Will We Win The War Against Islam?

Catholic Dossier: "Islam Will Not Be The Loser"

I've included the above article for you to read not to depress you, but perhaps to awaken you. James Schall's column is in conjunction with my previous post containing Hillaire Belloc's treatise on "The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed." Schall explains what you may have missed with Belloc and drives home the points of what Islam is, the current state of affairs in the West, and what is to be our response to this real threat. I've included several exerpts for you to chew on. A point to remember...my blogspot is a place for comment no doubt. However, I'm including these articles not so much for you to comment but for you to learn and consider how you, your beliefs, your philosophy, and even your political views might need to be altered so as to meet the harsh reality of this very dangerous ideological threat to our lives. It is real. Though I can appreciate what President Bush is trying to accomplish, my fear is that it is a band-aid and only prolongs the inevitable, an Islamic takeover of the modern world. We as members of the West, must face our decadence, our relativism, our worship of ourselves and replace it with the enduring faith of our Fathers. We must stop this ridiculous hedonistic journey to self-destruction, turn around, and search for the truth of the Ages. Enough for now; here are a few quotes:

"Another alternative may well be that of the Holy Father’s teaching of authentic family life, even to Muslims and uncomprehending secularists." The spiritual roots of the crisis which the Western democracies are experiencing (is) a crisis characterized by the advance of a materialistic, utilitarian and ultimately dehumanized world view which is tragically detached from the moral foundations of Western civilization,” John Paul II remarked:

Economic and political structures must be guided by a vision whose core is the God-given dignity and inalienable rights of every human being, from the moment of conception until natural death. When some lives, including those of the unborn, are subjected to the personal choices of others, no other value or right will long be guaranteed . . . . Never has it been more urgent to reinvigorate the moral vision and resolve essential to maintaining a just and a free society."

Let me interrupt. For years, the West has snickered and sneered at Pope John Paul's continuous railing against the "Culture of Death." And we arrogant hedonists (in general) let this "camel" into our tents and now we cannot get it out. The problem is that we are so used to the camel being inside we don't know what is normal for camels, or for us, for that matter.


"Today, Belloc’s words of 1937 almost ring in our ears:
That story (of Islamic victory in the first Crusade) must not be neglected by any modern, who may think, in error, that the East has finally fallen before the West, that Islam is now enslaved—to our political and economic power at any rate if not to our philosophy. It is not so. Islam essentially survives, and Islam would not have survived had the Crusade made good its hold upon the essential point of Damascus. Islam survives. Its religion is in tact; therefore its material strength may return. Our religion is in peril and who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines (weapons)?

We have, here, in a nutshell the essence of Belloc’s thesis, one that occasions a further reflection on what this current war is about. "

Schall continues his reflection of Belloc's ideas by stating that the failure of the Crusades, essentially the first one, was a tactical failure in that the Crusaders did not fully capture all the land in Palestine to complete the division between the Eastern and Western tribes. This was not because of a failure in military tactics per se, but a lack of manpower. Much of Europe, primarily England, France and Germany, were slow to respond to the threat Islam imposed. Eventually the Crusaders were defeated. This defeat was the critical failure that allowed Islam to grow and eventually make huge gains into Europe. Let's read on:

"There is with us a complete chaos in religious doctrine where religious doctrine is still heldand even in that part of the European population where the united doctrine and definitions of Catholicism survives, it survives as something to which the individual is attached rather than the community,” Belloc concluded. As nations we worship ourselves, we worship the nation; or we worship (some few of us) a particular economic arrangement believed to be the satisfaction of social justice. Those who direct us, and from whom the tone of our policy is taken, have no major spiritual interest.”17 Belloc’s comment on “social justice” is itself extremely perceptive as many of those who blame America for all this wish to see the problems of Islamic aggressiveness to be one of its internal hurt feeling that it was being treated unjustly. Therefore, in this view, the problem was not Islam’s but of the West. This sort of flawed analysis is quite prevalent in many modern religious analyses of ideological aggressiveness. It continually underestimates the vigor of spiritual forces. Islam, because of what it is, would be a problem without economics, without Israel, and without the modern world."

Here is a key section that I want us to consider. One, we fail to see the decadence of Western culture, a decadence that we participate in and in many cases, promote. Some call this freedom, but it really is a huge cultural flaw that is a cause for disintegration of our community. Our strength, in political terms, is shown in unity. It is very clear that we are a fractured community, which lends to at best, our insipid response to terrorism, and at worst, a self-condemning auto-racism. This penchant to blame ourselves for Islam's fury is myopic to the nature of Islam itself. Two, and as a result of one, we fail to see Islam for what it is in its heart, a dynamic spiritual force. Let's read on:

"Islam has not suffered this spiritual decline (found in the West),” Belloc affirms. Its spiritual power is seen everywhere within its own realms. “We are divided in the face of a Mohammedan world, divided by separate independent national rivalries, by the warring interests of possessors and dispossessed—and that division cannot be remedied because the cement which once held our civilisation together, the Christian cement, has crumbled.” Belloc is definitely not on the side of the “secularist” solution to the current problem of Islam. He sees the spiritual unity of the West has, in its absence, political consequences of the utmost importance."

It is here that I take leave of you to look into your hearts. Do you see the importance of a renewal? Are you willing to re-consider the dearth of moral substance in what is currently Western Civilization? If we do not take seriously the danger that is before us, and not just individually, but as a community, we will succumb morally, spiritually, and politically to this ideological titan.

May your weekend be peaceful, but only in that you may be free to be sufficiently disturbed enough in your musings to make the necessary changes that confront you. God Bless.