By Ms. Then Thranholm. This article examines political
and social events with focus on their religious aspects, significance and moral
implications.
Ms. Thranholm is one of Denmark's most widely read columnists on
such matters. She is a former editor and radio host at the Danish Broadcasting
Corporation (DR), at^ which she created a religious news program that set a new
standard fir religious analysis in the newsroom. She has traveled extensively
in the Middle East, Italy, the United States and Russia to carry out research
and interviews. She has been awarded for her investigative research into Danish
media coverage of religious issues.
The media, for several weeks after the terrorist
attacks in Paris, continued to overflow all of its avenues with comments and
analyses. One particular angle is consistently ignored—or banished: religion.
This is a curious omission since the terrorists themselves issue statements
that indicate that religion is their motivation.
The statement in which IS accepts responsibility for
the attacks in Paris is made in the name of Allah and the killings are referred
to as “a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah.” It
states that Paris was targeted because it is "a capital of prostitution
and vice” and “the lead carrier of the cross in Europe.”
IS is consistently referring to the Parisians as
“crusaders”— the audience at the Bataclan, however, are called “pagans gathered
for aconcert of prostitution and vice.” The statement closes with a terror
threat to strike those who "dare to curse the Prophet and boasts about
their war against Islam.” A further look at the character of the attacks
reveals with ever-increasing clarity their symbolic significance. They were
carried out on a Friday, the Muslim holiday. The victims at the Bataclan were
listening to music, which is banned in fundamentalistic Islam, and the first
targets to be shot were guests at the bar drinking alcohol. The symbolism
assumed a new dimension when the perpetrators started firing on the audience of
a performance by the band “Eagles of Death Metal” of its popular tune “Kiss the
Devil.”
A series of images taken moments before the massacre
start¬ed, members of the audience are seen making the hand sign used for devil
worship, their index and little finger lifted in preparation for singing along
with the lurid lyrics:
Who'll love the Devil?
Who’ll sing his song?
Who will love the Devil and his song?
I’ll love the Devil
I’ll sing his song
I will love the Devil and his song What diabolical
irony: the audience in the concert hall sings to the devil and is then
butchered in cold blood by Jihad is claiming to serve Allah by annihilating pagans
celebrating and invoking the Devil.
The Parisians seem devoid of any sense of the
spiritual reality they are inviting. Yet their invocation was heard and
answered.
What a heart-breaking scene. Servants of Allah and
pagan revelers becoming a devilish blood sacrifice.
In spite of IS’ own constant and unambiguous
references to Allah as the motivation for their terrorist acts, politicians
and mass media alike consistently refuse to
acknowledge religion, let alone mention it. Instead, they contort their
rhetoric into fantastical figures of unreality by stressing that the world is
not at war with Islam, supported by claims that IS/ISIS/ISIL is not Islamic,
and for this purpose they have adopted the new brand name Daesh, ostensibly to
express denial of Islamism as a religious faith.
When Francois Hollande spoke at the Congress at the
Versailles shortly after the attacks, he refused to link the atrocities with
Islam with even a single word. Obama has also said time and again that the West
is not at war with Islam.
Religion is thus a total taboo in the narrative of the
fight on terror. There are two reasons. One is political correctness: the
ideology of secularism propounds the doctrine that religion is irrelevant, as
it is not one of the ideals of the Enlightenment and must therefore be ignored,
except: in so far as it is made the object of derision and scorn. the other,
and more significant, reason is that there is little sensibility to religion
and spirituality in Europe—and none whatever among the political elite.
litis is the root of the problem. Irrespective of the
way one chooses to interpret the desire of the jihadists to strike “pagans
gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice” and the audience’s invocation
of the devil, it provides a strong picture, or perhaps rather a sign, of what
creates and nurtures terrorism. The driving force is spiritual rather than
political. The decline of Christianity in the West has created a spiritual and
moral vacuum of colossal proportions. It is this vacuum that gives Islamism
momentum and nourishment.
The West simply no longer understands spirituality and
has lost touch with its spiritual foundations by abandoning Christianity, now
banished also from the EUTreaty. Several countries have removed Christian and
all religious symbols from public spaces. By removing God they have created an
empty space for evil to fill. This has been combined with morally bankrupt
foreign policies that have accepted the slaughter and beheading of Christians,
which is tantamount to a destruction of Europe’s own spiritual foundations to
achieve geopolitical gains, the latest of which is regime change in Syria by
removing the country’s democratically elected president.
The monster created by the rejection of Christianity
is gaining power, as terrorism has grown from a d-christianized culture.
Secularism and Isiamism are two faces of the same destructive spirituality, two
parasites nurturing each other. While justice and mercy combine in the virtues
that spring from Christianity, the destructive justice of Isiamism becomes
glaringly demonic. 'There is no longer a spiritual counterweight or grace,
forgiveness and charity, only a political counterpoint, which is clearly
inadequate.
Secularism, relativism of values, materialism and
democracy as a new religion (idolatry' devoid of a deity) constantly prove
their feeble inadequacy when facing Isiamism. 'The post-Christian ideologies
possess no core of spiritual strength—surveillance and military hardware is
what they offer. It takes more to win a war. It takes moral strength. The West
has lost its moral strength, amply evident in its approach to foreign policy'
by supporting so-called moderate terrorist groups that show little moderation
when it comes to beheadings and literally eating the hearts of their victims.
The orgy of death at the Bataclan shows with superb
clarity what happens when a people turn their backs on Christianity, invoke
diabolical forces intending to use them for their own purpose and reap the
bitter harvest of a reality they should
have foreseen.
Unless Europe acknowledges the religious pivot of
terrorism, Europe will perish clueless of the identity of its real enemy.
Europe will remain fatally feeble. A spiritual revival is the single and sole
hope for Europe to muster the strength to stand up to IS. The spiritual vacuum
is also a vacuum of true values: patriotism, honor, virile virtues, masculine
values like valor, courage, self-sacrifice, and strong faith in a good and
loving God. AH this is urgently needed if Europe is to defeat terrorism and
radical Islam. Such a spiritual revival, a resurgence of Christianity, has been
sweeping through Russia after the end of the Cold War. This provides Russia
with a much clearer sense of what it takes to defeat terror and evil: the
correct calibration of the moral compass, which allows you to know where you
are and where you need to go.
Europe has prevailed against Islam several times
through history. It did so in Spain, France, in Austria in the Battle of
Lepanto in 1571, and all of these victories were won at a time
when Christianity w[as the explicit and acknowledged
foundation. Now, for the fiist time in history, Europe must face Islam in
mortal battle without the rock of Christianity to provide the foundation to
stajnd on and without identifying the enemy, and without admitting it is at
war. No compass to show where it is, where it should go, or why.
If Europe is to win this battle, it must rediscover
Christianity. French Foreign Minister and founder of the EU Robert Schumann
once made the statement: “Europe will not live and will not be saved except to
the degree in which it has awareness of itself and of its responsibilities,
when it returns to the Christian principles of solidarity and fraternity.”
If Europe persists in rejecting Christianity', it must
abandon all hope of ever being able to stand up to Islam and its Islamic
terrorism.
Orthodox Heritage
Page 30 Vol 14, Issue 01-08
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