Yesterday I posted a video of a Catholic man beating up a Muslim who was harassing him and the group he was with saying the rosary. A bunch of people were upset about it, saying how what the man did was “unchristian” and bad.
I would like to take a minute here to re-visit one of the stories about Jesus from Sacred Scripture, remembering that what Jesus did was both teach us what to believe as, in his own words, give us a model for how to act in our lives:
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”-John 2:13-17
If Jesus is God, which He is, then as St. John notes in his gospel, the universe came into existence through Him. All life, all creation, all that is, is because He willed it to be from nothing (John 1:3-4) because God is love (1 John 4:8). His actions, therefore, are as perfect as He is because He is perfection.
What did Jesus, God Himself, who is perfection, love, and mercy itself, do in this situation? Did he ask the moneychangers to convert? Did He preach to them? Did He ask to pray with them? No. He beat the moneychangers into submission.
The Expulsion of the Money Changers by Giotto de Bondone. Notice what Jesus, God Himself, is doing to these evil money changers. This is a model for Christians to follow for how to deal with evil. As I said before, when the Muslims run at you, you do not run away, but run towards them.
That should make you very uncomfortable, and for good reason. If God Himself, in His infinite perfection, physically suppressed certain actions on the basis that they are sinful, that tells me two things. First, it tells me there are things that God really does not like and we must avoid, and if we do them we had better seek out forgivness and amend our lives because He will literally punish us, except His punishment is perfect- eternal. Second, it tells me that since God came to earth to give us a model for how to live, this tells us something about how we are to treat evil men who do blatantly evil things.
I have been studying Islam since 1998. That was the year I first read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and from then it has been history. I have seen and experienced many things with Islam, met many people, and been many places on account of it. If I could break down what I have learned in the past two decades into three sentences, this is what I would say:
-Islam is the culmination and perfection of all the heresies of the past and to such an extent that it is a near perfect inversion of what the Catholic Faith teaches.
-Almost all of the problems caused by Islam and Muslim are theological on account of the fact that its theology denies both the nature of God as love and the intrinsic human dignity of man.
-Islam only has as much power as those who practice it give it, and therefore the Muslims must apostatize and become Christians, be expelled, or be warred against until they are destroyed, as Islam is at perpetual war with all non-Muslims for all time.
Think of Islam like cancer. Some cancers are malignant. Some cancers are benign. However, all cancers are inherently bad because they are abnormal, parasitical growths on society that will consume its host, and not only that, but a benign cancer could become malignant at a moment’s notice.
People in the West are confused with Muslims living in peace here because they think “if these people are at war, then why are they not fighting?” The reason why is not because they are not at war, but because right now they are benign Muslims. All of the potential exists there within them to become malignant, and not because they are people, but because that is the nature of Islam. All that separates a “good Muslim” from a “radical Muslim” (or more accurately, “orthodox Muslim”) is the will of the Muslim to act in the example of Muhammad. Islam provides the man the “revelation,” theology, justification, example, and even the means to accomplish this. It is like giving a loaded gun with the safety off to somebody- all he has to do is pull the trigger.
Islam is also dangerous because of its theology, as I alluded to above. By denying the Christian understanding of God and man and instead embracing all the heresies of the past, Islam provides an illogical, inconsistent religion to capricious men who prefer blind obedience to truth and instant gratification to a greater and more selfless end. PMS- power, money, and sex- are the selling points of Islam to men, and by placing temporal delights of this life as a reflection of eternal beatitude, men in particular are inclined to Islam by exploiting basic human biological attractions. As St. Alphonsus Liguori said, The Mohammedan paradise is fit only for beasts, for filthy sensual pleasure is all the believer has to expect there.
Given this danger, Islam is not just merely a religion or an idea that people believe in because they like it. Its theology, like the Catholic Faith, is an all-consuming way of life for those who faithfully believe and seek to practice it to its full end. Islam does not come into a society to be a part of it, but to take it over because that is what its self-state purpose is- to conquer and convert, and to do so by the sword if necessary. That is why Islam must be viewed as a cancer- it is an abnormal, evil growth in a society caused by heresy that if left unchecked will take over the society,. It is not a matter of if, but when in this case.
Using the same example, if Islam is truly a cancer, then the cancer must be removed, and there are three ways to do that. The first is the best way, which is conversion. However, as I said in my previous article, conversion is very difficult and seldom happens barring miracles, especially in mass (an exception to this would be many places in West Africa, where Christianity has exploded and entire villages are abandoning Islam for Christ). While conversion must always be the most important end, alluding back to the example from Jesus earlier, there are some people who are not only going to reject the message, but to oppose it completely up to your death. Again, from sacred scripture:
Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
As Jesus says again, there are some people who are simply evil and it is all by choice. God gives men free will to choose, and in this case not only do they choose what is wrong, but they continue to oppose what is right while doing wrong and mocking what is right. (Mark 12:1-9)
In previous posts, I have discussed the relationship between mercy and justice as being the two fruits of love. Justice without mercy is legalism, but mercy without justice is license, and both are sins because they pervert the nature of love for evil ends. Mercy is necessary for all, because as the Bible clearly says, if our sins were to be counted, then none of us would survive. It was out of mercy that Jesus became man, died, and rose from dead, because He loves us and wants us to spend eternity with Him. God is extremely merciful, but mercy also has an end because some people, sadly, really do not care about God or His mercy.
Go to a Catholic mass sometime (novus ordo or Tridentine), and when the priest is saying the words of consecration over the wine as it becomes the blood of Christ, you will hear him say this, echoing the Gospel:
This is the cup of my blood, of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.
Many times, you will hear priests say “for all.” This is not correct, and has been a scandal for several decades now, as this was a mistranslation from the original.
Note the “for many” part, because Jesus did not come to save everybody. He only came to save those who believe in Him:
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12)
As St. Faustina wrote in her diary, during one of her revelations of Jesus to her, He said:
He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. (source)
God will not be mocked. God is holy and righteous. We who have been called by Christ are likewise not only to be “salt of the earth” and a light unto others that the would see our good deeds and glorify the Father in Heaven, but we are also to stand for the Faith against evil men who would unrepentantly oppose it.
Something you will learn about Muslims and Islam if you spend enough time with them is that while there are many who are simply ignorant or have never heard of Jesus- and I am not speaking of those people- there are many Muslims who are so by choice and for what it teaches. They know what Christianity teaches, and they reject it intentionally, and not only will they reject it, but they will fight and murder you and your family on account of it because of their hatred of the cross.
Muslims, especially those who protest, mock, harass, or aggressively approach Christians acting peacefully in public after being told to please stop, know this well and they do it intentionally. They do this because they are testing you in the same way that certain animals do before they attack. It is testing you for resolve in your faith as well as their attempt to establish the dominance of Islam.
When Muslims act aggressively, it is a struggle for dominance in their minds. Treat is accordingly.
As I said earlier, the concept of love in Islam is the inversion of that in Christianity. Islam defines love as submission and obedience to its teachings- if you love, you will obey what we say. To show therefore any kind of compassion, deference, or even manners to a Muslim who is behaving in an aggressive manner is, in the mind of the Muslim, a demonstration of submission to Islam over his own religion. That is why Muslims appear to have no compassion towards and no respect for non-Muslims who treat them well, because they don’t. They see you as a pushover, an easy target for harassment they can exploit to their ends.
This phenomena happens no matter what the religion is he is testing or where the Muslim goes. The Muslim will test because that is what his religion guides him to do. If he things he can get away with more aggressive Islamic behavior based upon his situation, then he will do it. It is just like training a dog- if you let the dog do things over and over, he will keep doing them until you put a stop to it and continually enforce the rules until he learns, and even then you have to make sure that if they dog tries to resort to his old ways once the new behavior has been established, you remind him of the consequences.
When Muslims act aggressively, or become loud, or get in your face, it is not just a “cultural” difference.
This is a statement of dominance per their own religion’s teachings. It is an act of war against you. In other words, they are “calling your bluff” and asking if you will respond. Most Christians don’t respond- as least in a way the Muslims understand- and so the Muslims become more aggressive. It is a self-replicating cycle that will continue until the Christians choose to stop it by responding with the only way that Muslims in this situation do understand, and that is by force.
There is no mercy, and therefore no love in Islam. If they will not listen to love, they must listen to force. Anything less is not mercy, but license and self-abuse.
It reminds me of the words of the famous 19th century English statesman Benjamin Jowett,
Never retreat, never explain. Get it done and let them howl.
Christus vincit!
Christus regnat!
Christus imperat!