The Church is Radicalizing but There are Better Voices
More on my Religion News Service opinion piece
Significant parts of the church are radicalizing, choosing sides and in so doing losing their unique witness. Evangelical leaders’ rhetoric over Gaza, US politics and culture wars in the last few months are just a small illustration. These are examples of a broader trend in the West of a syncretic new religion where politics and extremist ideologies overlap so tightly with a version of Christianity, they are hard to distinguish. The vitriolic voices coming from Christian circles are quite loud but they’re not the only ones speaking.
Religion News Service published my article last week “The church is radicalizing over Gaza” where I outlined the dangerous trend of escalating calls for violence built upon tribal allegiances, rights to self-defense and Just War. I said:
Christians are concerned with many things in the Middle East but the work of peacemaking seems very far down the list
We might apply the same to other geographies… some of the loudest voices seem far more concerned about justifying hostility than about making peace. Large portions of the church seem to have a deep desire for conflict. There are other voices, but they are harder to hear.
In their 2011 book Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko demonstrate 12 mechanisms of radicalization that influence individuals, groups and whole societies. These mechanisms have uncanny power to move rational, normal people towards more and more deviant attitudes and behaviors.
Mutual radicalization feeds on fear and our tendency to sort the world into good and bad, us and them. Rhetoric and actions demonizing an out-group often serve to further radicalize that very out-group feeding a loop that can quickly spiral. On a geopolitical level, consider the ‘Muslim ban’ of Trump’s early years as an example. Terrorism researchers and ISIS leaders agreed the ban and surrounding rhetoric was a far more effective recruitment tool for terrorism than anything ISIS itself could have produced (link).
It is paradoxical. The reflexive things we say and do create more of that which we fear. In several secular analyses of counter-terrorism efforts, repressive, in-kind responses to violence have been shown to have little deterrent effect (link, link). Terrorism scholar Louise Richardson criticizes the ‘hunt and kill’ military methods leveraged to contain Islamic militancy saying the “use of overwhelming force is in fact generating more of them.”
In stark contrast, I found in the context of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts that thousands of extremists deradicalized through the surprising kindness and love of enemy in the Arab church. The Levantine church recalibrated these fearful instincts encoded in our bodies and emotions in line with the ways of Jesus’ kingdom.
They listened to Jesus who said “blessed are the peacemakers” and called his followers to embody the “city on a hill” prophesied by Isaiah that would be a light to the nations, from which God would settle disputes (Is 2). They took Paul seriously, who called the church to be “ministers of reconciliation (2Cor 5).” They heeded the words of James who beseeched the church to seek the wisdom from above which is first of all pure, peaceable, gentle and open to reason.
"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, (open to reason) willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and (sincere) without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." James 3:17-18
They followed Jesus and the example of the early church and loved their neighbors and enemies. They modeled an alternative to the radicalized partisanship of the day. And, they were an embodiment of human flourishing, of shalom.
During a period of massive human displacement and inter-communal strife starting in 2011, the tense dynamics of sectarian communities in host countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq were disturbed. Boundaries were drawn along partisan and religious lines, Christians, Sunni, Shia, Kurds and Druze circled their wagons in fear of outside threat. Many Christians fled, some armed themselves (link, link), others built bigger walls around their churches. But still others, like a Lebanese pastor who lost his father during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, resisted the hatred and revenge narratives.
He started with a visit. He sat on the floor, listened and empathized. He entered a dramatic story, saw a fellow human and confessed his indifference.
Another Arab Christian loathed Syrian Muslims, he was upset over the swell in population in his town. But he decided to act. He visited and brought food to a neighboring refugee family, learning later it housed a jihadist that was plotting to kill him. He wept as he recalled how God convicted him of hatred and then filled his church with the beautiful redemptive stories of Syrian refugees.
These counter-cultural examples from the Levantine church challenge the loud voices of radicalizing narratives and confront our hatred-prone hearts. And they are not alone.
Countless Christians are choosing the way of peace in the Holy Land, in Europe’s immigration battles, and in the partisan US political environment. But their voices are quieter and harder to hear amidst the noise.
They host Bible studies and pray for peace. They serve homeless migrants and refugees. Churches filled with Muslim background and Messianic believers offer humanitarian aid and medical care. Western congregations listen to Palestinian theologians’ experiences of suffering and join them in advocating for justice. They write letters to governing authorities and influence towards peace. They give generously, showing mercy to those in need. They gather with a local Rabbi to discuss the Psalms and enter the story of a people. And from Washington D.C. to the Holy Land, they invite their Republican, Democrat, Jewish and Muslim neighbors to share a table.
How can we change these cycles of radicalization, revenge and conflict?
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.