A Quiet, Little Jihad?rnby Harold O. J. BrownrnIn late summer last year, two United States embassies in EastrnAfrica were the target of murderous bomb attacks by Islamicrnterrorist groups. After ordering two retaliatory missile attacks onrninstallations presumed to be connected with militant Islamicrnextremism, President Clinton hastened to assure the Americanrnpeople that he has nothing against Islam, which he called “a religionrnof peace.” In November, Islamic militants reacted violentlyrnto the progress of peace talks between Israel and thernPalestine Liberation Organization with a series of terrorist attacksrnon Israelis, apparently with the intention of provoking arnsevere reaction by Israel. Again, we were assured that, contraryrnto the widespread impression, Islam is a peace-loving religion.rnNow, it is true that Islam has many variants, although not sornmany as Christianit) and it would be false to say that the jihadrnis a fundamental element in the Muslim faith, or at least a universallyrnfundamental one. Christianit)’ has had its Crusadesrnand crusaders, and at one point, all of Western Christendomrnseemed to be focused on crusading in the Elast, but a simplernglance at world history shows that the expansion of Islam is farrnmore directly due to military action than is the spread of ChristianiU’.rnCeneric Christians and other gentiles of our day do not holdrnany faith passionately enough to fight for it and find it hard tornbelieve that adherents of another religion could actually do sornin this modern age. We call our ovn age “post-Christian” v’ithrna certain contented smugness and proclaim it with stridentrnvoices; to borrow an expression from Pere R.-L. Bruckberger,rnHarold O.]. Brown is religion editor for Chronicles and arnprofessor of theology and philosophy at Reformed TheologicalrnSeminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.rn”like eunuchs proud of being castrated.” Most Christiansrnwould not think of fighting for the cause of the Christ that theyrnare supposed to revere; they are comforted by St. Paul’s statement,rn”God has called us to peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15), althoughrnthe context refers not to religious war, but to religiousrndifi^erences within a marriage.rnWhenever Christians actiially do take up arms in a religiousrncontext against Muslims, they are denounced in no uncertainrnterms by much of the Western political and media establishments.rnDuring the Lebanese civil war, it was “right-wing Christianrnmilitias” against the Muslims. In most Western reports onrnthe former Yugoslavia, it is the Eastern Orthodox Serbs who arernregularly excoriated, while the Muslim “Turks” (as the Serbsrncall their fellow ethnic Slavs who converted to Islam under thernTurkish domination) and ethnic Albanians are eulogized asrnfreedom fighters. Even most Jews tend not to want to recognizernthe religious dimension of the problems that Israel has with thernmostly Muslim Palestinians.rnThis naive insouciance with respect to Muslim aggressivenessrnis possible only if one is determined to disregard both histon’rnand present-day experience. Paul warns—in another context,rnit is true—”If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, whornshall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8). At anrninterfaith meeting in 1995 held in Aiken, South Carolina,rnBoston College professor Peter Kreeft called for an “ecumenicalrnjihad.” The “five kings of orthodoxy” —Roman Catholicism,rnEastern Orthodoxy, evangelical Protestantism, conservativernJudaism, and (presumably non-fundamentalist) Islam werernto unite to defeat the virulent forces of secularism. Unfortunatelyrnfor Professor Kreeft’s metaphor, jihad is defined as “arnholy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty,” or “a bit-rn18/CHRONICLESrnrnrn