Many secular Westerners have great difficulty in dealing with world conflicts because they ignore the religious foundations or motives for such conflicts. Yes, there are also ethnic motives, and they may overlap with religious motives, but I want to write on the religious motives. The famous liberal Christian thinker Paul Tillich defined faith as “Ultimate Concern,” the foundational motive that drives us. People are inherently religious. This includes humanistic people. Yes, we can note people whose god is “self” and whose drive is for their own ease and pleasure. But many people have to live for something more. maybe some false idea of seeking justice which they define as equality. In this regard, the United States Supreme Court defied “Secular Humanism” as a religion. (Torcaso v Watkins (1961). Of course, there are different secular humanisms from classical Marxism to the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. Marx presented a prophetic vision and an eschatology that led to a glorious age of peace, accord, and prosperity. It is very religious and the commitments to it were at a religious commitment level. When it failed a famous book, “When Prophecy Fails.” was applied to Marxism.
Ayn Rand looked for a utopia from free enterprise and one ethical norm, “Do no harm.” The god of Ayn Rand is the entrepreneur who creates wealth for all as part of a democratic free society. (See Atlas Shurgged.) Today we see that commitment to abortion rights, the LGBTQ agenda, and transsexualism are all based on religious views and levels of commitment. The passions of these movements show religious commitment. The great philosopher Herman Dooyweeerd showed such religious motives as being ubiquitous. We see religious motives in the persecution of Christians by Hindus in India, though Hindus do not seek to conquer the world.
However, this essay is not mostly about the issue of world views and religious motives in general. It is rather that our Western leadership, when not committed to Biblical faith fails again and again to credit and understand the religious motives of world conflicts and why such religious motives, when sick and evil, need to be confronted head-on. Western diplomats wrongly think that if they go beneath the surface one will find Western values, in the Arab, the Chinese Communist, or the Iranian jihadist. They think they can get a hold of that and find peace, but often the ideologies are only defeated in a great defeat in war or by religious conversion. The Chinese Communists suppress free speech and Christianity because they want no competition to their religious idealogy. It parallels the Catholics who used violence to shut down Protestant orientations in the old religious wars.
I want this essay to emphasize the Middle East and Islam. We will never grasp what we face unless we absorb the hard truth that for Islamic fascists or jihadists, there is a religious motive to destroy Israel and to take Jerusalem. Nothing else will do and the honor of Mohammed and the god of Islam requires war and strategy to accomplish this whether it takes a year or a hundred years. All that was in the ruling territory of Islam (Dar Al Islam) has to be recovered. This means recovering Spain for Islam and parts of Southern and South East Europe. From there, Islam must go forward to conquer the world. We see such motives now in the immigrant Muslim populations of Western Europe. Yes, there are reformed Muslims who do not share this worldview. They build their Islam on the more peaceful passages of the Koran. They exist. But the conquering and violent passages are ubiquitous and when movements arise to return Isralm to faithfulness to its origins some will return to violent jihad. Unless we understand that Israel is up against religious warriors, we will not face what is necessary to fight and overcome this evil religion. It will take true propaganda and military might. Those arrayed against Israel, Iran, its proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and West Bank radicals. The Houthis, Iraqi jihadists, and jihadists in Syria, all share this foundational religious motive. It explains why Gazan mothers are happy for their children to be trained to be martyrs. Because the Devil is behind this ideology, prayer must be a central part of the strategy for Christians.
It is my conviction that only Biblical faith provides the orientation and strength to defeat the evil worldviews that are opposed to us. The teaching of Yeshua does not order us to conquer the world by the sword but by the very powerful signs and wonders Gospel of the Kingdom. Only the Gospel can defeat the ideologies of evil. When we speak of the Gospel, however, we are speaking of more than just the offer of personal salvation through receiving Yeshua as personal savior. The Gospel of the Kingdom is more robust and declares Yeshua as Lord over all spheres of society. This understanding of the Gospel was foundational to the Evangelical Harvard, Wheaton College. Its founder, Jonathan Blanchard, wrote the Wheaton motto, “For Christ and His Kingdom,’’ that Wheaton would raise up leaders for every sphere of life, to influence all spheres to embrace biblical norms. It was what compelled Blanchard and Wheaton to join the anti-slavery fight and to be part of the underground railroad for escaped slaves. It also compelled Charles Finney. Decades later when Abraham Kuyper became Prime Minister of Holland, he echoed Blanchard and declared that it was his vision that the Law of God would become the Law of the Land. Kuyper’s embrace of the Gospel of the Kingdom did not reject religious freedom and held a sacred place for the conscience of the individual.
Today we see a return to Blanchard’s and Kuyper’s views from those who argue that the Gospel of the Kingdom must seek to influence the seven mountains of culture leadership and formation. As Kuper said, Yeshua claims every square inch of human civilization and there is not one square inch that He does not claim as Lord. This should not be understood as conquering the world before or without the return of Yeshua, which Kuyper did not believe nor did Campus Crusade’s Bill Bright who embraced the Seven Mountains vision.
When we deal with the Middle East we are dealing with international law and relationships.
In my view, only the right Biblical faith, understanding the Gospel of the Kingdom, is best and clear enough to overcome the evil religious motivations of Islamic Fascism, Communism, the religion of LGBTQ ism, transgenderism, abortion and child sacrifice, and more. All of these orientations are foundationally religious. Hence the energy behind them. Only Biblical faith is adequate to defeat them, signs and wonders Gospel of the Kingdom.