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Who is scared of Evangelical Terrorists?

Against maliciously equating Evangelicals with Islamic Terrorists

Within three days I found the following randomly chosen reports about Islamists, which were published almost simultaneously in practically all major media in Germany: in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad, an Islamic suicide bomber had killed four UN employees at the local headquarters of the World Food Program when a bomb he was carrying exploded.

• For an entire day Islamists paralyzed the headquarters of the Pakistani Army by placing it under fire and taking hostages. Now 30,000 Pakistani soldiers are attempting to move against the Islamists and compensate for the disgrace.
• A one-hour German language video with an Islamic group tied to Al Qaeda, in which German and German-speaking Islamists threatened Germany, shows background pictures of terror training camps in which numerous blond or European looking children are conspicuous.
• In Yemen the government is fighting a desperate battle against the Islamic Al Qaeda network, which wants to expand Yemen into its new operational headquarters. Although the future of Islamic terrorism could be decided here, Yemen is missing international support.
• In Hamburg a ten-man Islamic terror cell that traveled in March to Hindu Kush was discovered. In Germany there is estimated to be around 80 trained Islamic terrorists at present living in the country.
• In Berlin in one fell swoop 155 officials were searching through apartments in order to move against a group of 15 Islamists who are suspected of planning attacks against Russia and who wanted to defect.
• A book about honor killings that was about to be released was withdrawn at the last minute by the publisher Droste Verlag due to fear of acts of vengeance by Islamists.

That was all just within three days!

And Evangelicals are compared with such Islamists in the sme media? Absurd! Unfounded! Malevolent! Even to compare my peaceful Muslim neighbors with such terrorists would be a disgrace, but peaceful, often pacifistically oriented Evangelicals?

Evangelicals are allowed to pay required fees for German state TV ARD and ZDF television so that with conspiratoranial means they can ‘prove’ and advance what cannot be demonstrated – that Evangelicals are a type of Christian Islamists. The fact is: there are no Evangelical terrorists, no suicide attackers, and no Evangelical network which is planning to conduct something that brings death and violence. Anything else is virtual nonsense and the worst type of slander.

Where is it necessary to search for weapons in Evangelical churches? Where are Evangelical terror camps being maintained, army headquarters attacked, and skirmishes conducted against 30,000 soldiers?

Who is scared of traveling to a particular country for vacation because Evangelicals live there? Where are the Evangelicals who are threatening journalists who hold dissenting ideas or threatening their families? Why do Evangelicals not come under the rubric of constitutional protection, either in Germany or anywhere else in the world?

And in addition to this: in spite of the non-stop horror reports about Islamism, we are – and rightly so – repeatedly reminded and even remind ourselves again and again that we have to distinguish between Islamists and peaceful Muslims. For once just consider the thought that the 1.8 million Evangelicals in Germany would want to limit freedom with violence. And while no one has witnessed anything like that, at the same time several thousand Islamists keep us on edge?

In the case of 400 million Evangelicals, in contrast, it seems as if one does not have to differentiate between Terrorists (wherever they might be) and the millions and millions of peaceful adherents. One negative example is enough to make everyone responsible for their counterparts! Even if there were to be one single Evangelical terrorist or an individual who even dreamed of being a terrorist, one would still have to clearly distinguish between that individual and the millions and millions of peaceful Evangelicals.

One more question to pose to ARD and ZDF television: Is it not also an aspect of religious freedom that one is to be protected from governmental and semi-governmental institutions? Does our state media know that there is no persecution of minorities where the media is not playing a central role? And does our state media know that nowadays it is often the media who more than anyone else decides which minorities are seen as victims and which ones are leprous and themselves held accountable for the situation?

Hope founded on Salvation – A Bible Study by the Pope

In his third year as Pope, Benedict XVI set forth his second encyclical “Spe Salvi.”, published 30^th of November, 2007 (www.vatican.va) Traditionally, the first two Latin words of an encyclical provide the topic of the encyclical, and in this case it means “in this hope we are saved,” which is a quote from Paul’s Letter to the Romans (8:24). In 50 numbered sections the Pope unfolds a Biblical teaching on hope.

From numerous New Testament texts the Pope demonstrates that hope is a central component of faith and that people without God are people without a sustainable hope. He expends considerable time on New Testament texts which say that hope does not rest upon an internal subjective attitude, but rather on objective facts. He just as soundly highlights that hope and salvation in the New Testament are not to be understood purely individualistically. It is rather the case that Christians in community with Christ and as God’s people have hope.

Subsequently, the Pope delineated between the Christian understanding of hope and the subjective conception of hope of the French Revolution, of industrial optimism, of Marxism, and of Humanism and calls for a long overdue ‘self-criticism of modern times.’ “It is not science that saves mankind. Mankind will be saved by love.” (12) Prayer and undergoing suffering belong to the practice of a belief in hope, to which the moralism of atheism and of progress ideologies has no answers.

The encyclical will supposedly not be counted as one of the great encyclicals that will still be quoted one hundred years from now. This is due to the fact that the encyclical neither announces a surprising change within the Catholic Church, nor does it take a stance with respect to a highly controversial topic. Calmly and matter-of-factly it refers to the large difference between Christian hope and the missing or illusory and worldly hope of Western ideas of progress. It highlights that Christian hope is only thinkable because there is salvation in Christ and because there are transcendent linchpins beyond earthly time, such as the final judgment, salvation, and eternal life.

However, in another aspect the encyclical contrasts to earlier encyclicals, namely through its strong concentration on the interpretation of New Testament texts and the practical absence of typical Catholic points of view. The encyclical has this in common with the book the Pope wrote about Jesus, although the book was published expressly as private remarks. This time, however, the encyclical is a doctrinal document.

In the first 47 paragraphs of the encyclical there is no statement that would be conspicuous were it to be heard coming from an Evangelical pulpit. In Pope Johannes Paul II’s encyclicals it was exactly the opposite. One could find almost no sentence where Mary, the salvific role of the church, or another Catholic feature was not mentioned. In paragraph 48 prayers for the dead are briefly mentioned. Maria is not appealed to until the final paragraphs 49-50. And whoever reads this long address to Maria will astonishingly determine that it consists practically of a compilation of New Testament statements about Maria and Jesus. A teaching about Maria that is particularly Catholic is not mentioned. The final paragraphs also seem to indicate that the curia required their inclusion so that the encyclical would not sound completely un-Catholic.

(The systematic theologian and religious sociologist Prof. Thomas Schirrmacher has authored numerous books regarding Catholic teaching as well as the book Hope for Europe.)