Religion Experts Respond to Aggression and Terrorism

According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, terrorism is “the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” Terrorism has been around since, to borrow a phrase from Kevin Smith, before “Jesus was a baby.” However, today, in the Ottawa Citizen, the religion experts are asked “How should we respond to aggression and terrorism?“ This is, of course, a popular question, and expert answers vary. Balpreet Singh says,

Steps must immediately be taken in order to ensure that similar incidents cannot recur.

Sounds good, but how do we ensure that acts of terror “cannot recur”? Rather, we should ensure that acts of terror and aggression do not recur. How do we do that: “imagine no religion.” Yes it is true that not all terrorist acts are motivated by religion. We could argue that the Reign of Terror in France was not. However, we are asking and listening to “religion experts,” and their answers are informed by religious teaching.

Balpreet Singh refers to

the words of the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, “where all other methods have been exhausted, it is righteous to raise the sword.”

and then moderates the words’ effect by saying,

It may be inevitable in some circumstances to respond to terrorism with the state’s power.

This solution sounds suspiciously like the Old Testament solution, “an eye for an eye,” which Geoffrey Kerslake says,

was not a recipe for retaliation. It was intended to limit the counter-attack.

Then along comes Jesus, who

took that restriction one big step further when he taught his disciples: “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5.44-45).

Yes, the followers of Christ have, for the most part, stopped engaging in overt acts of aggression and replaced them with psychological assaults.

According to Kevin Flynn terrorism is politically rather than religiously motivated,

Terrorists use violence for political ends

and

Terrorism must be opposed by good, rigorous police and security work.

The solution, of course, is religion, Christianity specifically,

As a matter of religious conviction, Christians are to learn to oppose violence of all kinds and to pursue peaceable means of resolving conflict.

Would Flynn consider substituting the word people for Christians? Try it, and see what happens.

Kevin Smith, humanist, skeptic and freethinker, refuses to put

the blame squarely on religious extremists for terrorizing those who reside on this pale blue dot.

Smith maintains,

If we can look at aggression and terrorism dispassionately, there a several reasons why humans indulge. Religion — certainly, but add racial, cultural, political and economic differences into the mix and we have a recipe ripe for conflict.

This sounds reasonable, but religion continues to have a deleterious effect ; it encourages and promotes “racial, cultural, political and economic differences.”