Criticizing advocates of Christian terrorism: Is this what it's come to?

I came across this article today about Pat Robertson's latest encouragement to violence and murder: Pat Robertson is Not a Christian by Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler CommonDreams.org 08/23/05.

In fairness to Hagler, his article doesn't say that Robertson "is not a Christian," but rather that he is misusing Christianity for ends that violate the Christian faith. Presumably, the headline-writer got a bit over-zealous in how the article should be labelled.

But the title got me thinking, should mainstream Christians start claiming that Robertson types are not really Christians? I'm not quite ready for that myself, for four reasons.

One is that since I take an ecumenical Christian view, I'm hesitant to write certain types of Christians out of the religion completely, even those who, uh, advocate Christian terrorism. (That sounds pretty nasty when it's written out in black and white, doesn't it?)

The second is that I'm secular-minded enough to think that there is always a danger in trying to apply the abstract principles of any religion to political and public-policy issues. My big problem with Christian-terrorism advocates like Robertson is not that they aren't good enough Christians, but that they are too much fanatics.


Third, the notion that Christians who do bad stuff in the name of their religion are not acting like real Christians is a classic Christian copout. Pope Ratzinger I (Benedict XVI) was in Germany recently bravely denounce the "neo-pagan" ideology of Nazism. Emphasizing the pagan elements in Nazi ideology - and there were some - has been a favorite way for the Catholic Church and for conservative Protestants to duck the fact that Nazi anti-Semitism was very much a part of the Christian anti-Semitism that had been preached and practiced for decades. Even though the Nazi version came in a somewhat different package.

Fourth, there is a real temptation among those writing about terrorism in particular, to suggest that religious leaders advocating or encouraging terrorist violence are cynically using religion for political ends. Hagler's column makes that argument about Robertson. And it's very often true. But it's also often true that religion really is a part of the world-view of many of those active in the jihadist and Christian-terrorist movements. Understanding those movements, and implementing effective strategies to combat them, have to take account of their religious dimensions.

See also my Iraq War: Why do war fans still believe? Old Hickory's Weblog 06/25/05 for more on the religious dimension of Christian-terrorist belief (although the main topic of the post is something different).