The War Against Jihadism is a Theological Battle

In my last post I referred to an interview I heard with George Weigel. Since then I read his new book “Faith, Reason, and The War Against Jihadism-A Call to Action” (see link in left panel).

The book has 15 lessons about “things we cannot not know”. These lessons are grouped under three headings: “Understanding the Enemy, Rethinking Realism, and Deserving Victory”. I found it particularly satisfying to see someone write plainly and openly about the enemy that declared war on us. Abandoning political correctness while still retaining civility and fairness is rare. Weigel seems to pull it off in this concise and critical work.

Weigel correctly identifies the struggle not as a “war against terrorism” (a method), but a “war against jihadism” (an ideology which has no qualms about using terrorism to further its ends). He also correctly identifies that ideology as religious, as seen in his first “Lesson”: “The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological”.

Ideas have consequences. Faith, and that which is the object of one’s faith, matters. Thus we are engaged in a war, though not of our choosing, which we will only win if we recognize and identify as a war of ideas as well as a physical war. Faith has to be considered along with reason in this battle.

It will involve “[c]hallenging the assumption in the American foreign policy establishment that the only answer to global jihadism is to convert 1.2 billion Muslims into good secular liberals…”. If it is a theological battle, not a secular disagreement, then our approach must be to begin to understand the theology that drives a jihadist to blow up those whom we (in our sense of logic and justice) consider “the innocent”. All 15 lessons are valuable and instructive. We might like to ignore or reject his last lesson that we cannot not learn (“There is no escape from U.S. leadership”), but this lesson and all before it derive from looking at the world situation realistically.

Get the book. Read it. And then ask your favorite candidate who is running for office this year what approach they have to winning this “war against jihadism”. Their answer will tell you whether they are serious enough to deserve victory.