Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Palestinian Christian activist stabbed to death in Gaza, AP, Haaretz, October 7, 2007

A Palestinian Christian activist who had received repeated death threats was found stabbed to death in a street in Gaza City early Sunday.

Rami Khader Ayyad, 32, was director of the Teacher’s Bookshop, Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, which is run by the Bible Society of Gaza Baptist church.

Health Ministry officials confirmed his death.

Ayyad had been missing since Saturday evening. Over the years he had received repeated death threats from unidentified people displeased with his missionary work.

The Interior Ministry run by Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers condemned the killing and said it launched an investigation.

“This grave crime will not pass without punishment,” the ministry said in a statement.

About 3,200 Christians live in Gaza, most of them Greek Orthodox. Relations with Gaza’s Muslims are generally good, and have not deteriorated since Hamas wrested control of the strip in mid-June.

But there have been occasional acts of violence, and in April, a bomb severely damaged the Palestinian Bible Society building in Gaza, which has been operating since 1999.

John McCain on Islam, Mormonism, America as a Christian nation, his move from an Episcopal to Baptist church — Beliefnet.com, September 2007

Interview by Dan Gilgoff

McCain:

I admire the Islam. There’s a lot of good principles in it. I think one of the great tragedies of the 21st century is that these forces of evil have perverted what’s basically an honorable religion. But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles…. personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn’t mean that I’m sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don’t say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would–I just feel that that’s an important part of our qualifications to lead.*

A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn’t say, “I only welcome Christians.” We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

Burston, Yes, Sen. McCain, America is a Christian nation - Haaretz, October 3, 2007

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain sparked outcries from Jewish organizations this week, after saying in an interview that he would rather see America led by a Christian, and that “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”

Asked if a Muslim candidate could be a good president, McCain replied, “I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles … personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith,”

…Every Jewish kid in America who has ever worn a kippah, every Muslim who has worn external evidence of his or her devotion to Islam, knows very well that Senator McCain was right. Every public school child who was raised in a home where Jesus was not believed to be God, and who was made to sing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” with devotion and feeling, know just how right McCain was. Every high school football player who began every game hearing invocation to the Lord Jesus Christ cannot help but wonder what all the fuss is about.

firstamendmentcenter.org: news, September 24, 2007

WASHINGTON — Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey released Sept. 11 by the First Amendment Center.

Thomas Borchert, Buddhism, Politics, and Nationalism in the Twentieth and Twenty-first
Centuries, Religion Compass, Fall 2007

Reidel Hamas - jumped, provoked, and pushed, bitterlemons-international.org, 8/16/2007
So a heady mix of Hamas firebrands eager for war, the barely concealed American and Israeli desire to reverse the results of the 2006 elections and pressure from both the Shi’ite and Sunni global jihadist centers created the explosive mix last June. Finally, of course, there was also the incompetence of the Fateh leadership. How much each factor alone counted is impossible to know; the combination is what mattered. The question now is, will Hamas be able to exploit its posture as the “real” voice of Palestine to undermine a “quisling” Fateh in the West Bank, where it is even more dependent on Israeli and US support and especially IDF bayonets to survive?

Gods Warriors - Special Reports from CNN.com

Marsh, Evangelicals against the Iraq war, The Boston Globe, July 8, 2007

Cultures & Conflits : Les combattants de la « mort certaine ». Les sens du sacrifice à l’horizon de la Grande Guerre
Les combattants de la « mort certaine ». Les sens du sacrifice à l’horizon de la Grande Guerre
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (automne 2006) pp. 63-81
François Lagrange

Seneviratne, Buddhist Monks and Ethnic Politics, Anthropology Today, 2001 Vol. 17, Issue 2