Concordia TheoBLOGical Seminary

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.” With these words, President George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, sought to allay the fears of American Muslims and the American people with them, by stating that the war on terror is not a war against Islam. If the thoughts of the leading governmental official are at all representative of those that the nation itself holds, then the prevailing thought of most Americans on the nature of Islam is rather optimistic. Nevertheless, as time passes and the wars in Afganistan and Iraq progress (or digress, as the case may be), such sentiments resounding in the media and the government are beginning to take on an interrogative inflection in the mouths of many Christians, begging the question: Will the real Islam please stand up? What is the true face of Islam? And what is an honest approach of the church to it?

If American Christians are to take Islam at its word-presuming that the Qur’an and the statements of the so-called Islamo-facists speak for it- we quickly realize that the face of Islam we saw on September 11th is here to stay because the fundamental problem does not reside in what America specifically or the West generally has done but in who we are. Even a cursory glance at the history of Islamic military campaigns demonstrates this. There is an inherent imperialism in Islam that will not rest until it is realized. An honest response to this is not peaceful resignation in the hope that the problem will simply go away because it will not. The ideals of Islam and the ideals of the West-even Christianity-are mutually exclusive and fundamentally at odds with each other. Since there have been few Muslim adherents to denounce the agenda of the so-called Islamo-facists, the West has no choice but to consider this the true face of Islam. So what of the way forward? How should the Western church respond?

The church would do well, first, to read Luther (see e.g., Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed and On War Against the Turk). The church must hear in the attacks of Islam God’s judgment upon our apostasy. We should, as Luther bid, repent and pray-repent of our apostasy and pray against Islam. In so doing, however, we do not confess that Islam is just in their attack, rather the church recognizes the hand of God to draw us to himself and away from the false Gods of sin, the flesh, and the devil.

Simultaneously, the church must maintain always the distinction between the two divinely established governments: the church and the state. In maintaining this distinction, we must not fall into the tempation to separate the two completely but ever seek to find where the two kiss. And this meeting place is found in justice and charity. Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:8-10 [show]Romans 13:8-10 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (ESV)
). Justice therefore is a fulfillment of love. The church must exhort the state to seek and promote justice. At the same time, the church must teach and preach to itself charity. The church must reclaim its tradition that charity and justice are not mutually exclusive, but charity is fulfilled in justice. If the church is to say anything honest or worthwhile in regard to its current crisis with Islam, it must hold fast to justice as emblematic of charity, which is most notably perceived in the Christian just war tradition.

I do not intend-nor do you want me to, I am sure-to trace and comment on the entire just war tradition from Ambrose to the present. Instead, I only intend to state what it is and how it is emblematic of love.

The term just war is well-known yet often misunderstood. This is likely due to the fact that postmodernism has forgotten what it means to be just. Postmodern society uses the term largely without any concept of what it means objectively. This is disasterous for any discussion of just war, for the criteria that establishe the justness of any particular action shift with each person. Thus the criteria are eventually evaluated by mere subjectivism and emotivism. This can not stand.Just war in the history of the church has a consistent, viturally univocal interpretation. Since just war operates under and seeks to promote justice it is likewise a charitable endeavor. Just war is just precisely because it protects and serves the innocent and good, and punishes the guilty and evil. It seeks interdiction and is able to accomplish this because of the standard by which just war is measured. It sets the standard by which the justness of, first, entering into the use of force (jus ad bellum), and second, the use of force once engaged (jus in bello) is determined. This standard makes distinctions and sets limits for such interdiction.

If we reclaim the just war tradition as it has been handed down in the church, however, the term gains clarity and objectivity. For the criteria are set objectively and rooted in the word of God. This is the aid that the church offers the state. The church’s tradition carries forward the ideas, contexts, and practices of the past to the present. It does not admit subjectivity but remains objective. The hermeneutical circle of biblical text and confessed tradition regulates how the present-day church is to read and understand the position of the past. And regarding justice, the church’s voice in the past is virtually univocal. The church therefore is in a unique position to counsel the state when such matters arise. Before the church can counsel the state, however, it must first relearn this tradition for itself and in so doing, give an honest approach to the true face of Islam.