Christian Jihad- A Book Report
I feel less inclined to write about the history of violence in the community of Christians that chose to even address the issue, and more inclined to write about the impact that the current stance on the issue has on our modern body of believers.
Warning, if the one reading this is easily offended, its best to leave the room now.

First we must take a rule from our friend Socrates’ rulebook and define the terms we will be using, lest we loose the effectiveness of the arguments to come. When we talk about “Christians,” we will either be talking about one of three groups of people: 1) The global, time-spanning body of men, women and children who profess with their mouths and actions to believe that Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, fully God, came to Earth, was born of a virgin, lived a sin-less life, preformed miracles, died on the cross as substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world so that man and God might be reconciled through belief in that sacrifice. 2) A local group of the same believers, confined to a certain culture and time. 3) A local group of people who profess with their mouth the same as the two mentioned above, but live a life contrary to that profession. Now we will define other terms as they come but for now we will leave that for that time.

The view of killing in the name of Christ has been around longer than most dirt, but in all seriousness, it has seldom been dealt with. Even today when the means of projecting ones ideas is at its greatest, it still lies untouched, for the most part. Dr. Emir Caner and his brother Dr. Ergun Caner addresses this issue, in their book Christian Jihad the Caner’s go through history recounting the various transformations of the Churches outlook on killing, the move from early pacifism to modern justification of killing. But the meat does not really come out until the very end of the book where they bring it all in to central core, page 212 bring the whole historical account to a close and opens the central nut of truth, “ The shedding of more blood isn’t required. Jesus Christ’s spilled blood is enough. His sacrifice was both justified and justifies.”

Now if this is true, we have a split in our churches, taking into account that the Christian worldview, as a general whole, advocates gun control, supporting the president in war (without questioning) and even goes to say that serving in the military is right and good. That’s all and fine, but I feel that if you can stand to put tradition and what is expected behind you then search the Bible for guidance on the issue, I feel you get a completely different view. Stephen was stoned for believing and preaching, but did anyone defend him? Did Peter, or John or James, his closest friends, come and with the same sword that sliced an ear off, kill those men then grab Stephens bloody body and drag his to safety? No, in fact Stephen felt sympathy for the people who were plunging rocks into his body. That is certainty not what grandpa Joe would do if his friend was being mistreated, he would say that it is his religious duty to protect him and if necessary kill to do so.

This false view of Christianity is void of Christ entirely, but is full of conservativism because that is what good Christian boys and girls believe. Christ preached blessed are the poor in spirit, but what does one feel when shooting a sawed off shotgun at a couple of targets? Pride. Pride in ones accomplishment of being a being of intelligence and power.
So now that I have thoroughly made mad everyone from the president to my father very angry I will close with saying what Dr. Emir and Ergun Caner said, Jesus’ blood was the only blood ever spilt that needed to be, and we are under it to be saved, not to push back those who are not.

To love those like Christ loved us is the point i want to drive home in this, nothing more, nothing less. Jesus did not come to wage war and kill those whom he opposed, but he came to give shelter to the weak and water to the thirsty(in irony, he opposed the religious leaders of the day). Please if you have more questions I am always open to discussion.

With his love
StevenBenjamin