You don’t have to read this to get my comments, but in all fairness this blog post is what inspired my blog post:
Several things are striking about this:
1) U. S. involvement is in many ways the cause or catalyst of this situation. And yet
2) U. S. involvement is acting on a set of Islamic laws which condone and encourage and even command such behavior – the US doesn’t provide the evil actions to Islam, they provide the incentive for Islam to show its worst. (Mimetic rivalry is at the heart of this, at the heart of the U. S. and of Islam.)
3) There is no real explanation for why “a secular law” is of much real benefit for the situation precisely because America’s involvement in the Middle East **is secular** and is exactly the proof that people ought to recognize as proof that nothing about being secular will make you neutral or fair or just or balanced towards those who disagree with you.
In other words, in conclusion, while a spirit of peace and hope is essential to reconciliation (I think St. Patrick, St. Francis), it is also important to recognize that in a world of people with hellish desires, you will get hellish things (from Secularists and Islamists and Christians) unless you can spread the source of hope and peace – Christ himself.
(This is why, in the past, I have quoted Dumbledore imploring Cornelius Fudge to see reason about thw death eaters as being relevant to the situation with Islam – because Dumbledore is also the man who most of all offered his friendship and forgiveness, his humanity, to Lord Voldemort, by always calling him by name, speaking calmly and with reason. We need an attitude which recognizes violent worldviews and cultures caught up in mimetic rivalries, but which also speaks with grace into them. An attitude of ignorance will only compound the problem.)
INFP Theologian 