Conflict between Islam and the West

Christians should not join in this fear and hatred of Islam.  Islam has grown because we have failed the task of evangelism.  People are turning to Islam because they do not see Christianity as a relevant alternative.   We should demonstrate love and compassion to the Moslem people in obedience to Christ to draw them to him.

Daniel 11 describes a series of battles between the King of the North and the King of the South. These are not real kings, but they are spiritual powers, who work through coalitions of nations.

The King of the South represents the Islamic nations that are to the south of Israel, which was Daniel's home. (Negeb, the Hebrew word for South comes from a root meaning parched). Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have dominated the South in the last two decades. These nations are all parched.

The King of the North is called Greece in Dan 11:2. This means that the common idea that the King of the North is Russia is wrong. The King of the North is clearly linked with Greece. However it is not the nation of Greece, but the civilisation that came out of Greece. Modern historians and philosophers consider that Western Civilisation emerged out of ancient Greece. Therefore, the King of the North symbolises Western Civilisation (the Hebrew word for North comes from a root meaning darkness).

Originally, Western Civilisation was centred on Europe, but the United States now dominates Europe in terms of military power and cultural influence. Since the Second World War, Europe has been dependent on the United States. The Marshall Plan kick-started the European economies. Many European businesses are controlled by United States companies. European defence has been the responsibility of NATO and is guaranteed by the United States. American troops are still based in Germany. The United States has developed an enormous arsenal of weapons (including nuclear weapons), and it now uses them to exert its influence in the world. Since the end of the Cold War, it has become the dominant force in the world. America by default has become the world's policeman.

We are living in a time when the King of the North is in ascendancy, but is being challenged by the King of the South (remember that these are spiritual powers). The struggle between the King of the North and the King of the South is a picture of a clash between Western Civilisation (initially the United States) and the Islamic nations. This clash is now coming to a head. This struggle will dominate the next few decades, in the same way as the Cold War dominated the post-war decades.

Over the last few decades, the United States, acting as the King of the North and accompanied by other European nations that are also part of the Kingdom of North, has been gradually invading the Middle East. This invasion really began with the CIA organising a coup in Iran in 1953 and in Iraq in 1958. The first major step was the Gulf War, when the United States attacked Iraq to defend Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. US forces have remained in Saudi Arabia since then. The invasion of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban gave it a further foothold. During this war the United States also established bases in the Central Asian Republics. The next step will be a full-scale invasion of Iraq.

The struggle is not primarily between Islam and Christianity, but between Islam and Western decadence.  Moslems see the Western World as corrupted by materialism and self indulgence.   Their real enemy is western materialism and secularism.

In a sense we have the same enemy.  It is ironic that, while Moslems have seen the impact of materialism and self indulgence, the western church has been blinded by them.   Christianity is struggling against the same forces, but we have been slowly corrupted and weakened by them.  Moslems believe that the  Western world will eventually have to surrender to the spiritual purity of a resurgent Islam.  If Christianity is not revived and purified, they may prove to be right.

Christianity and Islam both have a goal of taking over the world.  The difference is that Islam is often willing to do it by force,  whereas Christianity seeks to do it by persuading people to respond to the love of God (when we get it right).  The other difference is that Moslems are serious about this task, whereas Christians are mostly happy to hide in their churches and sing about winning the world.

Notes

The Economist magazine says that 

A Moslem crescent curls, threatening around the southern and eastern edges of Europe.  A new Cold war could be on the way.  And it may not stop at being a cold war.

Samuel Huntingdon explains the reasons for this,

Moslems fear and resent Western power and the threat it poses to their society and beliefs.   They see Western culture as materialistic, corrupt, decadent and immoral.  They also see it as seductive, and hence, stress all the more the need to resist its impact on their way of life.  Increasingly, Moslems attack the West, not for adhering to an imperfect, erroneous religion, which nonetheless a religion of the book, but for not adhering to any religion at all.  In Moslem eyes, Western  secularism, irreligiosity, and hence, immorality are worse evils than the western Christianity that produced them. Moslems see their opponent as the godless West...a people that have forsaken God. (Clash of Civilisations)

Paul Johnston's comments about Islam are also relevant.  

Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has ever been. The Koran, Sura 5, verse 85, describes the inevitable enmity between Moslems and non-Moslems: "Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans." Sura 9, verse 5, adds: "Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them, in every strategem [of war]."  Then nations, however mighty, the Koran insists, must be fought "until they embrace Islam."Moreover, Koranic teaching that the faith or "submission" can be, and in suitable circumstances must be, imposed by force, has never been ignored. www.nationalreview.com/15oct01/
johnson101501.shtml

Gary North has describes the history of this struggle.    

This war is merely the latest skirmish in the oldest war in the West. It is a religious war. Arabs crossed the straights of Gibraltar and invaded Spain in the year 711. They had conquered Spain by 719. In 732, having crossed the Pyrenees, they fought Charles Martel ("The Hammer") at Tours (Poitiers). They were defeated. Martel beat them again five years later at Narbonne. The Spanish then spent over seven centuries in a war to remove the Moors from their soil. Success finally came in 1492. So, for seven hundred and eighty years, there was war in Spain - not constant battles, of course, but a constant dedication to defeat the Moors.

Arab expansion was replaced by the expansion of the Ottoman Turks, beginning in the late thirteenth century. They conquered Constantinople in 1453. They got to the gates of Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683. It took a battle in both cases to throw them back. In 1915-16, the Turks, under the secular ruler Kemal Ataturk, killed at least one million Armenians in the first genocide of this century. There was no meaningful protest from any of the European powers, who were at war with each other. They were too busy to care.

The secular West has not understood the multiple motivations of this conflict. It has not understood that the ancient war between Islam and Christianity is not over, nor is the war between Islamic supernaturalism and Western secularism, nor is the war between revolutionary secular Islamic politics and Western capitalism-imperialism.   Our secularist strategists cannot recognize a religious war when they see one. They think of it as an aberration -- an aberration that is almost 14 centuries old.

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