Monday, November 16, 2009

In this morning's news it was revealed that the Fort Hood shooter, Major Hasan, had discipled an 18-year-old boy. The young man is now spouting anti-US military slogans and claiming to be a radical Muslim. The radical imam with whom Hasan had contact has said that what he did is permissible under the teachings of Islam.

Whereas they are dangerous and must be addressed, the radical slogans of the teen can be understood as an alienated young man looking for identity. Of a more serious nature is the statement of the imam.

I have heard it said that Islam is a violent religion.

I have seen Christians on trial and unrepentant for murdering abortion doctors.

So whose religion is the violent one? To say one is more so reduces the discussion to a matter of degree only, and not nature.

So what is the nature of Islam? What is the nature of Christianity? Perhaps if you got 10 Christians in a room and asked them that question you would get 11 answers. Perhaps with Muslims you would, too. It wouldn't be surprising at all. After all, religous groups of the magnitude of Christians and Muslims comprise so many people that there are bound to be varying interpretations of the tenets of the faith, even radically varying interpretations.

I say the abortion doctor killers are radicalized Christians who have betrayed the true tenets of the faith, though there are Christians who will disagree with me. Many spokespersons for Islam have expressed outrage and betrayal over what Hasan did on November 5th at Fort Hood, and there are imams who disagree with them.

The enemy seems more to be radicalization than religion. Let's not get the two confused.

1 comment:

Kes Yocum said...

Precisely! Any time anything gets to the point of obsession, it gets dangerous. Radicalization, to me, is taking specific tenets to the point of obsession.