Christians as “Soft Targets”
Admin: Catholic but good read. I presume we are adults here!
Yes the NT is violence free. The OT however is not. It contains brutal violence that would rise to a similar level of what we see from ISIS today (murdering women/children, etc. during the conquest of Canaan all sanctioned by God). Granted Christians can understand the difference between the OT and NT (though it is still a difficult thing to grapple with) but the world at large would find it very easy to conclude that Christianity’s Bible condones violence just as Muslim teaching does.
As to whether Islam is violent religion, it is interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the US and Europe do in fact reject violence. Study after study shows that. I do not deny that the radical fringe of Islam does not seem to have a counterpart in Christianity.
These are two points that I think Christians should at least acknowledge when discussing this topic. The Trump rhetoric against Muslims sounds good but it is not so simple.
[GregH]Yes the NT is violence free. The OT however is not. It contains brutal violence that would rise to a similar level of what we see from ISIS today (murdering women/children, etc. during the conquest of Canaan all sanctioned by God). Granted Christians can understand the difference between the OT and NT (though it is still a difficult thing to grapple with) but the world at large would find it very easy to conclude that Christianity’s Bible condones violence just as Muslim teaching does.
As to whether Islam is violent religion, it is interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the US and Europe do in fact reject violence. Study after study shows that. I do not deny that the radical fringe of Islam does not seem to have a counterpart in Christianity.
These are two points that I think Christians should at least acknowledge when discussing this topic. The Trump rhetoric against Muslims sounds good but it is not so simple.
Good point and see this
http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2015/12/08/a-crash-cou…
[Joeb]Churches as targets seems extremely unlikely to me—at least with regard to international terrorist tactics. Terrorism within Muslim nations frequently targets churches (as in Indonesia here), though the tactic waxes and wanes. But I don’t see them taking that strategy in the States. For one, I have a suspicion that it would help to turn moderate Muslim sympathies even further against them.My question is how should we as Country respond if ISIS were to do coordinated attacks on say 5 US Christian churches. It is not out of the realm of possibility. Such an attack, God forbid it ever hppening, would benefit ISIS, because it could lead to pressure to put US boots on the ground. ISIS wants this and we would be in Iraq again for another 10 years along with being in Syria. All Security Analysts say this would be bad idea. To me the only way to do it if we did would be to attack all of them all at once in all the countries they are in if the path of ground troops were chosen otherwise your just swatting a nest of fire ants that just keep coming back. Even doing it all around at once could lead to the same result. I guess as a Country we would have to do the best action we could and as Christians know that all things are in his hands.
Discussion