Today in American Dharma: The Other American Terrorism

When most people in this country think of terrorism, they automatically assume that the word is only inclusive of Islam and al Quida, however, no religion is devoid of violent extremism (if you don't believe me read Mark Juergensmeyer's Terror in the Mind of God originally written pre-9/11 and revised to include it). Lately the terrorism that has been prevenlent in the news as of late was the return of pro-life extremist Christian terrorism. Yes, return. Although most of us who were not old enough before 9/11 to know or understand what terrorism was, in the 1980s and '90s strings of pro-life killings and arsons occurred at abortion clinics throughout the country. Most of them were initiated by the Christian group Army of God and the pastor (all of which you can read about in Juergensmeyer's book).

As I was saying, although the pro-life terrorism was quelled during the years of the Bush administration, they are back and in full force beginning about two weeks ago with the shooting of Dr. George Tiller, a late term abortion doctor. Since the occurance two interesting ideas have been brought to the table concerning the incedent: the language of terrorism in America and the dichotomy of the abortion debate.

The first subject is what I was speaking of before, when you think of the word terrorism what word comes to mind: Muslim. Whether you like it or not. It was a direct by-product of 9/11 and, I'm from the tristate area, I understand, those wounds hurt deep. And the language concerning the matter around the nation didn't help (but that's another story for another time). But as I mentioned before, there is extremism present in almost ever religious tradition (almost always culminating in violence to boot!) and Christianity is no exception to the rule as proven by the actions of the Army of God in the 80s and 90s and the recent gunning down of Dr. Tiller. However, it almost seems as if the American public (or at least the media) is not ready to accept the existence of Christian terrorists. The example brought to my attention was the media treatment of two different cases occuring at once: the George Tiller assassination and the killing of an Army Recruiter in Arkansas by an American convert to Islam. In this interesting article by Dan Mathewson called Muslims Murder, Christians Don't, the media's attention to detail concerning the Islamic connection of the latter killer versus the avoidance of Scott Roeder's (Tiller's killer) commitment to extremist Christianity is appalling but surprisingly typical. These two related incedents bring to the forefront so many issues: the end of Christian America (yes! says Newsweek; Not even close says Dr. Stephen Prothero), the hypocrasy of pro-life killing, and especially the Islami-phobia of the general American public (see the previous entry on Obama's address to the Muslim world).

Finally just one more issue worth discussing remains with this issue: the dichotomy of the abortion debate. Pro-life v. Pro-Choice. Religious v. Secular America. Good v. Evil. Notre Dame v. Obama. Roe v. Wade. But its not so black and white as we want it to be. The ever increasing shades of gray grew ever present the minute Dr. George Tiller got gunned down while attending Luthern Sunday Services in his Church where he served as an usher. Its not so simple at all says Ed Knudson in his 6/18/09 article, On Religion, Abortion, and Politics: Dr. George Tiller and Christian Ethics. Now I'm not too familiar with Lutheran Theology to make too much of a detailed comment on this article, but I found it interesting enough to bring up particularly about the point of gray areas in this debate.

The assassination of Dr. George Tiller was indeed a tragedy but it did bring many issues to the forefront. How far the dialogue on Christian terrorism will go, no one can say, but it is an issue that cannot be ignored, that is for certain.