Isma'ili calligraphic representation of `Ali as the "tiger of Allah."  Not quite Aslan, alas. 
 

We Christians should all appreciate the historical rigor and intellectual honesty which Isma’ili thinkers like Mr. Andani are willing to bring to bear on an issue of such supreme importance. But this religious rectitude serves primarily to reinforce the unbridgeable gulf between Christianity and Islam, over against false claims that they teach the same thing about Jesus. 

Now that is is past midnight on Easter, April 20, 2014, I can state unequivocally (again): “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”  I pray that eventually our Isma’ili, and indeed all Muslim, brothers and sisters, will join us in that central reality of life.   The Isma’ilis have taken the first step on that road, to their credit.

The American media and US intelligence community have both--as usual--missed the point about yesterday's al-Qa`ida jihad-fest in Yemen, in which AQ deputy caliph Nasir al-Wuhayshi calls for Muslims to "eliminate the cross" and "the bearer of the cross [which] is America." CNN, FNC and various and sundry US government analysts and politicians over the past 24 hours have exegeted the video of this meeting to mean that 1) we should have had armed drones there sooner, and 2) our intelligence is still lacking, if the CIA was indeed unaware of this mass AQ confab. 
Important as these two issues are, however, they are both tactical ones, and thus of lesser importance than the glaringly obvious strategic point made by al-Wuhayshi: AQ does not want to attack America primarily because of our "freedoms" but because we are the largest Christian country on the planet.



This inconvenient truth flies in the face of both post-9/11 US administrations.  Only 9 days after the Islamic terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 Americans, President Bush was misconstruing the perpetrators as "enemies of freedom."  President Obama and his willfully ignorant mouthpieces (like Eric Holder and John Brennan) have doubled down on this nonsense, and even exceeded it by their constant claims that the very idea that Islam might have had something to do with motivating those engaged in self-described jihad is ipso facto discriminatory. (A variation of this head-in-the-sand "analsyis" holds that "religious fundamentalists'" hatred of modernity is the culprit.)

Alas, the secularists and leftists in downtown Atlanta, Manhattan, Foggy Bottom and Langley are wrong, and as long as they continue to be wrong the West will go on losing its civilizational battle--which is not just with Islamic "extremism" or AQ but with literalist Islam itself. 

Why? Because the Qur'an and the Hadiths (alleged sayings of Muhammad) instruct Muslims to labor, violently and non-violently, until the entire world is either converted or submissive to Islam.  And since historically and theologically the main (indeed, only) rival to Islam has been Christianity,  that religion and its adherents have been the object of the lion's share of Islamic ire--and most of that long before AQ even existed.  Recall that the majority of the Middle East and North Africa west of the Tigris and Euphrates was Christian by the 7th century AD.  It was only after the irruption of Islam from Arabia and the "destruction of tens of thousands of churches" that the intolerant religion of Muhammad gained the upper hand in those regions.



AQ's #2 calling for a jihad, an Islamic religious war, against Christians is nothing new; neither is it "extremist."  Such has been the norm for most of the last fourteen centuries, and Americans have simply been lulled into lassitude by the earlier 20th century retreat of Islamic aggression (along with, it must be said, American ignorance of history courtesy of shoddy public schools, as well as books, lectures and coverage by dhimmi media and their "experts").  AQ is weaponized Islam; but it is not the first version, nor will it be the last.

There are even hadiths which state that when "prophet Jesus" (nabi `Isa) returns from heaven--for of course he was never crucified and thus never resurrected, but simply taken up--he will kill all the world's pigs, destroy all the crosses and then kneel down and pray behind the Mahdi, who outranks him.  AQ is thus following mainstream Islamic teachings (both Sunni and Twelver Sh`i) in eschatological matters, as well more mundane ones.


A drone strike on al-Wuhayshi and his Muslim brothers in Yemen was necessary; but it would have been woefully insufficient to stem the tide of Islamic ideology, of da`wah, which continues to captivate the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East, as well as growing numbers of supporters in America and the West.  (For example: the Boston Marathon jihad of the brothers Tsarnaev was motivated, at least in part, by Islamic eschaological belief.)  As long as the American intelligentsia and leadership denies that many members of the world's second-largest religion are waging war on the adherents of the largest one, al-Wuhayshi and his ilk will have the upper hand.


Jesus and the Mahdi, back from a hard day of destroying churches, hit the drive-thru at Sonic Boom Falafel.

My good friend Ralph Sidway, an Orthodox Christian who runs the "Facing Islam" blog, has a fascinating article about the eschatological aspects of the week between Palm Sunday and Easter.


Christ of the Last Judgement, with the Book of Life and Death (from Swordofthespirit.net).