir leaders. Mississippi First Lady Pat Fordice even admonished the audience to stay involved in politics and to pray for their governmental leaders. "We cannot afford to lose this great nation," she said. "We must pray for God to heal our land."

Along with contemporary recording artist, Kathy Trocolli, motivational speaker Joseph Jennings, a former gang leader and drug addict, spoke to Jackson youth in local schools and at the rally services. "I understand the extremes of desperation induced by drugs, crime and illicit sex," said the 6-foot-11-inch, 280-pound Jennings who kept the attention of the teen-agers.

According to Gary Maze, Mission Mississippi youth committee chairman, more than 260 youth recorded decisions for Christ as a result of a featured youth night. Organizers are planning a similar reconciliation rally for youth and families next fall and each year after until, says Paris, "Mississippi is known for its love."

But annual rallies and weekly prayer meetings aren't the only thing Mission Mississippi is about. In addition to several interracial, multi-church picnics with free food and family entertainment, each Christmas participants are invited to their City Wide Christmas Party for food, music and fellowship. Throughout the year, supporters are encouraged to attend cross- denominational Bible studies as a part of the mission's efforts to promote racial harmony. They also are encouraged to go out to dinner with friends of a different race to help build relationships; consequently, a dozen local restaurants have even begun giving "Mission Mississippi" discounts.

Individual congregations also are challenged to build relationships across cultural lines. For instance, Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, a predominantly African American church in inner-city Jackson, worshiped with Crossgates Baptist Church, a predominantly white church in Brandon, a suburb just outside of Jackson. The exchange was a natural event for the two pastors who had been meeting for lunch regularly during the past few years.

Horace Buckley, Cade Chapel's pastor, and Barry Clingan of Crossgates Baptist have been building a unique friendship in their common desire to see the body of Christ unite. Their churches' "Pulpit Swap" Sunday was sponsored by Mission Mississippi, and several other churches have followed suit. And last August, the Crossgates church made to a surprise offering Cade Chapel's building program.

The efforts of Mission Mississippi have so impressed local residents and political representatives that Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice even declared October as Mission Mississippi Month.

Local and national press coverage has highlighted Mission Mississippi's efforts perhaps, says Ward, because "a model is being built to be a blessing from Mississippi to the entire nation."

For this to take place, Christians must draw from that source, Jesus Christ, who "alone reconciles sinners to God and who has given to the church the 'ministry of reconciliation,'" Ward says, citing the words in Scripture from 2 Corinthians 5:19.

=======================

Kadlecek is a free-lance writer in Jackson, Miss., and is coauthor with John Perkins of "Resurrecting Hope: Powerful Stories of How God Is Moving to each Our Cities," published by Regal Books.

Copyright (c) 1996 Baptist Press RNbp6103mrjB6103c614r

"Stand Up For Roxbury (New Jersey)" Community Covenant, inspired by events in high school in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999.

WE ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING BASIC PRINCIPLES...

===========================================

1. It takes all of us working together, to create the school community

that we want and deserve.

2. Every person's life is sacred.

3. Every person is deserving of respect and dignity.

4. Our community has the responsibility to take care of its members and

to create a safe, nurturing environment for all, free of fear,

threats and intimidation.

5. The words we speak can cause harm and can lead to hurtful and

dangerous actions.

6. Weapons of any kind have no place in our schools and should not be

easily accessible to our children.

7. Ostracizing others and making them feel like outsiders is wrong.

8. Anti-social statements and actions must not be ignored.

9. Hate literature and symbols, as well as other destructive behavior,

must be challenged.

10. Friendship and a sense of social responsibility require us to get

help for those who are angry or in pain.

THEREFORE, WE PROMISE OURSELVES TO TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS:

==============================================================

1. Identify ourselves as members of STAND UP FOR R0XBURY and encourage

others to join us.

2. Acknowledge and encourage those actions that enhance the value of

every person's life.

3. Create programs to increase sensitivity and understanding among

different groups.

4. Provide additional services to those young people who are alienated

or on the periphery of their peer group.

5. Speak to each other in a more positive or affirming way.

6. Report the presence of guns, knives, or anything in our schools that

could be used to harm people.

7. Reach out to those who are put down or cast aside for being

different.

8. Speak openly against those who threaten others even in a casual way.

9. Challenge those who slander others or display offensive symbols.

10. Try to be more inclusive in our friendships and group activities.

SIGNATURE: ___________________________________

*

THE COLD WITHIN

Six humans trapped by happenstance

In black and bitter cold.

Each one possessed a stick of wood,

Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,

The first, a woman, held hers back.

For on a face around the fire,

She noticed it was black.

The next, a man, looking cross the way

Saw one not of his church,

So couldn't bring himself to offer

The fire his stick of birch.

The third, a man, sat in tattered clothes;

Gave his coat a hitch.

Why should his log be put to use

To warm the idle rich?

The rich man sat back and thought

Of the wealth he had in store.

And of how to keep what he'd earned

From the lazy poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge

As the fire passed from his sight,

For in his stick of wood he saw

A chance to spite the white.

And the last member of this group

Did naught except for gain.

Giving only to those who gave

Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death's still hands

Was proof of human sin.

They didn't die from the cold without,

They died from the cold within.

Author unknown [But I certainly wish credit could be given for such a wonderful composition; if anyone knows the author please let me know.]

Application: Everything our Lord and Savior taught, all the deep and glorious springs of truth of heart and passion of soul are spoken of in this simple verse. Oh man, how you have fallen!

Source/Attribution: From a friend but edited for publication; © Sermon-Illustrations-Each-Week 2000, 000207-4

*

Ernest Hemingway's grandparents attended the same Evangelical college I did - Wheaton. His parents were also very devout Christians. Ernest rebelled and his parents detested his wild lifestyle. After a time his mother wouldn't let him in her presence.

One year for his birthday, she mailed him a cake along with the gun his father had used to kill himself. Another year she wrote him a letter explaining that a mother's life is like a bank account. Every child that is born to her makes withdrawals but no deposits during all the early years. Later, when the child grows up, it is his responsibility to replenish the supply he has drawn down.

Hemingway's mother then proceeded to spell out all the specific ways Ernest should be making “deposits to keep the account in good standing”: flowers, fruit or candy, paying some of her bills, and a pledge to stop neglecting his duties to God.

Hemingway never got over his hatred for his mother - or for her Savior. Her ungracious faith had killed his.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5604]

"I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man."

- Booker T. Washington

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 154.

Corrie Ten Boom shares this true story in her book, "The Hiding Place": It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there -- the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!" His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?

Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.

From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

I heard about the couple celebrating their 50th wedding

anniversary. When the festivities were over, the woman turned

to her husband and said, "We've been miserable for 50 years.

We've fought every day. We've disagreed on nearly everything,

and I am convinced that we can't keep going like this. I have

made a commitment to pray that God will help us solve this

problem. I'm praying that he will take one of us home. And

when he answers my prayer, I'm going to live with my sister in

Grand Rapids."

An atheist named Ken Schei runs a website called "Atheists for Jesus." His goal? To promote the "love and kindness" taught by Jesus while rejecting a Church responsible for, as he claims, "Some of the most brutal ... atrocities known to man."

It's a harsh charge, and yet, sooner or later, we must confront this apparent paradox: A religion that teaches love and compassion is the same religion that gave us the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials. So, are these tragedies historical anomalies -- or are they, as Ken Schei charges, part of the DNA of our faith?

Former journalist Lee Strobel pursued this question the way he used to go after any story: He went to an expert -- on Church history, in this case -- with a notebook full of questions.

In his new book, The Case for Faith, Strobel relates his conversation with my good friend and theologian John Woodbridge. Yes, Woodbridge acknowledged, great evil has been perpetrated in the name of Christ. But with regard to atrocities, he said, we have to differentiate between authentic Christians and cultural Christians -- those who belong to churches, but may not follow Christ closely, or at all.

Come on, Strobel retorted. It's a little too convenient to blame these things on people who claimed they were Christians, but really weren't.

Not really, Woodbridge replied. Jesus himself made this distinction. He said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. . . . I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you'" [Matthew 7:21-23].

Throughout the centuries, you see, much has been done in Jesus' name that does not reflect his teachings. And as Woodbridge noted, even as these abuses took place, authentic Christians spoke out against them. For instance, the Puritan leader Increase Mather condemned the Salem witch trials. In Germany in the 1930s, true Christians, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the confessing church, spoke out against both Hitler and the churches that gave in to his demands.

Of course, Christians aren't perfect, and we have to accept blame when we fail. But we're sometimes blamed for things we have nothing to do with. For example, in the sixteenth century, Spain sent explorers to the Americas to seek gold, and missionaries to save souls. Unfortunately, Woodbridge said, the missionaries have been blamed for all the terrible things the explorers did -- abuses the missionaries had no part in.

Woodbridge is right in his conclusion. Abuses in the name of Jesus are the exception, not the norm. And when people throw atrocities like the Inquisition in our faces, we must remind them that, while the Inquisition was bad, far worse things have been perpetrated in name of secular ambition: Hitler murdered 6 million Jews. Stalin slaughtered 50 million Russians. Both of them hated the Christian God.

Christians have never perfectly followed the commands of Christ, that's true. But our attempts to follow him have inspired the best in Western civilization for two millennia. Imperfect Christians have built schools and hospitals. We've rescued children left to die, and visited prisoners. We've made the world, not perfect, but far better than it would have been without our influence.

We do these things, not because we admire Ken Schei's namby-pamby, powerless Jesus, but because we worship the risen, living Christ.

For further reference:

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

______________________

Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted With Permission. "breakpoint With Chuck Colson" Is A Radio Ministry Of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

Only two days after the World Trade Center crumbled and the Pentagon burned, Paige Patterson opened the Scriptures and detailed for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary students seven principles for a godly response. With many from the Wake Forest, N.C., community in attendance at the chapel service, Patterson charged the congregation that the Christian man "must have the heart of a pacifist guided by a just mind informing a strong arm."

Patterson, the seminary's president, described the heart of a pacifist as "loving and seeking peace always in every way he possibly can, guided by a just mind so that he knows when that rare occasion comes when there is no other choice except to act with force."

"And then that just mind guides the use of a strong arm, which in its strength may attack, but also which sometimes, and usually in its greater strength, may exhibit that strength by withholding its attack."

Patterson said such a heart and mind is founded on the following principles:

1. Human iniquity is such that sometimes a violent response, even a lethal response is absolutely necessary.

2. Whenever violence is necessary, Christians must valiantly attempt to exact no more suffering or death than is absolutely essential to accomplish and maintain the peace.

3. Motives of revenge, brooding anger and fury are unworthy of Christian men.

4. Christians must seek to protect those who are uninvolved.

5. Except in the rarest of cases, a social order or a constituted national entity should be the vehicle of retributive justice.

6. When the enemy fails and falls, godly men must not rejoice in that calamity.

7. The aftermath of the confrontation yields one of three things: bitterness, hatred or forgiveness.

Patterson began by noting the intent of his message (the full text of which is on the seminary's www.sebts.edu website) was not "to formulate a theory of just war, although, you will doubtless hear some of that in it."

Patterson said his effort was to attempt to point to the Scriptures and give some guidance in thinking.

"And now I will tell you an additional reason why I am bringing a message of this kind this morning. The message is addressed primarily to [myself]," Patterson said. "And secondarily to you, because I want to go on record publicly as saying the things I'm going to say in order to hold myself accountable before God to be sure these attitudes are in fact my own." Patterson began his message in Romans 13 and turned to several other passages to lay the foundation for these principles.

Romans 13 contained the first principle, that human iniquity is such that sometimes a violent response, even a lethal response is absolutely necessary.

"I want you to notice two things in the text," Patterson said. "First, rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil, and the magistrate does not bare the sword in vain. One cannot read this passage of Scripture and come to the conclusion that some well-meaning souls have, that pacifism is an acceptable way. There is a time and appropriate way for the use of sword. But in the final analysis for the individual believer, it is the way of love that prevails."

Patterson noted three cases in which the sword might be necessary. "First, there is defense. There comes a time when concern for the innocent and protection of those that cannot protect themselves demand that we be able to do this. A second area is deterrence. If one knows that he is going to pay a fearfully high price, maybe even his life if he does something, he is hesitant to do it. Then finally, there is the area of justice. Sometimes, there must be a lethal response in order for justice to be done."

Patterson warned his students and staff not to be deluded by those who contend that there is no need to be armed in this country.

"And when good people do not have arms, you know who will [be armed] every single time," he stated, referring to those who would commit evil.

The second principle, that whenever violence is necessary, Christians must valiantly attempt to exact no more suffering or death than is absolutely essential to accomplish and maintain the peace, also is rooted in Romans 13.

"I cannot tell you how important that is. The natural tendency of man is to take more than is necessary in order to get revenge," Patterson said. He continued by saying that love conquers the sword ultimately, and "so it is to love that we must hasten, and that as an understanding of all that is embodied in the commandments."

Patterson turned to 1 Peter 2:13 for the third principle: motives of revenge, brooding anger and fury are unworthy of Christian men: "Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors, (now watch this) as those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. (Now, that's the second time we've read that) and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men -- as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice but as bondservants of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."

"Notice that governors and those in authority are those who are sent by God to punish evildoers and to praise those who do good," Patterson said.

"I do not know how you can be a man and watch the film of the plane crashing into the tower and not feel anger. That's the reason I spoke of 'brooding' anger," Patterson said. "Anger is almost a natural response at the moment, but brooding anger allowed to fester and continue in the heart will invariable produce a fruit of bitterness and an acrimonious spirit and ultimately assault from human perspective."

From James 1:19-20, Patterson stated, "Listen to two thought-provoking verses: 'So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath; for the wrath of God does not produce the righteousness of God.'"

"There is nothing in that verse that comes naturally," Patterson said. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, and so many times I have to cite it to myself again. 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.'"

Next, Patterson turned to Leviticus 20:1-2 for the fourth and fifth principles: Christians must seek to protect those who are uninvolved, and that except in the rarest of cases, a social order or a constituted national entity should be the vehicle of retributive justice.

"First, in the case of capital crime, a parent taking a little baby and placing it in the white, hot arms of Molech, the stone goddess ... when they incinerate that child as a sacrifice to Moses, they have impinged upon the God of life. And, because they have broken the most sacred of all laws regarding life, they shall be put to death. It is a capital crime," Patterson said. "But notice that [justice] is not exacted at the point of a sword by an individual, but the whole congregation of the Lord is to take the responsibility so that it is laid on no one, but it is the social order itself that acts in exacting justice and retribution in this case."

Patterson then turned to Romans 12:18, which states, "as much as is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men."

"We are instructed to seek peace at every hand, on every hand, at every opportunity, and we are to be sure that if peace is taken away, it is not because of an action for which we are responsible but rather as much as possible and as much as it depends on us," Patterson explained. "Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that Paul recognizes there do occur those circumstances in life when we cannot live in peace for whatever reason; where there must be a response of force," he continued.

"Ladies and gentlemen, just because a person happens to be of Arabic ethnicity does not make them a culprit in the deed that has been done. We must be very careful that we not respond in a broad uncontrolled manner, lumping together the guilty and the innocent," he said.

"I do not doubt that there are times when we have to act alone or in a small group, but the desire should be that where retributive justice has to take place -- you saw all Israel stone them, all Israel shall bear part of the responsibility, so it's no individual's responsibility as such," Patterson said.

Principle number six: When the enemy fails and falls, Godly men must not rejoice in that calamity. In Matthew 6:12, Patterson pointed out that in this "model prayer," Christians are ask for forgiveness as they also should forgive their debtors.

Then, Patterson continued with Matthew 5:43-48, from the Sermon on the Mount, which states, "You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. You are to love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. And in this way you will demonstrate you are the sons of your Father in heaven ... for if you love those who love you, where is the reward in that? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore, you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect."

"All of us were made sick by the signs of the Palestinians rejoicing over the deaths of those [who] passed away in the tragic strike," Patterson said. "I want to tell you that we need to be very careful as we watch that, that it primarily invokes within us the determination never to be guilty of the same.

"Dear precious Christian friend, there is a fine line between rejoicing because good has prevailed and rejoicing at the fall of the enemy. We are permitted and even encouraged to rejoice over good that triumphs, but, do not make the next fatal step which would be to rejoice in the fall of the enemy," Patterson warned.

He pointed to Proverbs 24:17,18, which states, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and do not let your heart be glad when the he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and it displeases him and he turn away his wrath from him and implied have it come to you."

Principle number seven: The aftermath of the confrontation yields one of three things: bitterness, hatred or forgiveness. Patterson read Matthew 18:21-22. "Then Peter came to [Jesus] and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'"

"The principle here is as plain as it can be," Patterson said. "There is nothing ever done to you, nothing ever done to me that anywhere even approximates the staggering cost of our rebellion against God individually. You just need to understand that you will never have to forgive each other anything like what God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

"For the godly man, it must ultimately result in forgiveness because forgiven men have no choice in this matter," Patterson said.

*

When the bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor in 1941 were changing the course of world history, they were also changing the course of one man's life and those who would be touched by his ministry.

Sixty December 7ths later, Joe Morgan still recounts the horror of Japan's surprise attack to many of the millions of tourists who visit the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. When he does so, he shares how God helped him reclaim the call to preach and heal the scar of hatred that the attack had left on his life.

"He's like the Arizona Memorial's Billy Graham," said Robert Morgan, one of Joe's sons.

Every Thursday, despite failing health, Joe tells his story once or twice. And almost every time, it leaves people in tears, partly because of Joe's firsthand account and partly because they identify with the emotional struggles he faced.

"Grown men and women dealing with anger and hatred, this story brings them to a catharsis," said Robert, who assists his father during his talks. "Some can't say anything. They can only hug him."

"One of my goals is to help people get over their anger at the Japanese and other people and learn how to forgive as God forgives us," Joe said.

Recently, a young man visited the Arizona Memorial shortly after losing his fiance in the World Trade Center attack Sept. 11.

"You're helping me heal," the man told Joe after hearing how a few years after the war Joe met and forgave the Japanese officer who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.

When some visitors learn how infrequently Joe speaks, they walk away believing that they had a divine appointment, Robert said. "They say, 'Hearing the story was the high point of my vacation,'" he added.

Growing up in Little River, Texas, in the 1920s and 30s, Joe felt from the moment that he committed his life to Christ at the age of 6 that God was calling him to preach. He publicly accepted the call as a teenager and began preaching occasionally.

Joe intended to go to college and then seminary, but when he flunked a history class, he dropped out of high school and joined the Navy.

In the Navy, he began to drift from God, living the stereotypical life of the young sailor. He began to drink alcohol, swear, smoke, chew tobacco and stay far away from church.

But even in his rebellion, Joe said, "The Lord never turned me loose all this time. I knew he had a hold of my tail."

The morning of the attack, Joe was on duty on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor when he heard planes approaching. At first he and the other sailors thought the planes were from U.S. aircraft carriers staging a mock attack. Then the sailors heard an explosion.

They thought a plane had crashed until they saw a plane dropping two bombs on a nearby runway. As it pulled out of its dive, they saw the symbol of the Rising Sun and knew Japan was attacking.

Joe admits that his first reaction was fear. He hid behind a tractor wheel as another plane made a strafing pass, but when he realized he was close to a high-explosive magazine, his fear turned to terror and he ran for a safer place.

Back in his hangar, Joe found a place to hide in the recesses of a steel I-beam in the roof. But when he saw other men firing at the planes with pistols and rifles, Joe knew he had to help. Trained to maintain and man machine guns, Joe joined the desperate effort to mount machine guns on planes near the hangar.

Joe manned the last gun mounted and as he fired he became gripped by anger at the attackers. Joe recalled helping to shoot down one of the enemy planes, which eventually went into a kamikaze dive hitting the U.S.S. Curtis. He stayed at the gun throughout the night as the island feared further attacks. Although he didn't suffer any physical wounds, he left the battle scarred by a deep hatred for the Japanese people.

"I think the anger was approved by God but not the hatred that followed," Joe said.

While manning the gun through the night, Joe said, "I promised the Lord that if I lived through the war, I'd get out of the Navy and get my training to be a preacher."

Shortly after the attack, Joe was transferred to another unit on Maui while his previous unit was sent to the South Pacific where it suffered heavy casualties. Joe felt God had a reason for protecting him, and the only wound he carried from the war was his hatred turned animosity for the Japanese.

After the war, Joe kept his promise and left the Navy. He attended Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, where after being inspired by a history professor, made the subject that he flunked in high school his major. After OBU, Joe earned a divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

The war had affected Joe another way. He had fallen in love with the islands and he had fallen in love with Blanche Fernandes, a Hawaii woman who became his wife of nearly 60 years until her death in August. After graduating, he accepted the pastorate at Wailuku Baptist Church on Maui in 1954.

But as he faithfully followed God's call, he also carried his hatred for the Japanese. He never hated Japanese Americans who abound in Hawaii, just those from Japan. Two years into his Wailuku pastorate, Joe heard that Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese naval commander who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, was speaking on Maui.

"He was flying high above my head that day, giving orders to his pilots over the radio," Joe recalls in his written account.

Fuchida, however, had become a Christian after meeting a former prisoner of war who had returned to post-war Japan as a missionary. Joe felt the animosity resurface and didn't know "whether to shake Fuchida's hand or shoot him" if they ever met.

After praying, Joe decided to attend Fuchida's talk.

"God gave me the grace to listen," he recalled.

After the talk, Joe, touched but still unsure of how he felt, introduced himself to Fuchida as a Pearl Harbor survivor. Fuchida bowed slightly, said "Gomenasai [I'm sorry]," and reached out to shake Joe's hand.

At that moment, Joe realized God had changed his heart.

"The anger, hatred and animosity toward this man and his country were gone," Joe said. "It was not how great of a Christian I was, but how great of a God I had."

"We shook hands not as former enemies but as brothers in Christ," Joe says at the close of every presentation on the memorial. "We both had received God's mercy and forgiveness.

"I believe what we both experienced is the answer to bringing peace to the world today."

Joe served several other churches in Hawaii and later returned to the military as a chaplain, including two tours in Vietnam. And he went on to earn a doctor of ministry degree.

He returned to Hawaii to pastor before health problems forced him to retire. He's the chaplain of the Pearl Harbor Survivors and the honorary chaplain of the Arizona Memorial. In addition to sharing about God's work in his life with thousands of visitors, Joe also performs weddings and funerals for survivors and park rangers on the memorial. He shares his testimony through a brochure that he prints at his expense and distributes to anyone who wants one.

Robert often reminds his father of the important "church" Joe serves now at the Arizona Memorial.

"The park rangers adore him," said Robert, an ordained minister, "and to the congregation of tourists he can say whatever he wants to say about how Pearl Harbor changed his life."

They both marvel that Joe is allowed to talk openly about God at a government facility. Because of a loss of short-term memory, Joe can no longer tell his story himself. Instead of a monologue, Robert interviews his father and helps him through rough spots.

Visitors, already moved by Joe's story, are touched even further as they see a son help his father.

In a life that has included the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II, Vietnam, three heart bypass surgeries and a heart attack, Joe agrees with his son that telling his story of what God has done in his life is the only reason he is still alive.

"He's still here," Robert said, "because I believe he has a story to tell that you need to hear."

Just weeks before his death, Reverend Ernest Gordon sat in a darkened theater watching a private screening of the long-anticipated movie about his life. His story illumines the power of forgiveness.

Gordon was serving as a captain in the British army during the Second World War when he was captured by the Japanese and marched with other prisoners into the Southeast Asian jungles. The prison camp, which was constructing a railroad bridge over the River Kwai, would eventually claim the lives of 80,000 men.

The prisoners were forced to work for hours in scorching temperatures, chopping their way through tangled jungles. Those who paused out of exhaustion were beaten to death by the guards. Treated like animals, the men themselves became like beasts trying to survive. Theft was as rampant as hunger and disease among them. Life was met with indifference, deceit, and hatred — by captive and captor alike.

Yet, Gordon lived to tell of hope and transformation in the valley of the River Kwai. In his widely acclaimed book, he gives a firsthand account of the story behind the “death railroad” and the spiritual resurrection of the camp. “Death was still with us,” writes Gordon. “But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. We were seeing for ourselves the sharp contrast between the forces that made for life and those that made for death. Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness and pride were all anti-life. Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity and creative faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life, turning mere existence into living in its truest sense. These were the gifts of God to men. True, there was hatred. But there was also love. There was death. But there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us, calling us to live the divine life in fellowship.”(1) In the valley of the shadow of death, Christ had risen.

God had reconciled their lifeless estates to Himself, such that they found themselves unable to respond to others without a similar inexplicable grace. So complete was the transformation of the men, so real the presence of Christ among them that they were able to reach out even to their captors with the love that had taken hold of them.

While still in the hands of their enemies, a train carrying Gordon and several others came alongside another boxcar at a stop in Burma. The entire car was filled with gravely wounded Japanese soldiers. They were left alone, without medical attention or company, as if abandoned refuse of war. “They were in a shocking state,” Gordon recalls. “The wounded looked at us forlornly as they sat with their heads resting against the carriages waiting fatalistically for death.... These were our enemy.”(2)

Without a word, many of the officers unbuckled their packs, took out part of their rations and a few rags, and with their canteens went over to the Japanese train. The guards tried to prevent them, but they pressed through, kneeling by the side of the injured men with food and water, cleaning their wounds. Eighteen months earlier the same men of the River Kwai prison camp would have celebrated the humiliation and destruction of any on the side of their violent captors. Yet Gordon explains, “We had experienced a moment of grace, there in the bloodstained railway cars. God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and had given us the will to obey his command, 'Thou shalt love.'“(3)

Ernest Gordon left his three years of brutal imprisonment with an unexpected turn in his own story. Among suffering and enemies, God had spoken. Now Gordon could not remain silent. He returned to Scotland to attend seminary, eventually becoming the dean of the chapel of Princeton University where he remained until his death in 2002. Among a valley of dry bones, God had breathed men to life. In the trenches of despair and hatred, the inexplicable love of Christ called enemies — and men — to hope and forgiveness.

________

1. As quoted by Philip Yancey in RUMORS OF ANOTHER WORLD (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 175.

2. Ernest Gordon, MIRACLE ON THE RIVER KWAI (London: Wm. Collins Sons & Co., Ltd., 1963), 162, 163.

3. Ibid., 164.

________

Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

According to singer Elton John, organized religion fuels anti-homosexual discrimination and bias:

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.

"From my point of view, I would ban organized religion. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

Seventeen years of prison and a lifetime of hate, violence and racism is mapped on Steven Neill’s body. Druids, swastikas, skulls and symbols of the occult circle and mesh darkly up his arms and disappear into his shirt. The letters “skinhead” are tattooed across the knuckles of both fists. Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous phrase –- “God is dead” -– stands defiantly in black, inked into his wrist.

But God is very much alive to Neill, pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Mineral Wells, Texas, and his markings weave a visible testimony of a life transformed.

“These are the roadmap of my life story,” he said unashamedly, running a rough hand up his arm. The tattoos are an easy way to share Jesus, just like “Share Jesus Without Fear” -– the witnessing method that stopped Neill in his tracks and led to his salvation.

The hate and resentment came at a young age for Neill, festered in a broken, abusive home and reinforced in Houston’s dangerous 4th Ward district. After a violent conflict with Hispanic gangs, a 13-year-old Neill found brotherhood with a group of American neo-Nazis. The abuse and neglect crystallized into hate as Neill studied the teachings of radical supremacists.

“We were extremely violent and militant,” he said. “We wanted to wage the racial holy war that Nietzsche spoke about.” Needing paramilitary training to advance in leadership, Neill joined the Army. The white supremacist attachments weakened in the discipline of the military until another altercation changed Neill’s life forever.

The fight started as an argument, but “I stabbed him,” Neill said. “Punctured a lung, severed the small intestine. He died four hours later. Aggravated murder with a deadly weapon gave me a 40-year sentence.”

Going to prison catapulted Neill back into his past. “It was a fight for survival,” he said. “I fully embraced my past and became violently racist.”

Following the teachings of Nietzsche, who blamed Christianity and Christians as the cause of all ills, “I was going to do anything I could do to eradicate Christianity,” Neill said. “In prison, society is organized into predators and prey. I was a predator. I could sense without a doubt who was prey.”

Religious lines in prison also were obvious, Neill said. Groups would organize based upon what particular ministries had come in and won converts. Converts were weak prey-types, he said. Some would become emboldened and share their faith, an exercise Neill relished.

“If I couldn’t verbally convince them their faith was wrong, I’d beat them up,” he recounted. “But I didn’t have to do that very much because I knew every bit of anti-Christian philosophy -– and I enjoyed a good argument -– so I would utterly crush them.”

FACED WITH THE TRUTH

Against his will, Neill was signed up to attend a prison ministry weekend. With his attendance now mandatory, Neill decided to be as offensive as possible.

“I’m rude, belligerent and I go off on how hypocritical everyone is at this thing,” Neill said. “I cussed everyone out and stormed off the stage. Then this guy jumps up into the aisle and jabs a finger in my chest.”

Until that moment, Paul Harris had begrudgingly endured the prison outreach. His pastor made him come to the prison. Harris had only recently recommitted his life to God after years of charting his own course. But sitting in the prison yard listening to man after man speak about how much they loved God, feelings of self-condemnation and hypocrisy overwhelmed him.

“And all of a sudden I’m hearing this guy on stage calling us all hypocrites, and I’m agreeing with him. As he’s stomping out, I jump out of my seat and stick my finger right in his chest and say, ‘You’re the reason I’m here!’” Harris said, sensing that he would witness to Neill.

“As a former atheist, I had dabbled in everything he’d been in,” Harris said. “We locked horns that first night. We were both determined to win.”

Neill said he knew he was in a place of heavy discontent. “I came in unhappy, knowing I needed to change. But I went in with a combative attitude and Paul met me on that ground.

“It was intense,” Neill grinned. “Everything he threw at me I had an argument for.”

After an entire day of arguing, Randy Wilson, Harris’ pastor, stepped in and changed the game plan. “I hadn’t read all those books,” Wilson said. “Steven and Paul are both so intelligent. They sat there arguing and contradicting each other with humanistic philosophy. I told Paul it was time to present the Word.”

Wilson is a longtime fan of Share Jesus Without Fear, produced by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. The resource offers three simple steps for sharing the Gospel: Five questions to determine where God is working, seven verses to let the Bible speak for itself -– which the unbeliever reads for himself -– and five questions that lead to the point of discussion.

“What’s so appealing is that it’s not about memorizing a thousand verses and quoting them all,” said Wilson, pastor of Carey Baptist Church, located outside Childress, Texas. “It’s easy. You ask five simples questions; the last is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

“Steven Neill could argue all day against [the Bible], but he’d never read it,” Wilson said. “And so we walked him through this simple process -– with him reading the Scripture for himself. At the end, it’s a simple question: According to what you’ve read, are you a sinner? Steven wouldn’t answer.”

That night back in lockdown, Neill said his life came into view. “I saw my life as it really was. But I saw everything as God would see it. I saw that I had gloried in active rebellion against God.

“There was no relief that night,” he said. “There was no hope. If I was prone to suicide, I would’ve done it that night.”

FREEDOM

Neill said he walked back into the meeting the next morning a broken man. Harris and Wilson could only stare at what was a literal physical transformation. “The darkness was dropping from his face,” Wilson said.

“Randy pulled out his Share Jesus Without Fear Bible and had me read the Scriptures,” Neill said. “By the end, I was bawling like a baby.”

“We didn’t lead Steven to the Lord. We just witnessed to him,” Harris said. “That’s what is so good about Share Jesus Without Fear. When I first used it, it triggered something in me -– it wasn’t about me or what I knew anymore. It was up to the Lord, His Word and the Holy Spirit.”

Neill knows it was the Holy Spirit that opened his eyes that day, but “I think the [SJWF] method is the only way I would’ve gotten there,” he said. “Instead of arguing, I was sitting there reading the Scripture. I’m honest enough with myself to reach for the truth.”

Unable to counter the truth, Neill gave his life to Christ and immediately began a journey of growth. After beginning a Bible study with two other prisoners, the group grew to 26 as lives changed and people began to come to Neill for spiritual matters.

“God wanted something more from me than just going to church,” he said. “He was calling me to something bigger. I was studying Scripture 14-16 hours a day and some amazing things happened. I would dream Scripture passages rolling through my head. I would wake up refreshed, often praying even as I woke up.”

Neill earned a diploma of pastoral ministry through Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s extension program and a diploma in biblical studies through Amherst College. After 17 years in prison, Neill was paroled, and he immediately submitted himself to further discipleship under Wilson. A short time later, Neill was ordained into the ministry.

“I want to see this church walk in freedom,” he said, speaking of Northside Baptist, the small West Texas congregation that accepted him with open arms. “I want them to know they can walk with the vilest of sinners because they have in them He who is stronger than the world. Then, lives will change.”

On June 29, Neill, along with Wilson, ordained Harris as associate pastor of Northside to serve alongside the former prisoner he introduced to the Lord. The foundation of the two men’s ministry is grounded in their mandate to share Jesus with boldness and confidence.

“Bill Fay [the writer of SJWF] truly had a great vision,” Harris said. “I believe it’s probably the best way for witnessing. And Share Jesus Without Fear has affected the mindset of our entire church. I believe it’s going to be a catalyst as we look outward.

“The radical power of God to transform lives is what amazes me,” Harris added. “Jesus was a radical man. And that’s why I love to share the Gospel.”

“There is far more violence in the Bible than in the Qur’an; the idea that Islam imposed itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy wars against Islam.”[1] So announces former nun and self-professed “freelance monotheist,” Karen Armstrong. This quote sums up the single most influential argument currently serving to deflect the accusation that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant: All monotheistic religions, proponents of such an argument say, and not just Islam, have their fair share of violent and intolerant scriptures, as well as bloody histories. Thus, whenever Islam’s sacred scriptures — the Qur’an first, followed by the reports on the words and deeds of Muhammad (the Hadith) — are highlighted as demonstrative of the religion’s innate bellicosity, the immediate rejoinder is that other scriptures, specifically those of Judeo-Christianity, are as riddled with violent passages.

More often than not, this argument puts an end to any discussion regarding whether violence and intolerance are unique to Islam. Instead, the default answer becomes that it is not Islam per se but rather Muslim grievance and frustration — ever exacerbated by economic, political, and social factors — that lead to violence. That this view comports perfectly with the secular West’s “materialistic” epistemology makes it all the more unquestioned.

Therefore, before condemning the Qur’an and the historical words and deeds of Islam’s prophet Muhammad for inciting violence and intolerance, Jews are counseled to consider the historical atrocities committed by their Hebrew forefathers as recorded in their own scriptures; Christians are advised to consider the brutal cycle of violence their forbears have committed in the name of their faith against both non-Christians and fellow Christians. In other words, Jews and Christians are reminded that those who live in glass houses should not be hurling stones.

But is that really the case? Is the analogy with other scriptures legitimate? Does Hebrew violence in the ancient era, and Christian violence in the medieval era, compare to or explain away the tenacity of Muslim violence in the modern era?

Violence in Jewish and Christian History

Along with Armstrong, any number of prominent writers, historians, and theologians have championed this “relativist” view. For instance, John Esposito, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, wonders,

How come we keep on asking the same question, [about violence in Islam,] and don’t ask the same question about Christianity and Judaism? Jews and Christians have engaged in acts of violence. All of us have the transcendent and the dark side. ... We have our own theology of hate. In mainstream Christianity and Judaism, we tend to be intolerant; we adhere to an exclusivist theology, of us versus them.[2]

An article by Pennsylvania State University humanities professor Philip Jenkins, “Dark Passages,” delineates this position most fully. It aspires to show that the Bible is more violent than the Qur’an:

[I]n terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with “texts of terror,” to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. ... If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery.[3]

Several anecdotes from the Bible as well as from Judeo-Christian history illustrate Jenkins’ point, but two in particular — one supposedly representative of Judaism, the other of Christianity — are regularly mentioned and therefore deserve closer examination.

The military conquest of the land of Canaan by the Hebrews in about 1200 B.C.E. is often characterized as “genocide” and has all but become emblematic of biblical violence and intolerance. God told Moses:

But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them — the Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite — just as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.[4]

So Joshua [Moses’ successor] conquered all the land: the mountain country and the South and the lowland and the wilderness slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord, God of Israel had commanded.[5]

As for Christianity, since it is impossible to find New Testament verses inciting violence, those who espouse the view that Christianity is as violent as Islam rely on historical events such as the Crusader wars waged by European Christians between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The Crusades were in fact violent and led to atrocities by the modern world’s standards under the banner of the cross and in the name of Christianity. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, for example, the Crusaders reportedly slaughtered almost every inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the medieval chronicle, the Gesta Danorum, “the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles.”[6]

In light of the above, as Armstrong, Esposito, Jenkins, and others argue, why should Jews and Christians point to the Qur’an as evidence of Islam’s violence while ignoring their own scriptures and history?

Bible versus Qur’an

The answer lies in the fact that such observations confuse history and theology by conflating the temporal actions of men with what are understood to be the immutable words of God. The fundamental error is that Judeo-Christian history — which is violent — is being conflated with Islamic theology — which commands violence. Of course, the three major monotheistic religions have all had their share of violence and intolerance towards the “other.” Whether this violence is ordained by God or whether warlike men merely wished it thus is the key question.

Old Testament violence is an interesting case in point. God clearly ordered the Hebrews to annihilate the Canaanites and surrounding peoples. Such violence is therefore an expression of God’s will, for good or ill. Regardless, all the historic violence committed by the Hebrews and recorded in the Old Testament is just that — history. It happened; God commanded it. But it revolved around a specific time and place and was directed against a specific people. At no time did such violence go on to become standardized or codified into Jewish law. In short, biblical accounts of violence are descriptive, not prescriptive.

This is where Islamic violence is unique. Though similar to the violence of the Old Testament — commanded by God and manifested in history — certain aspects of Islamic violence and intolerance have become standardized in Islamic law and apply at all times. Thus, while the violence found in the Qur’an has a historical context, its ultimate significance is theological. Consider the following Qur’anic verses, better known as the “sword-verses”:

Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way.[7]

Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day, and do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden – such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book – until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled.[8]

As with Old Testament verses where God commanded the Hebrews to attack and slay their neighbors, the sword-verses also have a historical context. God first issued these commandments after the Muslims under Muhammad’s leadership had grown sufficiently strong to invade their Christian and pagan neighbors. But unlike the bellicose verses and anecdotes of the Old Testament, the sword-verses became fundamental to Islam’s subsequent relationship to both the “people of the book” (i.e., Jews and Christians) and the “idolaters” (i.e., Hindus, Buddhists, animists, etc.) and, in fact, set off the Islamic conquests, which changed the face of the world forever. Based on Qur’an 9:5, for instance, Islamic law mandates that idolaters and polytheists must either convert to Islam or be killed; simultaneously, Qur’an 9:29 is the primary source of Islam’s well-known discriminatory practices against conquered Christians and Jews living under Islamic suzerainty.

In fact, based on the sword-verses as well as countless other Qur’anic verses and oral traditions attributed to Muhammad, Islam’s learned officials, sheikhs, muftis, and imams throughout the ages have all reached consensus — binding on the entire Muslim community — that Islam is to be at perpetual war with the non-Muslim world until the former subsumes the latter. Indeed, it is widely held by Muslim scholars that since the sword-verses are among the final revelations on the topic of Islam’s relationship to non-Muslims, that they alone have abrogated some 200 of the Qur’an’s earlier and more tolerant verses, such as “no compulsion is there in religion.”[9] Famous Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) admired in the West for his “progressive” insights, also puts to rest the notion that jihad is defensive warfare:

In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force ... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense ... They are merely required to establish their religion among their own people. That is why the Israelites after Moses and Joshua remained unconcerned with royal authority [e.g., a caliphate]. Their only concern was to establish their religion [not spread it to the nations] ... But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[10]

Modern authorities agree. The Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” by Emile Tyan states that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general ... Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam ... Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad [warfare to spread Islam] can be eliminated.” Iraqi jurist Majid Khaduri (1909-2007), after defining jihad as warfare, writes that “jihad ... is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community.”[11] And, of course, Muslim legal manuals written in Arabic are even more explicit.[12]

Qur’anic Language

When the Qur’an’s violent verses are juxtaposed with their Old Testament counterparts, they are especially distinct for using language that transcends time and space, inciting believers to attack and slay nonbelievers today no less than yesterday. God commanded the Hebrews to kill Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites — all specific peoples rooted to a specific time and place. At no time did God give an open-ended command for the Hebrews, and by extension their Jewish descendants, to fight and kill gentiles. On the other hand, though Islam’s original enemies were, like Judaism’s, historical (e.g., Christian Byzantines and Zoroastrian Persians), the Qur’an rarely singles them out by their proper names. Instead, Muslims were (and are) commanded to fight the people of the book — ”until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled”[13] and to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them.”[14]

The two Arabic conjunctions “until” (hata) and “wherever” (haythu) demonstrate the perpetual and ubiquitous nature of these commandments: There are still “people of the book” who have yet to be “utterly humbled” (especially in the Americas, Europe, and Israel) and “idolaters” to be slain “wherever” one looks (especially Asia and sub-Saharan Africa). In fact, the salient feature of almost all of the violent commandments in Islamic scriptures is their open-ended and generic nature: “Fight them [non-Muslims] until there is no persecution and the religion is God’s entirely. [Emphasis added.]”[15] Also, in a well-attested tradition that appears in the hadith collections, Muhammad proclaims:

I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God; and that they establish prostration prayer, and pay the alms-tax [i.e., convert to Islam]. If they do so, their blood and property are protected. [Emphasis added.][16]

This linguistic aspect is crucial to understanding scriptural exegeses regarding violence. Again, it bears repeating that neither Jewish nor Christian scriptures — the Old and New Testaments, respectively — employ such perpetual, open-ended commandments. Despite all this, Jenkins laments that

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions ... all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in the Qur’an. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized, no less than in the Muslim scripture.[17]

One wonders what Jenkins has in mind by the word “canonized.” If by canonized he means that such verses are considered part of the canon of Judeo-Christian scripture, he is absolutely correct; conversely, if by canonized he means or is trying to connote that these verses have been implemented in the Judeo-Christian Weltanschauung, he is absolutely wrong.

Yet one need not rely on purely exegetical and philological arguments; both history and current events give the lie to Jenkins’s relativism. Whereas first-century Christianity spread via the blood of martyrs, first-century Islam spread through violent conquest and bloodshed. Indeed, from day one to the present — whenever it could — Islam spread through conquest, as evinced by the fact that the majority of what is now known as the Islamic world, or dar al-Islam, was conquered by the sword of Islam. This is a historic fact, attested to by the most authoritative Islamic historians. Even the Arabian peninsula, the “home” of Islam, was subdued by great force and bloodshed, as evidenced by the Ridda wars following Muhammad’s death when tens of thousands of Arabs were put to the sword by the first caliph Abu Bakr for abandoning Islam.

Muhammad’s Role

Moreover, concerning the current default position which purports to explain away Islamic violence — that the latter is a product of Muslim frustration vis-à-vis political or economic oppression — one must ask: What about all the oppressed Christians and Jews, not to mention Hindus and Buddhists, of the world today? Where is their religiously-garbed violence? The fact remains: Even though the Islamic world has the lion’s share of dramatic headlines — of violence, terrorism, suicide-attacks, decapitations — it is certainly not the only region in the world suffering under both internal and external pressures.

For instance, even though practically all of sub-Saharan Africa is currently riddled with political corruption, oppression and poverty, when it comes to violence, terrorism, and sheer chaos, Somalia — which also happens to be the only sub-Saharan country that is entirely Muslim — leads the pack. Moreover, those most responsible for Somali violence and the enforcement of intolerant, draconian, legal measures — the members of the jihadi group Al-Shabab (the youth) — articulate and justify all their actions through an Islamist paradigm.

In Sudan, too, a jihadi-genocide against the Christian and polytheistic peoples is currently being waged by Khartoum’s Islamist government and has left nearly a million “infidels” and “apostates” dead. That the Organization of Islamic Conference has come to the defense of Sudanese president Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, is further telling of the Islamic body’s approval of violence toward both non-Muslims and those deemed not Muslim enough.

Latin American and non-Muslim Asian countries also have their fair share of oppressive, authoritarian regimes, poverty, and all the rest that the Muslim world suffers. Yet, unlike the near daily headlines emanating from the Islamic world, there are no records of practicing Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus crashing explosives-laden vehicles into the buildings of oppressive (e.g., Cuban or Chinese communist) regimes, all the while waving their scriptures in hand and screaming, “Jesus [or Buddha or Vishnu] is great!” Why?

There is one final aspect that is often overlooked — either from ignorance or disingenuousness — by those who insist that violence and intolerance is equivalent across the board for all religions. Aside from the divine words of the Qur’an, Muhammad’s pattern of behavior — his sunna or “example” — is an extremely important source of legislation in Islam. Muslims are exhorted to emulate Muhammad in all walks of life: “You have had a good example in God’s Messenger.”[18] And Muhammad’s pattern of conduct toward non-Muslims is quite explicit.

Sarcastically arguing against the concept of moderate Islam, for example, terrorist Osama bin Laden, who enjoys half the Arab-Islamic world’s support per an Al-Jazeera poll,[19] portrays the Prophet’s sunna thusly:

“Moderation” is demonstrated by our prophet who did not remain more than three months in Medina without raiding or sending a raiding party into the lands of the infidels to beat down their strongholds and seize their possessions, their lives, and their women.[20]

In fact, based on both the Qur’an and Muhammad’s sunna, pillaging and plundering infidels, enslaving their children, and placing their women in concubinage is well founded.[21] And the concept of sunna — which is what 90 percent of the billion-plus Muslims, the Sunnis, are named after — essentially asserts that anything performed or approved by Muhammad, humanity’s most perfect example, is applicable for Muslims today no less than yesterday. This, of course, does not mean that Muslims in mass live only to plunder and rape.

But it does mean that persons naturally inclined to such activities, and who also happen to be Muslim, can — and do — quite easily justify their actions by referring to the “Sunna of the Prophet” — the way Al-Qaeda, for example, justified its attacks on 9/11 where innocents including women and children were killed: Muhammad authorized his followers to use catapults during their siege of the town of Ta’if in 630 C.E. — townspeople had refused to submit — though he was aware that women and children were sheltered there. Also, when asked if it was permissible to launch night raids or set fire to the fortifications of the infidels if women and children were among them, the Prophet is said to have responded, “They [women and children] are from among them [infidels].”[22]

Jewish and Christian Ways

Though law-centric and possibly legalistic, Judaism has no such equivalent to the Sunna; the words and deeds of the patriarchs, though described in the Old Testament, never went on to prescribe Jewish law. Neither Abraham’s “white-lies,” nor Jacob’s perfidy, nor Moses’ short-fuse, nor David’s adultery, nor Solomon’s philandering ever went on to instruct Jews or Christians. They were understood as historical acts perpetrated by fallible men who were more often than not punished by God for their less than ideal behavior.

As for Christianity, much of the Old Testament law was abrogated or fulfilled — depending on one’s perspective — by Jesus. “Eye for an eye” gave way to “turn the other cheek.” Totally loving God and one’s neighbor became supreme law.[23] Furthermore, Jesus’ sunna — as in “What would Jesus do?” — is characterized by passivity and altruism. The New Testament contains absolutely no exhortations to violence.

Still, there are those who attempt to portray Jesus as having a similarly militant ethos as Muhammad by quoting the verse where the former — who “spoke to the multitudes in parables and without a parable spoke not”[24] — said, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.”[25] But based on the context of this statement, it is clear that Jesus was not commanding violence against non-Christians but rather predicting that strife will exist between Christians and their environment — a prediction that was only too true as early Christians, far from taking up the sword, passively perished by the sword in martyrdom as too often they still do in the Muslim world. [26]

Others point to the violence predicted in the Book of Revelation while, again, failing to discern that the entire account is descriptive — not to mention clearly symbolic — and thus hardly prescriptive for Christians. At any rate, how can one conscionably compare this handful of New Testament verses that metaphorically mention the word “sword” to the literally hundreds of Qur’anic injunctions and statements by Muhammad that clearly command Muslims to take up a very real sword against non-Muslims?

Undeterred, Jenkins bemoans the fact that, in the New Testament, Jews “plan to stone Jesus, they plot to kill him; in turn, Jesus calls them liars, children of the Devil.”[27] It still remains to be seen if being called “children of the Devil” is more offensive than being referred to as the descendents of apes and pigs — the Qur’an’s appellation for Jews.[28] Name calling aside, however, what matters here is that, whereas the New Testament does not command Christians to treat Jews as “children of the Devil,” based on the Qur’an, primarily 9:29, Islamic law obligates Muslims to subjugate Jews, indeed, all non-Muslims.

Does this mean that no self-professed Christian can be anti-Semitic? Of course not. But it does mean that Christian anti-Semites are living oxymorons — for the simple reason that textually and theologically, Christianity, far from teaching hatred or animosity, unambiguously stresses love and forgiveness. Whether or not all Christians follow such mandates is hardly the point; just as whether or not all Muslims uphold the obligation of jihad is hardly the point. The only question is, what do the religions command?

John Esposito is therefore right to assert that “Jews and Christians have engaged in acts of violence.” He is wrong, however, to add, “We [Christians] have our own theology of hate.” Nothing in the New Testament teaches hate — certainly nothing to compare with Qur’anic injunctions such as: “We [Muslims] disbelieve in you [non-Muslims], and between us and you enmity has shown itself, and hatred for ever until you believe in God alone.”[29]

Reassessing the Crusades

And it is from here that one can best appreciate the historic Crusades — events that have been thoroughly distorted by Islam’s many influential apologists. Karen Armstrong, for instance, has practically made a career for herself by misrepresenting the Crusades, writing, for example, that “the idea that Islam imposed itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy wars against Islam.”[30] That a former nun rabidly condemns the Crusades vis-à-vis anything Islam has done makes her critique all the more marketable. Yet statements such as this ignore the fact that from the beginnings of Islam, more than 400 years before the Crusades, Christians have noted that Islam was spread by the sword.[31] Indeed, authoritative Muslim historians writing centuries before the Crusades, such as Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri (died 892) and Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (838-923), make it clear that Islam was spread by the sword.

The fact remains: The Crusades were a counterattack on Islam — not an unprovoked assault as Armstrong and other revisionist historians portray. Eminent historian Bernard Lewis puts it well,

Even the Christian crusade, often compared with the Muslim jihad, was itself a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in part also an imitation. But unlike the jihad, it was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory. It was, with few exceptions, limited to the successful wars for the recovery of southwest Europe, and the unsuccessful wars to recover the Holy Land and to halt the Ottoman advance in the Balkans. The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule. ... The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.[32]

Moreover, Muslim invasions and atrocities against Christians were on the rise in the decades before the launch of the Crusades in 1096. The Fatimid caliph Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tariqu’l-Hakim (r. 996-1021) desecrated and destroyed a number of important churches — such as the Church of St. Mark in Egypt and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem — and decreed even more oppressive than usual decrees against Christians and Jews. Then, in 1071, the Seljuk Turks crushed the Byzantines in the pivotal battle of Manzikert and, in effect, conquered a major chunk of Byzantine Anatolia presaging the way for the eventual capture of Constantinople centuries later.

It was against this backdrop that Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) called for the Crusades:

From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks] ... has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion.[33]

Even though Urban II’s description is historically accurate, the fact remains: However one interprets these wars — as offensive or defensive, just or unjust — it is evident that they were not based on the example of Jesus, who exhorted his followers to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”[34] Indeed, it took centuries of theological debate, from Augustine to Aquinas, to rationalize defensive war — articulated as “just war.” Thus, it would seem that if anyone, it is the Crusaders — not the jihadists — who have been less than faithful to their scriptures (from a literal standpoint); or put conversely, it is the jihadists — not the Crusaders — who have faithfully fulfilled their scriptures (also from a literal stand point). Moreover, like the violent accounts of the Old Testament, the Crusades are historic in nature and not manifestations of any deeper scriptural truths.

In fact, far from suggesting anything intrinsic to Christianity, the Crusades ironically better help explain Islam. For what the Crusades demonstrated once and for all is that irrespective of religious teachings — indeed, in the case of these so-called Christian Crusades, despite them — man is often predisposed to violence. But this begs the question: If this is how Christians behaved — who are commanded to love, bless, and do good to their enemies who hate, curse, and persecute them — how much more can be expected of Muslims who, while sharing the same violent tendencies, are further commanded by the Deity to attack, kill, and plunder nonbelievers?

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Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum and author of The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

[1] Andrea Bistrich, “Discovering the common grounds of world religions,” interview with Karen Armstrong, Share International, Sept. 2007, pp. 19-22.

[2] C-SPAN2, June 5, 2004.

[3] Philip Jenkins, “Dark Passages,” The Boston Globe, Mar. 8, 2009.

[4] Deut. 20:16-18.

[5] Josh. 10:40.

[6] “The Fall of Jerusalem,” Gesta Danorum, accessed Apr. 2, 2009.

[7] Qur. 9:5. All translations of Qur’anic verses are drawn from A.J. Arberry, ed. The Koran Interpreted: A Translation (New York: Touchstone, 1996).

[8] Qur. 9:29.

[9] Qur. 2:256.

[10] Ibn Khaldun, The Muqudimmah: An Introduction to History, Franz Rosenthal, trans. (New York: Pantheon, 1958,) vol. 1, p. 473.

[11] Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 60.

[12] See, for instance, Ahmed Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l-Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina (Cairo: Al-Azhar University, 2003).

[13] Qur. 9:29.

[14] Qur. 9:5.

[15] Qur. 8:39.

[16] Ibn al-Hajjaj Muslim, Sahih Muslim, C9B1N31; Muhammad Ibn Isma’il al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari (Lahore: Kazi, 1979), B2N24.

[17] Jenkins, “Dark_Passages.”

[18] Qur. 33:21.

[19] “Al-Jazeera-Poll: 49% of Muslims Support Osama bin Laden,” Sept. 7-10, 2006, accessed Apr. 2, 2009.

[20] ‘Abd al-Rahim ‘Ali, Hilf al Irhab (Cairo: Markaz al-Mahrusa li ‘n-Nashr wa ‘l-Khidamat as-Sahafiya wa ‘l-Ma’lumat, 2004).

[21] For example, Qur. 4:24, 4:92, 8:69, 24:33, 33:50.

[22] Sahih Muslim, B19N4321; for English translation, see Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 140.

[23] Matt. 22:38-40.

[24] Matt. 13:34.

[25] Matt. 10:34.

[26] See, for instance, “Christian Persecution Info,” Christian Persecution Magazine, accessed Apr. 2, 2009.

[27] Jenkins, “Dark_Passages.”

[28] Qur. 2:62-65, 5:59-60, 7:166.

[29] Qur. 60:4.

[30] Bistrich, “Discovering the common grounds of world religions,” pp. 19-22; For a critique of Karen Armstrong’s work, see “Karen Armstrong,” in Andrew Holt, ed., Crusades-Encyclopedia, Apr. 2005, accessed Apr. 6, 2009.

[31] See, for example, the writings of Sophrinius, Jerusalem’s patriarch during the Muslim conquest of the Holy City, just years after the death of Muhammad, or the chronicles of Theophane the Confessor.

[32] Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years (New York: Scribner, 1995), p. 233-4.

[33] “Speech of Urban — Robert of Rheims,” in Edward Peters, ed., The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), p. 27.

[34] Matt. 5:44.

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This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

Jacob de Shazer was sent as one of Jimmy Doolittle’s raiders on the famous bombing attack on Japan in April 1942. He was an atheist, believing in no God. During the air attack his plan was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to bail out. He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and thought certainly his life was approaching the end. He saw two of his companions shot by a firing squad and saw another die of slow starvation. During the long months of imprisonment de Shazer pondered the question of why the Japanese hated him and why he hated them. He began to recall some of the things he had heard about Christianity.

Boldly, he asked his jailers if they could get him a Bible. At first they laughed at him like it was a joke and warned him to stop making a nuisance of himself. But he kept asking. A year and a half later, a guard finally brought him a Bible, flung it at him, and said, “Three weeks you have. Three weeks, and then I take away.” True to his word, in three weeks the guard took the Bible away and de Shazer never saw it again. However, in those three weeks of intensive searching, meditating, and delving into the meaning of life and humanity’s ultimate destiny, a change came about. Later he was released from Japanese captivity and returned to the States. In 1948, de Shazer, his wife, and infant son were on their way back to Japan as missionaries, all because the atheist asked for a Bible and a Japanese guard gave him one for three weeks.

[see also HolwickID #19510]

There was a 12-year-old boy in California who witnessed the murder of his father and the brutal rape-murder of his mother. His life seemed ruined. Sent to a state institution for boys, he was apathetic and withdrawn, and did poorly in his work. Although he was paraded through the offices of several psychologists and attended numerous therapy sessions, nothing seemed to break through the shield of defenses his young mind had thrown up.

Then, shortly after graduation from high school, he attended a church youth meeting and heard the accounts of several young people about the difference Christ had made in their lives, particularly in how they could look beyond trying to get even with people who had sinned against them in some way. He listened intently, naturally, since it touched on his problem. In time he began to grasp this enlightened approach and his life began to turn from the bitter to the better. His personality brightened. Where he had been introverted and withdrawn, he gradually made new friends. He applied to a local college and was admitted. After college, he went on to law school. But he still didn’t have complete satisfaction.

Luckily, he was able to pinpoint the source of his incompleteness - he still harbored a residue of hatred toward the murderer who had killed his parents and messed up his life. He was wise enough to know it had to be dealt with. So, while he was in law school, he arranged to visit the man in prison who had committed what most would call “an unforgivable crime.”

The first visit was not a good one. They were both nervous and had a hard time talking to one another. But the young man was determined, and went back a second time. It proved to be a breakthrough. “I’ve made a bargain with God,” the young law student told the prisoner, “If God will wipe the slate clean for the awful hatred I’ve had for you, I’m willing to personally acquit you for the egregious crime you committed against me.”

The prisoner was astonished ... and deeply moved. It softened his hardened heart and after four more visits broke it open enough to where he wanted the same power that the law student had found. He aimed his life in that direction.

Some years later, when the prisoner was paroled, the law student, now an attorney in Modesto, California, helped him to get a job and start a new life.

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(story told by John Killinger, in sermon, “A Festival of Forgiveness,” printed in THE GOD NAMED HALLOWED, Abingdon, 1988.)

”Rest… from all his enemies.” II Sam. 7:1

It is a most desirable state of affairs, to be at rest from all physical enemies, as David was, at the height of his kingdom. It is even better to have the rest which comes from subduement of thuse spiritual foes which are entrenched in our very nature as members of Adam’s fallen race. It is rest indeed to be saved from fear, pride, jealousy, hate, doubt, care, and from “fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (I Peter 2:11). But how many of us are living in such victorious spiritual rest? Would it not be good to turn this into earnest prayer?

Fear:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over fear — fear of sickness; fear of accident; fear of poverty; fear of persecution; fear of ridicule; fear of loneliness; fear of trials; fear of old age; fear of whatever may be coming on the earth; fear of dying; fear of death itself; fear of the Beyond.

Pride:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over pride — pride in natural gifts; pride in possessions; pride of family; pride in the merely physical; pride in dress; pride of intellect; pride in how I may have excelled others. Dislodge all such vain pride, and instead give me humble gratitude to Thee.

Envy:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over envy — envy of another’s physical appearance, gifts, possessions, advantages; envy of those who seem more blessed or used of Thee than I. Help me be content with what Thou hast purposed or permitted me to be, knowing that in Thee I have all things, and that heaven will perfect all my holiest ambitions.

Hatred:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over hatred — hatred of those who wrong me; hatred of those whose nature is offensive; hatred of those who seem to obstruct my progress; hatred of so-called foreigners; hatred of those linked with heretical sects or non-Christian religions. Give me a true, discreet love for all, a love like Thine, who when the nails were driven through Thy flesh couldst only say, “Father, forgive them… “

Doubt:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over doubt — doubt of my eternal salvation when I am emotionally cold; doubt of Thy promises in Scripture when circumstances seem to negate them; doubt of Thy goodness in permitted sickness or other adversity;doubt of Thy faithfulness if all I have done for Thee seems overthrown by the enemy; doubt of the Gospel when it seems powerless to arrest and save people; doubt of Thy fairness when ironic trouble breaks over Thy sincere people; doubt of Thy sovereignty when evil things happen. May I never forget that the rainbow ever arches Thy throne, and that the God who bled on Calvary can never mock us.

Flesh:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over “the flesh” — over physical desires; over extravagant appetites; over habit-forming ill-tendencies; over every kind of lust; over laziness, self-indulgence, and every form of intemperateness; over headstrong assertiveness; unconsecrated ambition; misuse of the tongue in exaggeration, insinuation, idle gossip, tale-bearing.

Anxiety:

Dear Saviour, give me complete victory over anxiety — anxiety over yesterday’s consequences and tomorrow’s omens; over domestic, business, financial, and all other problems, knowing that in Thee all is fundamentally well with me forever. May my one concern be continual yieldedness to Thee. Then may Thy Holy Spirit so shed Thy love within me that I shall have rest indeed from all these foes.

During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp. When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension.

Finally they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ’s commands. Then they came together.

Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, “What did you do then?” “We were just one,” he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred.

When love prevails among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world as indisputable mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ (Our Daily Bread, October 4, 1992).

When love does not prevail among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world -- well, you know what it presents to the world. The real question is: What will our church present to the world?

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