United 93

I was in L.A./Malibu last week for the Pepperdine Lectureships and stayed over for the weekend to spend time with a couple of close friends. One of the things we did on Saturday was see the new movie, United 93. I strongly recommend that adults and older teens see it.

The movie is very straightforward. It pulls no punches but also takes no cheap shots (though there is one passenger on the flight who pleads [in a French accent] for the passengers to cooperate with the hijackers/murderers instead of resist them -- this was obviously a pointed barb at European pacifism).

The most dramatic and moving scenes in the movie, in my opinion, were not on the plane but in the air control towers. It was heartbreaking, and in a strange way heartwarming, to see the air traffic personnel slowly piece together what was happening as they watched their screens, tried frantically to regain radio contact with the four hijacked planes, and then viewed CNN on the big screen and realized the exact nature of what was happening. The theater audience reaction was much the same as to The Passion of the Christ: people exited in silence. To do anything else would be to cheapen the import of what we had just viewed.

One of my convictions leaving the theater was that we are in for a long war and we need to get very focused on exactly who the enemy is. As numerous commentators have noted, we are not in a “War on Terror” (as if this includes Basque separatists in Spain, IRA radicals in Ireland, etc.), we are in a war against militant Islamic imperialists whose very ideology compels them to seek to subjugate any society which resists their convictions.

One of the $64,000 questions in this regard is: Are the basic tenets of the Muslim religion itself complicit in this ambition? As Dennis Prager notes in a recent essay (“The war we are fighting needs a more accurate name”; Townhall.com, 5/9/06), “No one should have a problem with Muslims wanting the whole world Muslim. After all, Christians would like the whole world to come to Christ. What should matter to all people is the answer to one question: What are you prepared to do to bring the world to your religion? For virtually every living Christian, the answer is through modeling and verbal persuasion.”

There is much to suggest that Islamic theology itself compels imperialist, rather than persuasive, tactics.

Again, Prager: “Many listeners have called my radio show asking me if I consider Islam to be inherently violent or evil. From 9-11 to now, I have responded that I do not assess religions; I assess the practitioners of religions. Why? Because it is almost impossible to assess any religion since its own adherents so often differ as to what it is. For example, is Christianity the Christianity of most evangelicals or that of the National Council of Churches? On virtually every important moral issue, they differ. The same holds true for right- and left-wing groups within Judaism (note: Prager is Jewish). Nevertheless, one can say that from its inception, Islam has been imperialist.”

This is certainly politically incorrect. But if you watch the movie, you will be reminded how ludicrous political correctness is in a time of war. Christians in America need to avoid blanket judgments while seeking and speaking the truth in love. Or as Jesus puts it, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”