Midwest Crusaders

When the Fort Hood shooter, Major Hasan was arrested the American news media paid particularly close attention to his religion. Unedited interviews with opinion spin-meisters called for him to be treated as an enemy combatant because he had contact with radical Muslims. On FOX News' web site, video list there was a picture of Hasan next to Jason Rodriguez, the shooter in Orlando who went on a rampage at almost the same time as Hasan. The caption for Hasan read, “described as a devout Muslim.” Next to Rodriguez the caption read “described as paranoid,” with no mention of his religion.

Today we are reading about a plot to kill a police officer so that at his funeral IEDs could be placed along the funeral route. The idea was to start a rebellion that would lead to the overthrow of the US government, according to indictments.

The conspirators are not Muslims though. They are devout Christians, calling themselves Hutaree, which they indicate means Christian Warrior. Their web site posts various statements with bible quotes, including this one, “Being Hutaree is to stay the Testimony of Christ alive, and follow a motto, John 15:13, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.'”

The Knights Templar, a crusade military order, was formed in 1120. Several years later Pope Innocent II sent them a letter that included, “Like true Israelites and warriors most versed in holy battle, on fire with the flame of true love, you carry out in your deeds the words of the Gospel, in which it is said “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

In his book The Crusades, Christianity and Islam, Jonathan Riley-Smith writes that the crusades never really ended, they turned into imperialism and colonialism. In fact groups with similar Christian motives as the Hutaree have been with us throughout the thousand years, including 19th century organizations that called for the recapture of the holy lands.

Will the news media focus on the jihadist nature of such crusading Christians? Will we focus on their religion as a categorization of these criminals, “radical-Christian terrorist plot?” Will the right scour through several pages of the bible to find such quotes as this one from Moses, "Thus says God, 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion and every man his neighbor?" Will the majority of FOX News, who have called Islam a religion of violence do the same for Christianity or will they reveal the true nature of our western values, forged over a thousand years of Crusading.

If this is not a clash of civilizations, of east against west, Christian and Jew against Muslim, then we must condemn terrorist plots and terrorism, no matter who commits it. Better yet, let's level the playing field and understand that this is mental-illness wrapped in a religious excuse. A thousand years of repetition does not make it right, it makes it insane.