Elizabeth Scalia explains why the ISIS threat won't be defeated easily:
Western culture has become staunchly secular humanist, and believes itself to have figured everything out; there are no longer “things seen and unseen”, there are only things which science has not yet explained. And this is why, as [Ambassador Ryan] Crocker said, “we don’t understand real evil, organized evil, very well.”
He’s right. And we have been too long in understanding something I wrote long ago:
The fundamentalists who endorse and commit terror believe they are heaven-bound heroes. First and foremost, they “believe.” Their rhetoric of jihad rides the language of faith.
It is with the language of faith that Islamic terrorism must be engaged and defeated, and therein lies the disconnect for the diplomatic West. Having reasoned itself out of faith, its incomplete arsenal is fit for battle, but not for victory. The West can speak only of borders, boundaries, markets, and measurement. Faith exists beyond boundaries and borders; it defies markets and measurement. The negotiables of the West are worldly and “the world” means nothing in the face of paradise. Islam, like all faith, is not of this world but of the world to come. Islam’s extremists, like all extremists, would like to speed their agenda along.
Jihad is not interested in acquiring land, or money, or even control, which faith understands to be illusory. What these extremists want is submission.
Crocker seems to understand this:
People like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the ISIS leader, “have been in a fight for a decade. They are messianic in their vision, and they are not going to stop.”
Our president needs to understand it, too, and so does whoever succeeds him, and so does Europe, and Asia and Oceania.
Only the tools and language of faith can comprehend the supernatural origins and depths of this evil — not only comprehend it, but confront it. In London, the black flag of IS was flown from the front gate of a housing unit. Journalists seeking information were threatened, and they eventually backed off; officials were slow to arrive and check it out. One local nun, singular – an older woman managing a community outreach center — took it upon herself to remove it, which she did.
Likely, she will have to do it again, and again. Likely, she has made a target of herself, to some diabolically disoriented mind, somewhere. As Thomas McDonald said, we all did this. We will all have to act.
In the future – in the very near future, I fear — peaceful people of all faiths will need to take that sister’s small, risky move to heart, and follow her example. They will have to recognize evil when they see it and be ready to confront it – not without fear, but in the knowledge that there is a power greater than evil, the genuine force for good, into which they may tap. A light that, when met with the black depths of darkness advertised by the flag of IS, cannot be overcome.
Elizabeth's post is one of her best, not simply because she's writing clearly and concisely (she always does) but because she's being prophetic, she's sounding an alarm, she's written the God's honest truth.
This isn't just a must read, it must be pondered and passed on.
We must take a stand against this kind of evil.
We are called to do so.
We must answer the call.
