My Response To ISIS

I should begin by confessing that I am not an expert on most of what I am going to say. I don’t know much about foreign policy. I barely know geography. Even as a pastor and hack theologian, I don’t feel adequate to offer anything so sweeping as a "Christian response” or suggestion to billions of people on what they should believe or do. All I can offer is how I feel and what I plan to do. I hope you find this helpful, and I’m sorry if you don’t approve.

Job’s friends got it right, in the beginning at least. When disaster struck him they initially sat silent with him for seven days and seven nights, too stunned to utter a word. I believe this practice remains within some communities of Judaism and is called sitting shiva (sitting seven). Many of us could learn from this. In our world we are all too quick to talk, judge, and make plans. We seem particularly ready to do this when something awful happens. And yet, I am typically too stunned to move.

Such has been the case for me with ISIS. I simply can’t come to grips with what seems to be pure evil. And yes, the beheadings have done it for me. Maybe more than the beheadings, it’s the idea that there are videos of the beheadings on Facebook. All Facebook is right now is ice water bucket challenges and beheadings. The attempts by some to raise awareness about and funding to research and cure a horrific disease right next to a medieval form of murder. One group attempting to bring life while another spreads death. I must say that the idea of beheading has been too much for me. I never could have imagined that in the twenty-first century people would still consider cutting off someone’s head. Clearly I’ve given humans too much credit. I should also say, for the sake of transparency, that I recently uttered similar words about the fact that the governor of the state I’ve lived in almost all of my life has suggested the return of execution by the electric chair. I can’t believe that humans living now want to rush so quickly to barbarism, and that’s what I consider both forms of death to be.

I believe in the ethics of Christian nonviolence. First, let me say what this doesn’t mean to me. It doesn’t mean that I will not react in defense if someone starts attacking me or someone in front of me. Certainly I would do all I could to defend anyone from attack by using whatever means necessary. I would not seek to kill the attacker, but let the chips fall where they may. Obviously, this is a theoretical and theological position of mine, and I have no earthly idea how I would react in the moment. If you’re honest, you probably don’t either.

While considering what is happening with ISIS and other organized murders, I am deeply tempted to ditch the approach to nonviolence and pursue other avenues. Angry quotes and lines from movies come to mind. One that I rush to quickly I remember hearing for the first time from a character in the movie “Needful Things” - “Kill them all. Let God sort them out.” I later learned that the derivation of this quote likely came from a pope during the Crusades. Deep down I want someone to gather a posse and rush in like Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer at the end of “Tombstone.” Of course it was helpful that they were killing anyone who wore a red sash. It’s nice when “enemies” self-select and are easily identifiable. Hitler with a his famous mustache and swastika armband. Sadly evil is everywhere, particularly lurking within each one of us.

So here are my biggest problems with these approaches and all approaches that employ violence: I don’t think they ultimately solve anything. Violence tends to make things worse. Jesus rejected such methods.

I was speaking with a friend the other day about all this, and I confessed that if I thought it was possible to round up everyone who would do things like this and get rid of them, it’s hard for me to resist this option. But we both agreed this isn’t possible. Yes, killing someone assures that that person will not kill again. Yippee! What about the next killer and the next and the next. Don’t overlook the fact that in the process of killing these people you make more people killers, because the people who kill killers are themselves killers. There seem to be differences, but I have never taken a life. There is also little difference to those left behind, and this can lead to ideas of vengeance and blood feud which are just as real today as they were for the Hatfields and McCoys. One of the sayings I believe more than any other is that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” I believe King would allow the substitution of the word “violence” for “hate” and agree that the same is true. And of course, let us not forget how he died - an hour away from my hometown I should confess.

My primary reason for clinging to a belief in nonviolence and all I believe is my understanding of Jesus. I cannot find Jesus suggesting or condoning the use of violence. I know there are a few passages that hint at his use of or openness to violence, but I am not convinced by them contextually, and I’m overwhelmingly convinced that he did not fight back when he was arrested and executed, in perhaps the most barbaric fashion, for crimes he did not commit.

What I see Jesus doing more than anything is going to places of deepest brokenness and offering healing. For those of us who believe in the incarnation, this is of course what God is doing in Jesus by coming into the world. And so, the only response I can imagine is to try my best to follow suit. I don’t believe that anyone is born wanting to decapitate someone else. I think violence and brutality and hate and abuse are taught. I simply cannot fathom wanting to kill someone, let alone purposefully and in such a horrific manner. And I think underneath my inability to fathom such things lies the best response I can find. I cannot imagine this and yet the man (I assume) in the black mask can. I believe that we both came into the world the same way, and yet we seem to have come into different worlds. He clearly came into a world where at some point something happened to cause everything within him to reject love, beauty, and hope. His very humanity seems, to me, gone. I can’t help but focus on what might have happened to cause him to wield a sword when I want to do anything but. And above all, I can only believe that if I were in his place and he in mine, things might be different. I think that context matters a great deal.

Yesterday I heard John Perkins speak. I had heard of him many times, but this was my first occasion to meet him. I encourage you to look him up and learn his story. Perkins is 84 years old, but when he was quite young his brother was killed by police officers in Mississippi, and John was beaten severely as well. I can imagine that this could have turned him into a murderer. In fact, he confessed that after this happened to him if he had possessed an atomic bomb, none of us would be here. And yet, he turned away from hate and toward forgiveness and love and has spent his life advocating for reconciliation, particularly among people of different races. I want to be a person who shares love and peace in the lives of those about to turn to violence.


Later today I am going to meet with someone who facilitates tutoring and mentoring programs through a church in the city where I live. I plan on volunteering in these programs and sharing this opportunity with the university students I work with and many others. I hope that by being involved in this program and others like it I can offer the love of Christ to those who might be on the brink of disaster. Regardless, I believe that the Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. Of course, we didn’t know what to do with someone who was perfect love and the way, truth, and life. So, turning to the only solution we tend to understand, we killed God. I often wonder if God expected that or not. Ultimately, that’s not the final issue for me because it wasn’t the final act of the story. Look what happens next: resurrection. The final word is that love, joy, peace, and life win. Thanks be to God.