After the acceptance of the Christian Church by Constantine the First that eventually led to widespread establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, Christians - despite their history of persecutions in the early days of their movement - declared 'holy wars' in the form of Crusades upon so-called infidels of the Middle East during the 1000s to the 1200s.
The need to fight these holy wars on other religions by Christians died down in the 16th to 19th centuries due to the splintering and fractions within the Christian movement itself, when other sub-churches such as Lutheranism and Anglicans broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established their faiths in Europe. While still not accepted nor understood, other non-Christan religions were tolerated and even accepted; Judaism was eventually established in mainland Europe up until the 1930s.
However, in the last part of the 20th century there seemed to be a resurgence in acts of terror by 'the new Christians' or 'evangelicals' as they are commonly known, to get their Christian message across.
Born in Great Britain in the 1700s, evangelicalism was a Christian movement based on tenants that one had to be 'born again' to fully accept the teachings of their prophet Jesus Christ, have a high regard for biblical authority on how to lead their daily lives - among other things. While seen as a running joke during it's infancy in the USA in the mid-20th century, the evangelical movement saw a jump in their membership under conservative leaders such as President Ronald Reagan and President George 'Dubya' Bush of the 21 century.
Buoyed by growing support in the public opinion in the 1980s American conservative evangelicals began a slow but steady path towards extremism. They garnered influence on elected officials on one of their main concerns - abortion - and noisily objected to what they saw as invasion on other areas of life that they deemed unfit or un-Christian in their biblical eyes such as gay rights, teaching or acceptance of religions other than Christianity in public schools or at gatherings of congress, global warming, evolution or 'Darwinism' - just to name a few. They also favored promoting the teaching of abstinence as a form of birth control rather than accede to conventional birth control methods and sound sex education.
Then came September 11, 2001. The events of that day not only changed the face of the world stage, but also seem to have push American evangelicals over the edge. Anyone practicing any religion other than Christianity were seen as 'an enemy of the Union', and alternate lifestyles were used as an example of the coming Apocalypse to further political agenda (eg. the issue of gay rights as its' impact on the 2004 presidential election between George Bush and John Kerry). Evangelicals and right wing conservatives - now barely distinguishable from each other - saw an explosion on the airwaves with radio icons such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck leading the charges, and the Fox News Channel promoting their causes and anything other being deemed as a threat to national security.
The terrorism aspect came can be evidenced by attacks and bombing of abortion clinics around the nation, accompanied with proud assassinations of baby killers, a term used for doctors who performed abortions, the most recent being the murder of Dr George Tiller in Kansas by Scott Roeder in the name of Jesus Christ.
Others fighting the unofficial holy war for Christianity include Erik Prince - founder and head of the infamous Blackwater Security Group - or Xe as they like to be now called during a re-branding exercise to remove themselves from the controversy that the Blackwater name has brought out in the past. According to sources inside the company Prince - a devout Christian - has declared a war against Islam, and is using his company's precense in Iraq and Afghanistan to eradicate Moslems in mass murders as such revealed during as recent drone strikes in Pakistan. (Full story by The Nation here.)
These recent tactics are not much different from the jihads - or holy war in Islam - being declared by Moslms extremists against Western civilizations. However, for whatever reason, Christian extremism is not being veiwed as acts of terrorism, nor are they being compared - in their accurate categoru - as a holy jihad, or to use the correct terminology - holy crusade.
Could this be due to the de-demonization of the word 'crusade' to mean tent revivals by evangelicals? Whatever the reason, until this subtefuge christian war is treated as such, we will never have any semblance of world harmony.
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross....." Sinclair Lewis.
