By Theodore Shoebat
“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain” (Matthew 5:1). Christ — the Truth — ascended the pinnacle to convey to the world the transcending precepts of holy war and the spiritual struggle of humanity. Christ went up to the mountain, and said,
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.” (Matthew 5:6)
Christ went up to the mountain, as the rugged monastic, Elijah, ascended the holy mountain of Horeb. “And he arose, and ate, and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb.” (1 Kings 19:8) He ate so little, but was able to journey forty days through the wilderness without eating or drinking, a humanly impossible feat. How is this so? Because he was sustained by a thirst for justice, which goes beyond the physical and thus overtakes temporal attachments, even things as fundamental as food. For when the Lord asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” the holy monk of Israel said:
“I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” (1 Kings 19:10)
In his zeal he forsook eating and drinking; in his zeal he traversed the deserts, totally forgetful of self, with flesh and spirit in pure harmony; in his zeal he ascended the holy mountain, in war against the tyranny of delusion, for he was one with Truth; in his zeal he was not needful of nourishment, for his thirst for righteousness was all that burdened him. Christ travelled through the desert, without victuals or water, for His thirst for justice was His aspiration, and in war against the abysmal despotisms, He compelled the devil to flee, for the love of humanity He drove out the enemy of justice — for He is Justice Himself — and soon after, He ascended a holy mountain, and Justice cried out: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.”
In the wilderness man struggles against evil, and ascending the mountain, he continues to strive against both the evils of self and the world, and on the mountain, he finds justice. Elijah killed the prophets of Baal, he fled the tyranny of Jezebel, but the war continued regardless. He journeyed across the desert, in despair and bitter anguish, and when he reached the mountain, there he met God, there he met Justice. The war went on, even in the desert. For when Christ was in the desert, there took place a war between the Incarnation of Justice, and the one who strives to make humanity absent of justice.
In the entire Life of Christ on earth was the unification of the cosmic struggle against evil. Because Christ is God unified with Man, then the whole spiritual war that He led and won is the war of and for humanity, it is our war as it is God’s war. The unity of man and God is theosis, and one cannot speak of theosis without speaking of the prophets, such as Elijah and Moses. Elijah ascended the mountain, and in hearing the voice of God, he became one with Him; Moses ascended Mount Sinai, and in being in the divine presence, he entered the fold of harmony with the Divine. Christ is the oneness of Humanity and Divinity, and in Him we are one with God. Thus, the Life of Christ is the story of our war against evil. What Christ underwent, we are to undergo. What Christ fights, we are to fight, for we are one. “Christ is all and in all.” (Colossians 3:11)
The Scripture says: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52) By this, when it says that Christ grew in wisdom, it means that humanity grew in wisdom. As St. John of Damascus says:
“He is said to have progressed in wisdom and age and grace, because He did increase in age and by this increase in age brought more into evidence the wisdom inherent in Him; further, because by making what is ours altogether His own He made His own the progress of men in wisdom and grace, as well as the fulfillment of the Father’s will, which is to say, men’s knowledge of God and their salvation.” (St. John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, 3.22)
The war of Christ is thus the war of humanity. Under Christ, all the world is intertwined with the spiritual. This is why I reject any secular approach to fighting evil. Secular approaches are temporary fixes to eternal problems. One can express secular positions all he wants, in the end the manifestation of the cosmic war between good and evil will appear before our eyes, and there it will be absent of the secular.
There are many people, many of whom are elitists in the conservative industry, who fund and push an agenda that teaches that the solution to Islamism or leftism, is a secular conservatism. In other words, it is a hijacking of Christian values, taught without Christ. Secular conservatism is really just as evil as leftism, if not more so since it is more deceptive. This is why the conservative movement of modern times is filled with perverts and heretics. Secularism is bent on purging away zeal. If anyone desires to see the laws of God enforced in the society — for example, against homosexuality —, these secularists will immediately strike at him. They want to preserve some values, but they want the state to remain secular. To this I will quote the words of Don Juan Donoso Cortes:
“Governments seem to be endowed with an unerring instinct which teaches them that they can only be just or strong in the name of God. Thus it happens that whenever they commence to secularize, that is to say, to separate themselves from God, they always begin to relax the severity of penalties, as if they were conscious that their right was weakened.” (Cortes, An Essay On Catholicism, Authority and Order, book 3, ch. 6, pp. 302-303)
To fight evil is to look beyond the physical, beyond the sciences and materialism. After the Americans defeated the Japanese, they let go and protected the Japanese scientists who were a part of Unit 731, a team of darwinists who conducted the most horrific and sadistic human experiments. Why would America do such an evil thing? Because they wanted to read the results of their “experiments,” so in return, they spared the “scientists” and even gave them American protection. Do not forget, this was all done in the name of science, not in the name of transcending the physical world, not in the name of looking beyond transience. No. It was all done in the name of materialism. One who sees the world strictly through the lens of science, will be as cold as the fluids he observes under the microscope, for his focus dictates his perception, and to him humanity is just one whole bundle of fluids, to observe and to manipulate. If one can learn about the responses the immune systems and bodies have towards bubonic plagues, then in the name of science there is nothing ill that these devils did. But once one looks beyond the temporal, then in the name of God are these scientists worthy of death.
Secularism leads only to secular conclusions, and such cannot and will not inspire a nation to fight evil. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: “Men are moved in these things by something far higher and holier than policy; by hatred. …I am quite content to call it hatred; the hatred of hell and all its works” (Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, ch. 8, p. 141). Surrounded by evil, there is something within man that observes, as though the soul has eyes, and through the voice of the conscience, says that this is wrong, that it must be destroyed, as Rahab, living in the midst of Canaanites who cannibalized and spilt blood, saw the evil around her and knew that it needed to be obliterated. To the Canaanites it was customary to eat human flesh, to commit sodomy and conduct human sacrifice, but Rahab, she looked beyond, and through the eyes of the soul, saw Heaven. The evils of the pagans will of course appear wrong to people today — thanks to Christianity — but what separates the heathens of old to the eugenists of today, is the use of “science,” “reason,” and secularism as an attempt to rationalize their cruelties. This is why one must look beyond reason to fully apprehend the war against evil. To idolize reason only leads to an absence of reason. As Pascal wrote:
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far back as to realize that.”
Many of these “conservative” secularists will make fun of Christians and say that we are without reason. At the same time they will entitle themselves as being “against Islam.” Let me remind such fools that it was the Catholic Church — the institution which they so hate — that began fighting jihad before “counter-jihad” became trend. Let the masters of reason laugh at Pope Sylvester II, when he was the first pope to exhort for a holy war against Islam, declaring: “Shine forth, therefore, soldier of Christ, be His standard-bearer and cofighter; and because you are not powerful in arms, assist with counsel and the aid of riches.” Notice his beautiful words, that the warrior is a cofighter with Christ; by taking up the sword he as well participates in the combat of Christ against evil, as Simon of Cyrene, carrying the Cross with Christ in the great cosmic war.
Let the masters of reason laugh at this man, and let us see them laughing in the end, when the final crusade commences and the nations of Christendom have arisen and are partaking in the war against the empire of the Antichrist. Let these masters of reason mock at the high mountain of innumerable corpses of martyrs, those Greek Christians who stood as the bulwark against Islam, when countless men sacrificed themselves for centuries fighting the Arabian and Turkish hordes. I am speaking of the holy Roman Empire of the East, the warriors of which spilt their own blood in so many battles to fight the acolytes of the Antichrist. Let the masters of reason read of how those without reason fought and died with the utmost valor against the Seljuk Turks in the Battle of Manzikert, in order to keep them from overrunning Constantinople. Let them read of how the Christian soldiers bowed before God in the midst of holy icons and the Cross, the image of selfless sacrifice; let them read of how they emulated Christ by fighting and dying for humanity in the cause of justice. Let the masters of reason read about Romanus Diogenes, of how he with his own hand, slew numerous Turks after all of his men were either killed, captured or had fled; let them read of such courage, such zeal and spirit, and then let them speak of their secular views.
Read of how the Muslims crucified, butchered and ravished the Christians of the East, and how that in 1074, it was Pope Gregory VII — not a secularist — who declared a holy war against Islam; let them read his own words when he wrote:
“Further, I call to your attention that the Christians beyond the sea, a great part of whom are being destroyed by the heathen with unheard-of slaughter and are daily being slain like so many sheep, have humbly sent to beg me to succor these our brethren in whatever ways I can, that the religion of Christ may not utterly perish in our time”
Let the masters of reason know that before any secular movement ‘against Islam’ ever existed, Pope Urban II declared a crusade against Islam. ”Hastening to the way,” he said, “you must help your brothers living in the Orient, who need your aid for which they have already cried out many times.” The Christians fought, they fought with so much tenacity and valor that they vanquished the Muslims in Syria, in Turkey, and ultimately in the Holy Land where they would rule for close to a century.
Let the masters of reason scoff at Robert the Bruce, when his thirst for justice was so great that before he died he told his beloved friend, Douglas the Black, to carry his heart into the holy war against the Muslims. Douglas, being true to his word, put Robert’s heart into a little silver case, he travelled through rugged terrain, as Christ traversed through the desert to fight the devil. He reached Spain, where the most glorious Reconquista was occurring. He slew the enemy one after the other, in the ranks of Spaniards. Let the masters of reason scoff at how Douglas ended up being the only one left in the battlefield, and how he, gazing upon his enemy, did not see death, but rather, looked beyond death, looked beyond the physical realm, beyond materialism and selfishness, carried his cross and followed Justice Himself, charged toward the enemies while holding the heart of his friend, crying out, “A Douglas! A Douglas! I follow or die!” before becoming a martyr for the cause of Christianity. Let them make their complaints about “religious fanaticism” to this man of valor, and then lets hear of how “courageous” they are for “speaking out” about Islam in a secular platform.
Let the masters of reason hear the song of Malta, and how it resounds throughout the Mediterranean hills with the cries of warriors still being heard in the ears of the soul; let them read of how the Ottomans — the most powerful forces of Islam’s history — tried to invade Malta to use it as a foothold into Europe, and how only five hundred warrior monks, and several thousand Christian fighters, slaughtered over thirty thousand Muslims, and prevented the Muslims from conquering the island for a century. Let them hear this story and laugh before giving some secular talk in which they spout things that we have all heard, about terrorism, about the hijab, about sharia, about ISIS, — things we have all heard about, as we have heard about the Nazis — without ever looking beyond the violence and entering into the state of selfless aspiration to destroy all evil.
Read, of how Christians set the formation of their naval ships to look like a cross when they fought the Muslims who had their vessels form a crescent, and then lets hear the rubbish of these secularists. Let them read of how, before the battle, the Christians set the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe to be hoisted on their ship, let them read of how the commander of the battle, Don Juan of Austria, declared before the battle commenced:
“I take it for certain that the Turks, swollen by their victories, will wish to take on our fleet, and God–have the pious presentiment–will give us victory”.
Let them read these things, and then lets hear of secular garbage. Islam was founded, not to destroy secularism, but to destroy Christianity. Over a millennia and many centuries before this dry and materialistic secular movement against Islam, the ancient Christian John the Deacon wrote that the Muslims “are intent and zealous to deny the divinity of the Word of God.” In the eighth century, before this useless secularist movement came to “fight” Islam, there was the most discerning St. John of Damascus, describing the Muslims as “a forerunner of the Antichrist.”
What put Islam, after so many centuries of holy wars and crusades, finally to rest was the British in the First World War. After 673 years of Islamic rule, Jerusalem was finally liberated by a Christian general. Allenby, before the battle, permitted a Catholic procession, filled with prayers, chants and penitent marching. This procession, was described by the English monk, Dom Bede Camm, who was present in this procession:
“Down the steep hill from the gate into the Valley of Hinnom, and thence up the Mount of Evil Counsel on the other side, on the road to Bethlehem, as far as the eye could see, stretched the long ranks of soldier pilgrims, two deep – English, Scots, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans, British West Indians, and even some Catholics from the Indian Army. … It was an inspiring sight that met one’s eyes. The big church was packed. The general [Weston] and the officers had seats in the nave, but the choir, sanctuary, nave, aisles, were thronged with men, some sitting on the ground, others standing pressed together so closely that the priests had the greatest difficulty in getting to the altar. I shall never forget facing that great throng of bronzed men who had been through so many dangers, endured so many hardships in order to deliver Jerusalem. …It was wonderful to hear them sing the familiar hymns during the Mass that followed. I have never heard anything like that Faith of Our Fathers shouted from fifteen hundred lusty throats, and it was even more wonderful to kneel in the hush and the stillness that fell on that great crowd when the bell rang out and the Host was raised. I don’t wonder that the celebrant burst into tears and could hardly go on with the Mass. He told us afterwards that he had never been so moved in his life”
Let these secularists read of these zealous soldiers, and of these holy generals, and let them dare say that they would challenge these warriors and demand that they make everything secular. Do you believe that when these soldiers were praying and chanting, that they did not believe that their war was spiritual? The procession was led by a sergeant-major who carried a large silver cross. Do these reprobates dare say that he should have never carried the cross? Would they dare say that the war against the Turk should have been completely secular?
I tell you now, that when the final war comes, it will not be secular, but rather, it will be led by men who have travelled the deserts of the abysmal forces, and seen the tyranny of the diabolical, the despotism of delusion; who have ascended upon the mountain of truth, and thirsted for justice. And in that day shall their thirst for justice be quenched, for leading them will be Justice Himself.