{"id":336,"date":"2014-11-14T23:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T23:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=336"},"modified":"2014-11-14T20:57:50","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T20:57:50","slug":"isis-islam-lords-resistance-army-christianity-extremism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/11\/isis-islam-lords-resistance-army-christianity-extremism.html","title":{"rendered":"ISIS isn’t Islamic, as the Lord’s Resistance Army isn’t Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sans la logique, on a des opinions, on a pas de croyances.<\/em><\/p>\n

Without logic, we have opinions, we have no beliefs.<\/p>\n

Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above: Joseph Kony and top officers from\u00a0his “Lord’s Resistance Army”.\u00a0Would\u00a0the Christians who think Islam is a violent religion first like to apologize for unleashing\u00a0these terrorists\u00a0on innocent people in Uganda and the former Sudan?<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I\u00a0drafted\u00a0an essay aiming to counter the intellectually suffocating and racist\u00a0Islamophobia\u00a0that leads right-wing pundits (including atheist celebrities Sam Harris and Bill Maher<\/a>) in the US and Europe to label Islam as a terrorist religion incompatible with democracy. Their\u00a0depiction of Muslims as inherently the most\u00a0militant and Islamic\u00a0doctrine as the most responsible for violence tacitly\u00a0depicts\u00a0Christians as less prone to violent extremism\u00a0than Muslims, and is both fraudulent and racist for a multitude of reasons.<\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, the world has indeed witnessed the horrors of self-proclaimed Christian terrorists and warlords, often on a larger and more horrifying scale than supposedly Islamic-inspired terrorism.<\/p>\n

Because Christian terrorism and war crimes were\u00a0confined mostly to Africa, they have\u00a0gone sadly unnoticed among the public in the United States and Europe, whose closet racism leads\u00a0them to not acknowledge African Christendom as part of Christendom\u00a0or a region\u00a0we should be concerned about. Sam Harris and Bill Maher can be counted among those racist, lazy intellectuals, as they\u00a0are helping to suffocate chances of a\u00a0helpful conversation on the true threat of the religious extremism within all\u00a0faith communities. They speak as if they have an informed\u00a0and\u00a0cosmopolitan understanding of all the ideological threats in the world today, yet\u00a0they offer nothing but\u00a0bigotry and slander.<\/p>\n

“Christian” terrorism is alive and well. In the Central African Republic, horrific war crimes committed by Christian extremists against Muslim civilians have taken place\u00a0even this year. They have even been reported to include cannibalism<\/a>. Is this cannibalism Christian, and is it my\u00a0right to accuse Christianity of cannibalism and the use of child soldiers in the way\u00a0people like Bill Maher and Sam Harris\u00a0accuse Islam of terrorism and repression?<\/p>\n

It\u00a0would be\u00a0offensive and lazy for an intellectual to really depict the people committing atrocities in the CAR as somehow demonstrating\u00a0the danger\u00a0of Christian doctrine, just as it is hurtful\u00a0and inaccurate\u00a0to depict\u00a0rogue bands of extremists\u00a0committing atrocities in Iraq or Syria as representatives of Islam. However, when faced with the continued false discourse against Islam, which depicts this\u00a0particular\u00a0theology as\u00a0a source of terrorism, there lies shock value in giving\u00a0Islamophobes in the Christian community a taste of their own medicine.\u00a0If Christians\u00a0want to\u00a0challenge\u00a0Muslims regarding\u00a0the rise of groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, then Christians\u00a0must also\u00a0apologize for the mass murders and mutilations\u00a0perpetrated by\u00a0the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. This is the true absurdity of accusing whole religious traditions\u00a0of\u00a0the crimes of specific warlords and armies.<\/p>\n

It is my understanding that any\u00a0attack on a whole religion simply for supplying theological ideas to a sect\u00a0is a\u00a0slippery slope. It\u00a0is no harder to blame one religion for the crimes of a few fanatics than it is to blame another. Do not be misled by the\u00a0anti-Islamic mainstream media, which is much\u00a0too fast\u00a0to label terrorism “Islamic”, and yet\u00a0hesitant to point out the Christian faith\u00a0of so many terrorists and warlords.<\/p>\n

To actually discredit illegitimate and violently imposed religious movements, be they “jihad”\u00a0groups like the so-called Islamic State (also known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL and Da’ish) or “crusade” organizations like Uganda’s\u00a0Lord’s Resistance Army, one must call attention to their reverence\u00a0of illegitimate\u00a0leaders and idols and their misrepresentations of their own religious doctrines. This is the shortest\u00a0and most devastating\u00a0way to expose these false movements and unite\u00a0local populations against their lies and blasphemies.<\/p>\n

\n

By Harry J. Bentham
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HJB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sans la logique, on a des opinions, on a pas de croyances. Without logic, we have opinions, we have no beliefs. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray Above: Joseph Kony and top officers from\u00a0his “Lord’s Resistance Army”.\u00a0Would\u00a0the Christians who think Islam is a violent religion first like to apologize for unleashing\u00a0these terrorists\u00a0on innocent people in Uganda and the former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,71,37,72,67,66,3,70,56,15,69],"tags":[208,205,203,206,210,207,79,78,173,175,209,197,201,202,204,200,85],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-2","category-conflict-resolution","category-history","category-international-relations","category-middle-east","category-politics-2","category-religious-studies","category-religious-violence","category-uk","category-us","category-violence","tag-bill-maher","tag-boko-haram","tag-central-african-republic","tag-christian-extremism","tag-christianity","tag-daesh","tag-isil","tag-isis","tag-islam","tag-islamic-state","tag-islamism","tag-islamophobia","tag-lords-resistance-army","tag-lra","tag-nigeria","tag-religious-violence-2","tag-violence-2"],"yoast_head":"\nISIS isn't Islamic, as the Lord's Resistance Army isn't Christian - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/11\/isis-islam-lords-resistance-army-christianity-extremism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ISIS isn't Islamic, as the Lord's Resistance Army isn't Christian - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sans la logique, on a des opinions, on a pas de croyances. Without logic, we have opinions, we have no beliefs. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray Above: Joseph Kony and top officers from\u00a0his “Lord’s Resistance Army”.\u00a0Would\u00a0the Christians who think Islam is a violent religion first like to apologize for unleashing\u00a0these terrorists\u00a0on innocent people in Uganda and the former…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/11\/isis-islam-lords-resistance-army-christianity-extremism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-14T23:00:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-14T20:57:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/migration_catalog\/article5240182.ece\/alternates\/w460\/p26-lords-resistance-army.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. 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