Terrorism, Jihad, And The Bible

Rating:
Summary: Forgive me, for I am a sinner.....
Review: I don't know any of the men who flew those planes into the Trade Center towers. Never met them. Even if I did, I would have no right to pass judgment on them. And when I say judgment, I'm referring to their hearts. I can't judge their hearts. John Macarthur can't judge their hearts. Only God can judge their hearts. What's my authority for such an unpopular statement? The Bible. When I read my Bible, I see many times the command to look inward, to judge your own actions and sins. To remove the plank from your own eye. Likewise, a nation must look inward and judge its own actions and sins. We have many foreign policies that cause people of the world to suffer. People who live in disadvantaged parts of the world. They don't have supermarkets and shopping malls and good medicine and 100 different kinds of candy bars... They have hunger, they have poor schools and poor medical facilities. They have dictators that we have supported. But they also have oil. And as John Macarthur stated in his book, "Desires for pleasure and self-fulfillment are what motivate people to wage war."

America's hands are not clean in this. We as a nation are not blameless, are not sinless. Don't get me wrong, the people who died on 9/11 were innocent victims. Don't get me wrong, the hijackers commited terrible mass-murder. But some of the victims blood is on us all: the government officials who enacted selfish foreign policies, and those of us who benefit from those policies. That means you and me folks, every one of us who want our oil to drive our nice cars and complain because it costs $.50 a gallon more this month. John Macarthur never once mentions any of OUR failed/selfish/uncaring/ungodly foreign policies in his book. He says we are 100% blameless. That's a lie. And if you think that I'm referring to that Michael Moore movie, I'm not. I've never even seen it. It's just a movie. There are lots of movies. Movies are for entertainment. But there are other ways to find out the truth. We don't get allot of the truth in this country. Not from our media. Our media is for entertainment. It's for making us feel better. If we really knew the price that we pay (the price that the rest of the world pays) for the high standard of living that we enjoy, I think our 100 different kinds of candy bars wouldn't taste quite as sweet.

So how do you find the Truth? It says in the Bible: "Seek and you shall find." Seek with an open heart. Oh, and don't get all of your information from one source. If you really feel the desire to judge a "terrorist," I suggest you fly out to the middle east and talk to one first. Ask him how many loved ones he's watch die. Ask him about the ruthless dictators he's had to suffer under, because the United States decided that said dictator would be a good ally.

I think of the verse, "To whom much has been given, much will be required." Listen folks, we, as the people of the free and democratic United States of America, have been given much. Democracy, high standards of living, health-care, human rights, shopping malls, candy bars... And lots and lots and lots of guns and bombs. Much is now required of us. Much thoughtfulness, much care, and yes, much forgiveness, before we start bombing the hell out of another impoverished part of the world.


Rating:
Summary: John does it again!
Review: John MacArthur is well deserved in his reputation as the no.1 Bible expositor in the USA today - and this again shows the master expositor at his best. Needless to say, John does not steer clear of controversy - which is not surprising for those who know him! If I may modestly suggest my own book CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE - you will see in it that I have quoted John and his views on several occasions and I trust that his book and mine will give the overall picture Christians need in these troubled times. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

Rating:
Summary: Very simplistic. A real Christian would not write this.
Review: Since 911 I have read several books dealing with the surrounding issues. When I picked this up I was hoping for something more balanced. MacArthur's viewpoint is Muslims are committing violent acts because that is what their religion teaches them. If this is the case can we blame Christianity for the violent acts of Christians (for example, IRA, UVF) and why is it that the vast majority of practicing Muslims are not violent? Believe me, atheists make the same kinds of charges against Christianity and religion in general that MacArthur makes about Islam, using the same disingenuous techniques.

MacArthur takes Koranic verses out of context, including historical context, to make his point. One could also take Biblical verses out of context and portray the Bible as a book that encourages hate and violence. For example, most Muslims don't believe in viirgins in heaven. This is an interpretation of extremists Muslims (mainly Wahhabis, Deobandis and Salafis) rather than the mainstream. By using the most extreme interpretations of the Islamic faith he has portrayed his own anti-Islamic biases.

When Christians falsify Islamic history, the life of Muhammad, and the Koran to suit our prejudices and biases we are violating our own faith, which teaches us to treat our neighbor the way we want to be treated. I wouldn't want my faith attacked and misrepresented, therefore I will not do the same to others. Considering that Christian South America has the highest rate of terrrorist attacks every year I feel that MacArthur is seeing the speck in his neighbor's eye while ignoring the beam in his own.

If you want bias and a superficial treatment of the issue of the current chaos in the Muslim world you will like this book. If you want an intelligent, scholarly explanation, I suggest you read the works of Ahmed Rashid, David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace, Hamid Algar's Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, and Israelis and Palestinians by Bernard Wasserstein.

Rating:
Summary: Very short, very interesting, and accurate.
Review: This book's greatest strength is that it is short. In addition, the book is very interesting and it accuartely exposes how the Koran is driving terrorism. I have given it 5 stars because it makes its point quickly. It is an excellent starting point for the further study of Islam and its dangers.

Rating:
Summary: Very short, very interesting, and accurate.
Review: To his credit, John MacArthur is a man who often speaks boldly and is willing to challenge conventional thought and say things that may not be popular or easy to hear, while effectively arguing his point and backing up what he says. Unfortunately, in this book, he only partially succeeds in doing this.

The stated purpose of this book is to provide answers to why God allowed the 9/11 tragedies to occur, why Islam is hostile towards the West generally and Israel and the US specifically, and can we possess any hope going forward given what's happened. The book has some strengths and I think it hits on a few important themes, but in the end, I felt that this book, like much of the Christian response to 9/11, was half baked and missed the mark.

The one sustained strength of the book was MacArthur's analysis of the history of Islam. He examines Biblical geneologies, along with a brief summary of the life and attitudes of Mohammed, coupled with an analysis of Islam's spread to the present day. The reader should be warned that this analysis is at a very top level. MacArthur further expounds on Quranic teachings relative to waging a holy war, or jihad. MacArthur's contention is that the Quran is very clear that jihad is acceptable and even admirable, and that Islam actually teaches that the only way a Muslim has a guarantee of going to heaven is by dying while fighting a holy war - and that this heaven is a highly sexualized experience. MacArthur contends that this is one of the main reasons why so many young Muslim men seem willing to die in this way, since MacArthur's contention is that Islam provides no guarantees about the believers eternal state if they die any other way.

The other modest strength of the book is in MacArthur's examination of the response of the world, and Americans in particular, to the tragedy. He makes a very good point that the total number of people who died in the tragedies were actually less than the average number of deaths in the US on any given day. MacArthur makes a compelling point that Americans have gotten very good at ignoring or minimizing death when it gradually occurs one person at a time. It's only when many folks die suddenly and simultaneously that many of us take the time to think about our own mortality. MacArthur would have been wise to expand on this point, as it would have been very relevant to what he was trying to address in the book.

While the above strengths are sufficient enough for me to grant the book 3 stars, I frankly expected more from MacArthur, and was a bit confused about his target audience. The book is very short and summary oriented, which leads me to believe that this was an attempt at a purely evangelistic tool, almost like an expanded tract. But if that was his intention, he should have included a list of suggested resources which would complement his book, since this short summarized treatise left many areas where the inquisitive reader would have additional questions or concerns. Similarly, some of his language was unnecessary and would likely turn off someone who is being witnessed to (intimating that Satan was behind the creation of Islam does nothing to further loving outreach to seekers, and does lots to turn them off - nor is it even vital to the premise of his book, it was unnecessarily inflammatory). Such language might be okay if the book was intended for mature Christians, but if this was his target audience, it is likewise a book that does not get the job done in terms of extensively critiquing Islam and how it differs from Christianity and how Christianity is better equipped to explain the 9/11 tragedy.

At the end of the day, I just didn't think that there was a lot of "there, there" with this book. It struck me as a book that was put together rapidly in order to get into people's hands while the wound was still fresh, and like much of the Christian church's response to 9/11, comes across as a bit stale and as an evangelistic rush job. With 'religious activity' levels today returning to their pre attack levels according to various polls, it is becoming increasingly clear that the church's response to the tragedy was insufficient. I would argue that a great deal of the reason is because the church was not thoroughly addressing the questions and issues that people were raising in the aftermath of 9/11. The church was providing too many canned answers for a wide audience that had been heard before, rather than presenting a meticulous apologetic for the truth and viability of the Christian faith as not only our best hope for humanity, but also as the best explanation for what happened on 9/11 and why. Unfortunately, this book by MacArthur struck me as being a good example of the former, rather than the latter.