Athanasius wrote: His article is well written and well thought out. However, I believe he failed miserably in achieving anything worthwhile. For example the Christian response of loving ones neighbours and enemies is completely void from his sermon. Why is that? Not even a passing reference to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount???

I suspect the reason is because it would fall under the header of ‘appeasement’ of which Mr Durie dismisses with the utmost frivality. In such a long article he mentiones appeasement in the following words:

“One natural consequence of fear is appeasement. We see the tactics of appeasement in international diplomacy today. The allies want to go after terrorists, whilst keeping Muslim nations on side as much as possible. To do this they must deny that the terrorists acted as Muslims, and the problem is their terrorist, not their religion. This puts Islam beyond critique.”

Thats it. For him appeasement is fear, running scared, etc. I believe that he has totally missed the point of a peaceful response to Islamicists and by doing so has totally missed the point of the Sermon on the Mount with regard to how to respond to enemies.

Christians are not called to war. It is Jewish and Islamic religions that demand an “eye for an eye” not us! Christians are NOT called to bomb cities and civilians. Ok, a case can and may be made that secular governments wield the sword to defend their peoples, true, but this has naught to do with Christianity. If Christian men go to war it is as faithful and patriotic members of their secular societies and NOT as Christian soldiers and in every case sin is not lacking anyway. I remind you of the last time Christian soldiers went off to war to fight Islam during the Crusades, the Christians lost btw. At that time there were clear lines of demarcation, clear localities of where the enemy resided, clear positions of attack and defense. Armies met in the field of battle. We today do not face that situation. There are perhaps one million islamic people in this country alone Rowland, spread out in all communities and cities. In britain the number is higher, and in America as well. Is it wise for religious men to preach sermons of a religious war (as Mr Durie mentioned) when the enemy is WITHIN???

Let alone the fact that 200 million muslims live only hours away to our north! Do we think that we are immune to the ravages of insurgencies, invasions and mass forced conversions just because we are white anglo-saxons? Lord have mercy.

Appeasement is not weakness for the Christian. Need I remind you of the Lord Christ who ‘appeased’ his captors, of St Paul and St Peter, of St James and St Stephen the first martyr? Christian blood that is shed for honourable reasons is undefiled and holy. Would we consider St Paul holy if instead of being let out of the city over the wall in a basket he rather formed a small group of Christian insurgents and slaughtered the enemy in their beds at night?

Let governments respond how they have to for surely “they wield the sword as ministers of Christ.” But let the Christians respond in the way of Christ. by forgiveness, by love and by offering the right hand of friendship. This response is not one of fear but of strength borne of Christ. Let us keep seperate the Church and the State, for surely history shows us that a Church State creates horrible events like inquisitions, stifling of science, burning of heretics and crusades doomed to failure from the start.

Would I amend any of Mark Durie’s approach, of yes I think I would. I would Christianise it. But then who am I?

Peace and grace to you and yours.

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My response:

Athanasius, you make some good points, but in what way does anything above relate to anything Durie actually said?

The basic point of Durie’s article is EXACTLY that simplistic responses to Islam – which Durie labels “paranoid response” and “naivety” – are ill fated and that an alternative strategy of informed critique is necessary.

I don’t read Durie as offering a stark choice between EITHER “appeasment” OR conflict.

But yes it raises two broad questions…

This morning I’m preaching on Loving one’s Enemies – Matthew 5: 38ff. This involves two attitudes: confronting reality, and love/forgiveness. We must not sacrifice one for the other. (The aim of ‘tough love’ if you like).

Sometimes the *loving* thing is to help an enemy face the reality of their abusive behavior (was it C S Lewis who said there are four categories of people who engage in remedial/healing, loving discipline – the surgeon, the magistrate, the parent and the teacher?)

But leaving out the love/forgiveness dimension may produce shame. I’m still looking for a decent article which exposes the *core* of the Islamic terrorism problem as shame.

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Shalom! Rowland Croucher