Thoughts on Islam

By Kerry Duke

01/26/2005
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A lot of people have responded to statements I made concerning Islam as they were reported in the Nashville media. I am happy to say that the great majority of these responses were very encouraging and supportive. This feedback has made me more aware of the growing concern that many good people in America have about the danger Islam poses to our society. The American people rarely hear a politician or anyone in the news media tell the truth about Islam. Most of these leading voices claim that Islamic terrorists are radicals who do not represent the pure teachings of Islam, which they claim is a peaceable religion.

The basic facts of Islam which need to be understood are:

1. The word “Islam” means submission. The goal of Islam is to bring the world into subjection to its teaching.
2. There is absolutely no separation of church and state (or, mosque and state) in Islamic teaching. The government is or should be the religion and the religion is or should be the government. This is the uniform belief of Muslims in general, from average Muslims to Islamic scholars to militant extremists.
3. The Koran orders Muslims to “fight in the cause of Allah.” What is “the cause of Allah”? It is the religion of Islam!

What a perfect recipe for bloodshed! These facts are open for all to see, and yet voices in the media and in government are strangely silent about them! Instead of hearing the straight facts about the religion of Islam, we hear that the abuse of Islam at the hands of extremists, not the religion itself, is responsible for terrorist attacks and regimes such as Saddam Hussein’s. Defenses are made to exonerate the “pure” religion of Islam which conceal the true character of this dangerous movement.

Liberal voices in America are bent on pushing their view of separation of church and state on the American public. But they are true to their anti-Christian bias because they are virtually silent about Islamic teaching on this matter, which is far more radical than even the straw man version of the church-state issue they are prone to attack. If Islam has its way, the government of the United States will bow to the religious laws of the Koran – all of them!

There is a distinction that liberal leaders will not hear about the issue of church and state. The law of God is above United States law or any other law. Our country is and ought to be “One Nation Under God,” for we are certainly not equal to or above Him. But it is the moral aspect of that law which our own laws must respect. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with having laws that command cannibalism or rape. We ought to have laws against murder and theft, and the basis for these laws is not popular vote or even the constitution. These absolute moral laws come from God Himself. The laws of a nation ought to reflect these basic moral principles. To try to separate government from these principles is disastrous and insane. So there should be no separation of the state and the basic moral truths that have their origin in the Creator. But this is different than separating government from the positive teachings of a particular religion such as worship (as long as those teachings do not violate moral law, as in the case of human sacrifice). If by “separation of church and state” one means that the government should not enforce the positive laws of a religion (for instance, by putting people in jail because they do not observe the Communion on Sunday), then the statement is legitimate. But when a person extends this phrase to basic moral principles, such as the value of human life, and claims that the separation of church and state prevents laws against abortion, that person has misused the phrase.

But Islam does not teach that only basic moral tenets should be a part of a law system. When Islam in its true form is practiced in a society, the positive as well as the moral principles are enforced. This forbids belief in any other religion besides Islam, and death is the punishment for this “crime.”

Does Islam promote bloodshed against innocent persons? The Koran states: “Let those fight in the cause of Allah who sell the life of this world for the hereafter” (Surah 4:74). This is the cause of Allah or Islam, not the cause of simple self-defense. And the fighting in this context is physical battle, not an inward spiritual struggle. Jihad or holy war in Islam is aggressive.

Muslims often counter this charge by criticizing the Bible and by pointing to atrocities committed in the name of Christianity. It is true that God commanded the Israelites to march into Canaan and kill the men, women and children. But as the Bible reveals, these nations were wicked, and their death was actually a case of capital punishment (Lev. 18-20; Deut. 9:1-6). Ultimately we must appeal to the right of God to take human life in order to understand this question. But the church of the New Testament is not a theocracy as was the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. The New Testament is the law for today, not the law of Moses.

But Islam has no Old and New Testament. Whatever it teaches applies to all ages, including the order to “fight in the cause of Allah.”

Catholics and Protestants have over the centuries abused power. But they did not derive this approach from legitimate Bible interpretation. The New Testament does not authorize the use of the sword to further the cause of Christ, but the Koran both authorizes and commands the use of the sword against unbelievers. Atrocities committed in the name of Christianity are as wrong as those committed in the name of Allah. This argument does not apply to true Christian practice.

Actions often speak louder than words. In what Muslim dominated country do we find real freedom? In which of those countries do we find good will toward other religions? One man, who had seen firsthand the misery inflicted by Muslims in India, said that when Muslims are weak in an area, they talk about friendship and peace, but when they are strong, they will crush you.

Americans had better wake up.