Political realities are always complex and divisions are never measured along a single axis, but across multiple dimensions from both within and without a nation. If it is not the legacy of the Cold War which confronts us, it is also the much older rivalry of Christianity and Islam. Yet even these traditions struggle internally over the best, most realistic application of theological precepts, such as the schisms over the truth of what truly constitutes a “Just War” or a “Jihad.”
Within Christianity there is still the age-old split of pacifists and realists, often misconstrued as a rivalry of “doves” and “hawks.” Christian Realists love and cherish the ideals of non-violence, love, and peace no less than pacifists. We read the same Bible, but interpret the ethical lessons of the Old and New Testaments differently. Pacifists, such as Stanley Hauerwas, mistakenly assume that realists have made a false idol of coercive power as a substitute for the more genuine and non-violent love of Christ. This, however, is not the case. Christ came to forgive sins, but his coming did not eradicate them. We are still sinful, and the more sinful among us can still lay their hands on the implements of force and bolster the power of injustice. The realist accepts force to protect the inner sanctum of Christ’s teaching from the corruption of the world in which it is entrenched.
While Christians disagree over whether the appropriate paradigms around use of force entails pacifism or Just War Theory, Islam has a similarly deep rift over the concept of Jihad, or righteous “exertion,” as a spiritual struggle for personal purity before God versus a militarized interpretation. The Qur’an prescribes defensive violence, but there are the “sword verses” in Islam (Surah 9:5, for example) that are charged with a belligerence which is alarming to non-Muslims. Overall, however, it can be argued that the defensive and just application of force should have the better reading in Islam. Furthermore, there are parallels in Islam to Christian Just War ideals. Abu Bakr, the first ruling Caliph after Muhammad’s death, proclaimed to his troops:
Avoid injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren, and study to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you fight the battles of the Lord … let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons who live retired in monasteries and propose to themselves to serve God that way: let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries.
This would, if followed, indeed protect non-combatants from harm and restrain the egregious destruction war inevitably entails. Sadly, the better spirit of Jihad has not always prevailed in Islam. Abdullah Azzam, the infamous mentor of Osama bin Laden, once laid it out in these quite stark and contrasting words: “Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues.” As Antonio Graceffo has recently pointed out, there is a disturbing resurgence of the tide of radical Islam today. Today the loyalists of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas still fight for a much more belligerent, unjust view of Islam, but theirs is not the last word. Before any of them, the Muslim Abdul Ghaffar Khan had decreed in his struggle against British Imperialism: “This is our jihad, our crusade. Before we can fight the British, we must first end the violence and murder in our own hearts. Remember that overcoming our personal weakness is the greater jihad, the greater crusade. It is what God wants of us.” For “Badshah” Khan, as he was known, service to God was “selfless service, faith, and love.” Sadly, the Taliban later contradicted every good word Badhsah Khan had to give.
In the study of the world’s politics and its religions, one cannot help but notice two things. First, the inherent complexity and division of political interests that inevitably result in conflict. Second, the ebb and flow of political justice like the tides, yet with far less predictability. In our daily experience many of us are blessed to live in a bubble of peace. We may feel no immediate need to have a gun nearby for our protection, and living in that bubble often perpetuates an illusion that the world about us could be encompassed in the same bubble if only given enough strenuous moral exhortation. That the bubble of peace and stability we take for granted is mistaken to be permanent condition, or an immediate likelihood is a tragic illusion. It is the realists who see beyond the bubble and prepare safeguards in case it bursts.
Muslims and Christians have much to reconcile among us, no less within our communities as between them. Differences of theology, schisms of power and self-interest divide us. That is realism for you. To abide by the potentially necessary use of force to protect democracy, justice, and the innocent seems the most compelling corollary of honoring Christ’s legacy. We must receive Christ’s teaching of the forgiveness of sins to reconcile and ameliorate all political conflicts, never mistake ourselves to be the Christ whose second coming we hope to eradicate sin once and for all.
