Killing in the name of Christ, “and behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.”(Matt. 26:51) Since the beginning of the Christian movement there have been those who do not fully understand what it is that Christ had, and has, come to do. As we know in the story of the garden of Gethsemane Peter took his sword and cut off the Roman Soldiers ear, Christ instantly rebuked him and told him to put up his sword and healed the man. Now this is the message of the Christ restoration, reconciliation, and peace.
The Caner Brothers have presented a clear and well written message of this in the book Christian Jihad, the clear statement of how all throughout history the message of the Cross has been manipulated, or not completely understood. In a time (today) when the majority of the population believes that they have all things figured out there is still room for error. The twenty first century mindset of “Don’t tell me your truth because I have my own” is just as able to have, and fall into, the same vices or traps as the first, second, third ext. century church.
The merge of the Church and State, hey it sounded good? What is the difference in what is going on today with all the voting in of Christian leaders. The idea was just a plausible today as it was then, but looking back on it is easy to see and say how wrong it was and what the downfalls of it are. So the caners make a good explanation of what was going on during the time and they present the material well.
The presentation of the name of the book Christian Jihad just sounds wrong but the definition of jihad is a relentless campaign against somebody or something. This would seem to be what the early Christians did; setting out to kill people of other religions, and even those who claim the Gospel what a horrific thing. Even in looking at some of the most influential people in all of Christendom we see the false ideas that they had, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others who we as twenty first century Christians would proudly stand beside in their doctrine of the authority of Christ and the grace that has been shown, but yet they still have this bad theology of killing others in the name of Christ.
In retrospect it would not seem to risky to say that today’s Christians still harbor some of the same beliefs, case and point, I live in a very small town, less than 800 and there is three church’s that meet on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights. If I might add that the average attendance of any one church is far less than 30, far less, I think it would be safe to say that in two of the three that it would be closer to say in the low teens, but I am not making a stand for losing doctrine and just calling apples oranges, but there is also some anger that is held between the three that is not safe. When the Anabaptist movement was coming into full swing the Roman Catholic Church was having a fit, not to mention a hay day in bloodshed and just having an all out killing spree. But this was due to differing doctrine, I know that I have moved far away from writing a book report but I do believe that the Caner’s book is a well written and enjoyable read and Dr. Stilley I thank you for assigning it.