Christianity and Terrorism
Is It Morally Justified To Kill People?
Horacio Narvaez
Dr. Carlos Piar
December 2, 2015
RST-383
The dictionary defines terrorism as the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. Jessica Stern’s Terror in the Name of God Why Religious Militants Kill, the author defines terrorism as an act or threat of violence against noncombatants with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating, or otherwise influencing an audience (Stern, xx). Terrorism has been around us for decades, if isn’t here in the United States, terrorism is everywhere internationally. Adolf Hitler’s attacks on the Jewish people, the bombings at Pearl Harbor (that led the United States into World War II), the 1993 bombings at the World Trade Center, the shooting at Columbine High School, the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks (that led to the beginning of the War Against Terrorism), the mass shooting at Virginia Tech University, the Boston Marathon bombings, the Turkey Peace Rally Bombing, to the Russian plane being shot down (killing everyone on board), to the recent attacks in Paris, France and in Kenya, where an Islamic gunmen killed one-hundred forty-seven innocent students. Terrorism is everywhere around us. According to The National Counterterrorism Center, there are about forty terrorist groups around the world. Abu Nidal Organization, Al-Qa’ida, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) are a few well-known terrorist groups around the world. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is the well-known terrorist group as of right now in our society. The world cannot coexist with terrorism, terrorism has to be stop. The killing of innocent people is not a right for terrorist groups to focus on especially if it has to do with the religion of the people getting murder.
Religion can be the inspirational reason for people’s hypothetical attacks on innocent people. Their belief can also make them fearless within the face of death, in a way they know they’re doing a job that does not guarantee a future. In today’s society, whenever terrorism occurs here at home or abroad in different parts of the world, much of the attention is constantly connected to the Muslim Community. The question asked is, why the Muslim Community? Is it their religion (Islam) they believe in? Muslims believe that there is one GOD, which is the Allah. One of the Muslims beliefs is the Jihad. BBC defines Jihad as a struggle or effort, and it means much more than the Holy War. How does the Quran (Muslim Community Bible) affect attacks on the innocent people? What does Al-Qa’ida and ISIS have to do with all of these attacks? Are killing innocent people morally justified in the eyes of the Christian community? Jessica Stern’s Terror in the Name of God Why Religious Militants Kill, the author states in her preface, religious terrorism arises from pain and loss and from impatience with God who is slow to respond to our plights, who don’t answer (Stern, xi).
One of the Muslim doctrines is the Jihad, an Arabic word meaning the Holy struggle against unbelievers of the Islamic religion. Sarah Ahmad’s The True Spirit of Jihad, the author talks about “non-Muslims” fearfully regard it as an Islamic practice that aims to wage ‘Holy War’ against all disbelievers, to convert them to Islam or to kill them (Ahmad). However, the only pathway to heaven for Muslim believers is killing and being killed in jihad. The concept of jihad however does create an ethical struggle for certain people in the Muslim Community. There cannot be a Christian Jihad, only a Muslim Jihad. In addition to Jihad, the Muslim Community follow five pillars. John MacArthur’s Terrorism, Jihad, and The Bible, the author talks about the five duties, also known as the five pillars of Islam. The five pillars are, the first duty is the recitation of the Islamic declaration of faith, known as the Shahadah. A second duty is the duty of prayer five times a day. A third duty is charity (known as Zakat). A fourth duty is the annual fast – actually a month of fasting – called Ramadan. A fifth duty, required of every Muslim at least once (unless it is utterly impossible by some restraint), is a pilgrimage to Mecca, called the hajj (MacArthur, 36-38). These five duties of the Islamic religion shows the theology and the practice of the religion.
September Eleven Two Thousand and One is consider one of the worst days known in American History. Roughly three thousand innocent people lost their lives that day due to the sickening terrorists’ attacks on the United States of America. Behind these attacks was Osama Bin Laden, the notorious leader of the Al-Qa’ida organization. Bin Laden was the architect behind the Nine-Eleven attacks; his organization had a view, a view that has failed back in nineteen ninety-three. This would be the second time he would attack New York. In a cold afternoon in the year nineteen ninety-three, Bin Laden and his organization bombed the World Trade Center; it did damaged but not as bad as his two thousand and one attacks. Al-Qa’ida’s main focus was to destroy the World Trade Center. Was it because of all the different cultures that worked there? Was it because it was the heart and soul of New York City, the biggest city in America? Was Al-Qa’ida’s focus on destroying the political views of the United States or the religion of the innocent people working at the Trade Centers? Bin Laden and his organization sent a message, a message receive just not by the American people but people from different parts of the world.