Joel Rainey leads the Engagement Team for Evangelism and Missions at the Mid-Atlantic Baptist Network. He is on the adjunct faculty of two seminaries,and the author of three books. He blogs at Themelios, where this was originally posted last week.
“Duck Dynasty star on Muslims: ‘Convert them or kill them,'” read the headline of Jonathan Merritt’s social media post last week. The post contained a link to a Religion News Service articledescribing Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson’s recent appearance with FOX News host Sean Hannity, in which the two discussed how the US and others should respond to the threat now posed to the world by the group known as ISIS.
While RNS deserves credit for a more accurate title than that given by Merritt, any intelligent person should really be asking why this is news. But more importantly, there are far more serious issues facing the world right now, and Merritt and RNS should recognize that such nonsense is the kind of thing only printed on a slow news day. And our world hasn’t seen one of those in quite some time.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Phil Robertson has been at the center of controversy. The plain-spoken and sometimes graphically offensive founder of a multi-million dollar duck-call company can always be counted on to speak his mind, even if what’s on it makes some people wretch. I’ve winced myself a few times after hearing him speak, knowing that a more winsome and engaging approach might be more profitable. But after four seasons on TV, anyone expecting this guy to be erudite just isn’t living in the real world.
Phil Robertson is rough around the edges. If that statement strikes you as “breaking news,” journalism probably shouldn’t be your chosen profession.
But once you get past the rough exterior to the substance of what the man actually said on the show, there is nothing any good Christian, Muslim, or anyone else of goodwill would take exception to. For one, the subject of the segment was ISIS (a group that has brutally murdered many Muslims in addition to Christians, Yazidis, et al), not Muslims in general. Speaking of that group, Robertson clearly stated that his preference would be to open a Bible and share the love of Jesus with them. I agree. He also stated that if they continue with their violence they should be eliminated. I agree with that too, and so do many of my friends who also happen to be Muslim.
Anyone who has followed my ministry over the past four years is aware that I’ve developed some dear friendships with Muslims in this area, and other places around the world. I’ve also taken quite a bit of heat from a few in my own tribe for those friendships, so it should go without saying that I’m sensitive toward anything that might misrepresent my friends. I don’t believe their faith leads to eternal life, but stereotyping people you don’t agree with and making them look as bad as possible is not an effective way to be friends or share your faith. So you can bet if Phil Robertson had said what Jonathan Merritt claimed he said, I would have been the first to condemn the remarks.
Problem is, that’s not what he said at all. Could he have worded his statements better? Of course. But the man was simply expressing the sentiment that while he’d rather make peace and share his faith, he was also ready to defend himself and his family. Unless you are a pacifist who thinks it is morally superior to watch your wife and children brutalized while you do nothing to stop the perpetrators, you shouldn’t have a problem with this either.
What we should have a problem with are religion reporters who morally equivocate between a man who should have chosen his words more carefully and a gang of mostly British punks who are cutting off the heads of women and children–and making such an equivocation in an apparent effort to create something “newsworthy.” The result is to paint a false picture of “Christian vs. Muslim” toward which you feign opposition, when in reality, your misrepresentation of another stirs waters that were still before you stepped into them.
This is the point where the adolescent behavior of some in today’s media becomes clear. Our world is currently filled with violence and unrest that we should take with deadly seriousness. The ebb and flow of the Israel/Gaza conflict, the war at the Ukranian border, a civil war in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State, and the various responses to all of the above by various European players should be enough to grab anyone’s attention. Throw in the very real possibility of another terrorist attack on American soil connected to any one or combination of these issues, and a world war scenario becomes a very real possibility. History demonstrates that prior global conflicts have erupted from far cooler environments than the one in which we now find ourselves.
In times like these, followers of Jesus should be doing all we can to make peace. And we should be praying for our leaders, and urging them to act in accordance with Biblical principles of justice. Where ISIS is concerned, we are beyond the question of whether the use of deadly force is necessary to turn back their evil. But the question of who should dispense that force, how it should be done, and with whom they should cooperate are far more complex questions, and those who govern followers of Jesus deserve more than “click bait” from religious media. In this context, we need our media outlets and columnists talking to us and our leaders in a way that expounds on a long and faithful history of just war concepts. Some politicians in recent years have so twisted the concept that virtually no one in American Christianity knows what it means anymore. And this is a horrible context for that sort of ignorance to be so prevalent.
In other words, we have real problems to discuss. We don’t have time for the cosmetic ones. So perhaps those who claim to write on behalf of Christ-followers should be less concerned with parsing the cumbersome words of a Louisiana duck hunter, and spend a little more time examining those left to us by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Such is what we call “adult conversation.” And with the condition our world is in, we need that now more than ever.
“we need our media outlets and columnists talking to us and our leaders in a way that expounds on a long and faithful history of just war concepts. Some politicians in recent years have so twisted the concept that virtually no one in American Christianity knows what it means anymore.”
This is a fact fo’sho’. Every time I discuss it, I have to explain it. In fact, I’d say a good portion doesnt even believe it should exist.
Wow. I don’t remember the last time Dave picked someone up over his head and laid them out with a metaphorical body slam like this post. Well needed, too.
Opps, I saw it was posted by Dave, but written by Joel Rainey. At any rate, comment still applies. Important callout of Merritt here.
Now still waiting for Dave’s metaphorical body slam…
I often forget to change the author’s name when I post articles from other guys.
You and Mark Driscoll. Shame. 🙂
Janet Mefford is holding on line 2, hoping to set up an interview with Dave sometime in the near future.
As to the issue of ISIS when would it be okay for a Christian to defend themselves and there family and when would it not be okay?
-In the book of Acts and throughout the New Testament we do not find followers of Christ fighting back when persecution comes there way. Paul says the government wields the sword not the church nor followers of Christ. So if you are a Christian and somebody comes to your home illegally, government authority, or a terrorists outfit like ISIS and they threatened to kill you if you would not renounce Christ what do you do? Grab your gun or say I am a Christian and I am willing to die because I am one.
These are just some thoughts swirling in my head. What do other pastors and theologians have to say
I’m sure others may act differently, but if ISIS (or anybody else for that matter) would break into my home, they better like the taste of buckshot. If out in public, I will fight for all I’m worth to protect my wife and family, if physical violence is being threatened. If I am alone, I’m not sure. It would probably depend on the circumstances. I don’t believe the bible teaches total pacificsm.
Andrew,
I would hope and pray that I would be willing to give my life for the name of Jesus. You ask good questions, and not to get too far off topic, but yours are the sorts of questions that cause me to internally question whether we should have “armed guards” at a church service. Do we really want the headline to read that a gunman was taken out by a deacon? That’s a tough call in my mind, and your questions raise those issues for me.
That said, Scripture is also replete with calls to stand for the powerless and defend the weak, and I don’t merely take those as metaphors for speech. I expect that it is a call to action.
I have no desire to hurt anyone, but where my wife and children are concerned–or for that matter, anyone else who is weaker in the face of a violent perpetrator, I would not hesitate to send them to meet God. Individuals have the right to defend themselves and those for whom they are responsible, and as my family’s head, I don’t think Jesus would be very happy with me if I stood before Him after having witnessed my wife and children brutalized–with the resources to stop it–and I did nothing. Admittedly its a tough moral situation to work through, but in my view this is where I come out.
Yes it is ok and right to defend oneself and others.
Proverbs 24:10 If you falter in a time of trouble,
how small is your strength!
11 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
12 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?
Psalm 82:3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Oh, and Ex. 22:2 “If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him…”
So, does that mean we still aim center-mass or for the leg and hope for the best?
Adam G., my training was to do whatever necessary to neutralize the threat. Usually that means center mass as there is less opportunity to miss. But in the case of a home invasion, a shotgun would be the preferred method. At the same time, use of potentially deadly force should be avoided if at all possible. Escape the threat if at all possible.
Les is right. Center mass, and for a number of legitimate reasons. This is why we each need to wrestle through the implications of this for our families, and be ready emotionally and otherwise if, God forbid, that moment should come.
It may be helpful to note that these are not new questions. In the face of the rise of Naziism, Bonehoeffer questioned the appropriate use of violence and its necessity. Ultimately, he ended up taking part in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Had I lived during that time, I think I might have joined him.
Could it be that the British Punks are the result of the failure of believers to become knowledgeable of the political realities of our world and of the many issues that Christians need to investigate, master, and provide a biblical way of handling such differences. We left the intellectual scene, and now we have the reality that the educated sophisticates of our godless institutions are pushing Christians out of the public arena and cramming them into narrow spaces where they will be permitted to exist until the dead heads figure out what to do with us. The truth is, however, that, among other things, apologetics and a more in-depth understanding of the biblical records and teachings will lead eventually to a season of informed praying (e.g., the pleading of the promises of Edwards’ Humble Attempt which is what the founders of the modern missionary movement pleaded which led to the launching of that great effort) which will bring down the power of Heaven upon the whole earth like a flood or a fire, taking all for the glory of Christ and reaching out to the planets to which man might well be spreading already, if the info. I have managed to deduce from many sources are any indication.
Once we begin to get a hold on how we are being manipulated by dialectics, e.g., Nazism and freedom, Communism and Capitalism, Liberalism and Fundamentalism, Calvinists and Traditionalists, then we will stop knocking the tar out of one another and come together to deal with our common opposition. Read Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope for starters along with the sci/fi trilogy by C.S. Lewis, especially That Hideous Strength, which in a list of fictional conspirators lists a real historical one that is discussed by Quigley. Try Cecil Rhodes. Besides, the seeming opposites of the dialectic which are used to manipulate us are really poles that are only apparently contradictory (not all of them, of course. Some are real contradictions) and are not meant to be reconciled or overcome by force. On the contrary, they are to be maintained, allowing for a tension to develop in the mind which enables a believer to be balanced, flexible, creative, constant, and magnetic, the secret of the success of the Great Awakenings and the beginning of the Great Century of Missions until the group that Quigley covered decided to move in and stop the threat to their control of the world (Yeah, they really do believe they control the whole world, and there is good evidence that they do control a lot of it. But they reckon without God). Remember, we worship the Omniscient God, the source of all true intellectualism and that is not the intellectualism of $100 words. It is the wisdom of insight into ideas and how they relate and how they influence us or how they enable us to function in ways that are beneficial and helpful to the cause of Christ. Right now we need a veritable army, a vast multitude of people who understand the situation and are willing to secure all the knowledge possible. However, God often uses very small things to upset the apple carts of the high and the mighty, a distinct possibility in this case with the power of God available through prayer.