ISIS is Islamic

Obama Is Wrong That ISIS Is 'Not Islamic' - Alistair Crooke

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/obama-isis-not-islamic_b_5843830.html

Finally an article in the media calling a spade a spade amid the pages and pages of political correctness elsewhere. We are so afraid of dignifying ISIS by granting its association with Islam that even our own President and Secretary of State tiptoe around the issue.

When Obama and Kerry say ISIS is not Islamic they are saying ISIS does not meet their definition of Islamic. They understand Islam to be a modern, peaceful religion encapsulated in the theology practiced by the peaceful Muslims worldwide.

There was a period in history when to be a Hebrew meant following Yahweh's orders to take the land of neighbors and slaughter every living thing in your path.

There was a later period in history when those same crimes were used as a justification for Christians to march across Europe to the Holy Land to beat back the Muslims.

Jews and Christians know God does not operate that way anymore. He does not suspend the laws of nature to intervene as he once did, nor does he audibly speak to leaders of nations to commit atrocities against other non-believing nations. Muslims are slow to get that message. Some Muslims still believe God (Allah) has commanded them to use violence to take what belongs to "true" believers. We can give them a little break since Islam was not invented until the 7th century AD. Jews and Christians have had time to become more moderate and to separate their theology from their politics. The silence of the moderates demonstrates that extremist Muslims might need more opposition from those unafraid to say politically incorrect things.

I do not think that religions are inherently violent. Religions are practiced using theologies, systematic understandings of how tradition, oral stories, and holy texts fit together to become a THING to be practiced. What you are worshiping is God; what you are practicing is a theology.

For a period of time, Jews did not have a political system separate from a religious one. Yahweh gave Moses a bunch of ecclesiastical and civil laws to transfer to the Jewish people. Leviticus WAS the law. It was the law to stone someone to death.

During the Inquisition the Church was so bent on carrying out God's work of rooting out heresy that it caused Christians to not follow Christ at all but a terrestrial authority who supposedly had the power to decide for God on Earth.

Today we see Muslims mixing religion and politics, imposing Sharia Law, and allowing extremist groups like ISIS to speak on behalf of Islam without fervent opposition from moderate Muslims.

Until Islam can be ubiquitously sanitized by a more contemporary theology the way Judaism and Christianity have, apocalyptic extremist groups will continue to be born and thrive.