Fundamentalist Christianity as Proxy to Fundamentalist Islamic Jihad, Part I

“So the people flouted, when they had blowen trompets: for whé the people had heard the founde of the trompet, they flouted with a great fhoute: and the wall fel down flat: fo the people went vp into the citìe, euerie man fteight before him: and they toke the citie.

And they vtteily deftroyed all that was in the citie, bothe man and woman, yong, and olde, and oxe, and fhepe, and affe, with the edge of the fworde.”
-Iofúa 6:20-21 (Geneva Bible version 1560 AD)

America is a very unique country. It was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution from Europe and, who in turn, founded colonies based on Fundamentalist Christian(1) religious precepts. Over the centuries America has created a unique Christian religious tradition that isn’t seen anywhere else in the Western world. Out of this religious tradition has come a Fundamentalist Christian tradition which holds the Bible as the inherent word of God and has morphed into a politically conservative social and world view. While America and the rest of the modern world has progressed this Fundamentalist Christian tradition has not(2) and has lead to a rigid religious system with a Christian tilt that is essentially harmful to the human mind and body, within this modern day world. At the same time, since the 1950s, there has been a rise in a fundamentalist form of Islam which uses Jihad as a political tool in reaction to the political realities surrounding the ones who hold a Jihadist Islamist(3) world view. Contrary to what many Fundamentalist Christians think and preach these two very distinct forms of religion are essentially very similar in their world, social, and religious views, and in order to understand Fundamentalist Christianity one has to also understand and juxtapose it with Jihadist Islam, and when one looks at Jihadist Islamic reasoning compared to the book of the Qu’ran and Muslim society one can see why Jihadist Islamists reason as they do, and if one contrasts Jihadist Islamic reasoning with Fundamentalist Christianity and it’s reasoning, the concept of Jihadist Islam isn’t as foreign as one might think. And by looking at Fundamentalist Christianity in this light it begs the question of whether such a brand of reasoning should even exist in an American form of Christianity in this day and age and how to answer the Fundamentalist Christian view.

First, on Jihadist Islam. To understand the reasoning of Jihadist Islamists and their hero like status to some in the Middle East one has to juxtapose that onto Fundamentalist Christianity and their reasoning for past actions, especially in the Old Testament, and in turn, this will make one understand Fundamentalist Christianity. What Jihadists Islamists sees in the Middle East is an American presence that has set itself up there since the 1950s when the American government overthrew President Mosaddeq of Iran and installed the American (and secular) friendly Shah in 1953, it also sees American support for what they consider an illegal Middle Eastern (non-Islamic) state that set itself up in 1948, Israel, un-Islamic presence of American troops in the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia, the site of Muhammad’s preaching of Islam and of the number one holy city in Islam, Mecca), and the twice invasion and now occupation of a Middle Eastern country that was the heart of civilization (Iraq). Of course, using violence as one’s driving force for change isn’t agreeable to the temporary Christian mind, but Fundamentalists Christians (if they dare so choose) could justify violence on their religious behalf. Fundamentalist Christians in the United States see the rise of a one world government in an ever secular Europe (the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Criminal Court), they see the destruction of God in public life,(4) they see a Middle East that is controlled by the Devil (Islam), etc. The Old Testament gives Fundamentalist Christians just as much right to attack as the Qu’ran gives Jihadists Islamists. And one step further, the Old Testament also gives Islamic Jihadists an excuse to attack as well. Both the Jihadists Islamists and the Fundamentalist Christians profess that their book is the true infallible word of God, and since it is, it must be acted upon with full fervor. And, hypothetically, if the only text the Jihadist Islamic had (instead of the Qu’ran) was the Christian Holy Bible, he or she too could justify attacks in the name of God, Islam, and Jihad.

Usama Bin Laden has argued that on their attacks of the United States mass civilian casualties are acceptable (despite the Qu’ran’s explanation that no innocent human life shall be killed [yet the Qu’ran isn’t without it’s loopholes]) and with an understanding of the Old Testament this argument can be justified. Looking at Joshua 6:20-21 Yehoshua (a servant and warrior of God) and his troops have surrounded the heathen (or by looking at it through the light of Islam or Fundamentalist Christianity, un-Islamic/un-Christian) city of Yericho and they shouted and their shouts caused the walls of the city to crumble and they then “devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys” They ended up killing everyone in the city whether they were children or old women (save the prostitute who had helped Yehoshua’s spies and her family) and they then burned the city down. Another story about genocide and the justification for the killing of mass innocence is from Numbers 31:7-11 and verses 14-18 when God told Moshe to make war with Midyan and when Moshe amassed an army of 12,000 the Old Testament said:

They did battle against Midyan, as YHWH had commanded Moshe, and killed every male. They killed the kings of Midyan: Evi, Rekem, Tzur, Hur, and Reva, the five kings of Midyan, in addition to others who were slain by them; and they also killed Bil’am son of Be’or with the sword. The children of Yisra’el took the women of Midyan and their little ones captive; and they took their cattle, their flakcs, and all their goods and booty. All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animal...Moshe became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come with service in the war. Moshe said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? These women here on Bil’am’s advice, made the children of Yisra’el act treacherously against YHWH in the affair of Pe’or, so that the plague came among the congregation of YHWH. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

With this understanding at hand one can see that the Jihadists Islamist perspective on the killing of innocent Americans isn’t out of line when it can be compared to a Fundamentalists Christian’s evangelical-infallible-word-of-God interpretation of the Holy Bible. Whether they are women or children, non-combatants or combatants, if they are in the nation that is sinning against God or hurting a nation of God they are the root causes of the problem. The Jihadist Islamist sees America as one of the root causes of the problems in the Middle East, he or she sees that America is propping up dictatorial despots or elected officials whom are viewed as harming Islam(5) so the appropriate action of Jihad almost requires one (or gives cover of innocence for) to kill the innocents of a nation that is your enemy and the enemy of your religion. So mass killing and genocide through the use of unconventional weapons (hijacked airplanes and suicide bombers) and possibly conventional (a nuclear devise) by Jihadists Islamists has a precedent and a justification within Fundamentalist Christianity.

Of coarse, this isn’t the only account in the Bible on the killing of mass innocents, nor is it the only account of the killing of innocents to advance the cause of a people in which the death of innocent people is used as a massive cultural shock to the system they are trying to fight against. The attacks of September 11th against American innocents were supposed to be a huge cultural, and economic, shock to the American system that the Jihadists Islamists were trying to fight against. And it worked almost perfectly; Americans were appalled by the amount of innocent life that was lost and many lashed out not only against the attackers but also against the administration for not preventing the attacks from happening due to a lack of solid intelligence and the stock market took more than a year to fully recover. A perfect example of this in the Bible is in Exodus 12:29-32 during the killing of every innocent firstborn child in Egypt in order to shock the Egyptians and outrage them in order to move the Pharaoh to release the Jews from Egypt:

In the middle of the night YHWH struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of the Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle. And Pharaoh arose in the night, with all his courtiers and all the Egyptians-because there was a loud cry in Egypt; for there was no house where there was not someone dead. He summoned Moshe and Aharon in the night and said, “Up, depart from among my people, you and the children of Yisrael with you! Go, worship YHWH as you said! Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and begone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!”

Looking at this passage with a Fundamentalist Christian perspective (which is that the Torah was written by Moshe and was dictated to by God and therefore it is the infallible word of God and that everything in the Bible is truth and should be heeded by all God fearing Christians) this can easily be interpreted by a Fundamentalist Christian that even though all life is precious, the killing of mass innocents in a country that oppresses you and affronts your Christian values and God can be justified in order to shock the whole cultural and political system to cave into your demands. So supplanting this Fundamentalist Christian perspective on this passage from the Torah onto the Jihadist Islamic who planned the September 11th attacks that killed over 3,000 innocent Americans you can see how the Jihadist Islamic could justify himself in the killing of innocent people. While Usama Bin Laden most definitely didn’t think that this would cause America to cave in to his demands just as the Pharaoh had to Moshe and Aharon he could have used that example in order to justify this political and cultural shock to America in order to catapult his Islamic ideals and demands onto the rest of the world, and most importantly, to the Muslim community.

The Jihadist Islamist perceives that his own fellow Muslims are being hurt by the United States through the actions of the United States in the region of the Middle East and of Muslim Africa. Because the Jihadist Islamist perceives the world as this way, with his people being oppressed and wronged, the Jihadist Islamist justifies that the only way to get results is to strike back, and this too, whether the Jihadist Islamist kills innocents or not can be justified with a Fundamentalist Christian’s perspective of the Bible, an example of this would be in Psalms 137: 6-9:

Remember, O YHWH, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem’s fall; how they cried, “Strip her, strip her to her very foundations!” Fair Babylon, you predator, blessing on him who repays you in kind, what you have inflicted on us; blessing on him who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks!

As with all of the other scriptures of the Bible, in the hands of a Jihadist Islamist whom looks at the Bible with a Fundamentalist Christian perspective (and even a Fundamentalist Christian whom would want to justify such acts Biblically) the Jihadist would and could justify revenge against America for it’s actions in the United States and he could also justify the destroying of innocent children in the process as it inflicts pain upon the enemy and is payback for the death of his own Muslim children.

Notes:

1. I use the term “Fundamentalist Christian/Christianity” to denote a certain type of form of Christianity. I put the moniker “Fundamentalist” before the term “Christian/Christianity” in order to state that for someone who holds a Fundamentalist Christian view they actually practice Fundamentalism with a capital F before they practice Christianity. By Fundamentalist Christian I actually mean a much broader term of people then one might think: This is anyone who holds the view that the Bible is the inherent word of God written down verbatim and that all of its precepts must be followed and one who holds a conservative political outlook.
2. By that I mean it hasn’t progressed in a “progressive” fashion. It has progressed, but only internally, within the Fundamentalist Christian community in order to answer to the questions of the outside world.
3. I too use the term “Jihadist Islamist/Islam” to denote a certain type of form of Islam. I put the moniker “Jihadist” in front of “Islamist/Islam” in order to state that for someone who holds a Jihadist Islamist view they put the practice and thought of Jihad before the practice of Islam. As supposed to Fundamentalist Christian, Jihadist Islamist is a much narrower term: This is anyone who ascribes to the view that they must wage a “Holy War” or Jihad against an enemy in the view that God wants them to take innocent life in His name.
4. The ACLU suing city governments on the removal of nativity scenes near public buildings, no more prayer in public school, Roe v. Wade, an increase in religious tolerance in America with the rise of immigrants and therefore causing the worship of God to “backslide”, etc.
5. The House of al Saud which rules Saudi Arabia, President Mubarak of Egypt, President Karzai of Afghanistan, etc.