Tony Blair gets it wrong
Earlier this month, on August 1, British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a body known as the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, and put to them an interesting argument about Muslim terrorism. He suggested that if only we could win the war against extremist Muslims at the level of values, all would be well in the world—although reading what he actually said, you could be forgiven for thinking he only means the bits of the Western world that agree with him. You can find an edited version of what he said here.
There are many problems with what he said.
Leaving aside the observation that the “World Affairs Council” sounds like something put together by Dr No in an old James Bond movie, we might ask other questions. What values is Mr Blair talking about? Wouldn't some in the Middle East argue back that one value they were fairly keen on was justice? And that some in the West had rather failed to recognize this key Islamic value?
Not only so, but it is patently clear that in many cases, Western values have indeed been thoroughly inculcated into numbers of the people who later became Muslim extremists.
You would have thought that Tony Blair, of all people, was aware of this. A “Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005”, was published in May 2006 by the British House of Commons. You can download the full report here.
This report looked into the motivation of the four young suicide bombers responsible for these attacks. Three of the young men were British citizens. They were born to Pakistani immigrants, educated in secular UK schools, and received government and family support (The fourth was an immigrant from Jamaica who had converted to Islam). These extremists knew what they were supposed to believe, and found that it was wanting. They observed Western values. They learned Western values. They imbibed these values—one of the bombers even worked for a British welfare agency at one time. Then they rejected them.
But Tony Blair's views on the values war can be discounted further. The root problem is far more than just a brain deficiency in that essential nutrient, wishy-washy Western secularism—a bit like not getting enough cod-liver oil in your diet. The reason extremist Muslims carry out a London or a Bali bombing is theological. Their god reveals his power in force, destruction and warfare.
Now the Christian God reveals his power in judgement too, that's true. But it is a judgement that lands with full force on his only son, Jesus Christ. In this way, the greatest demonstration of God's power is a propitiatory sacrifice of life that leads not to more death, but to eternal life for all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus. The only person terrorised by Jesus' death was Satan.
If the true battle is theological, then the debate we need to have is a debate about the nature of God. One obvious way of doing this is face-to-face, sending individual Christians who were prepared to speak about God's love into Muslim countries.
I doubt, however, that government support of Christian missionaries, operating through evangelistic aid agencies in the Middle East, is likely to happen in the near future. So there's one good reason for Christians to support mission to Muslims by praying, giving and going. This is one that the government is not going to do for us.