By Thomas Williamson
3131 S. Archer Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60608
Please join us as we listen in on a counseling session
between the Reverend Ebenezer Dogood and a young member who has
questions about the church policy of endorsement of pre-emptive
wars in the Middle East.
REVEREND DOGOOD. It is our Christian duty to endorse and
support pre-emptive wars such as the proposed attack on Iran.
The people of Iran are Shiite Muslims, which makes them dangerous
- they believe in the coming of the Mahdi, and that it is necessary
for them to create war and violence in order for the Mahdi to
come.
These beliefs cause them to hate American Christians, which
means they may try to kill us someday. As a matter of self-defense,
we have to kill them first before they have a chance to kill us.
NEW MEMBER. And as Christians we also have a duty to support
the war in Iraq?
REVEREND DOGOOD. Yes, absolutely. We must stay the course
in Iraq, and continue to fight on behalf of the al-Maliki government
there.
NEW MEMBER. But al-Maliki and his government in Iraq are
mainly Shiite Muslims. They believe the same things as the Shiite
Muslims in Iran, they are influenced by Iranian clerics, they
consider themselves allies and soul brothers of Iranian Prime
Minister Ahmadinejad. I am confused - why is it our Christian
duty to hate and kill Shiite Muslims on the Iran side of the border,
and at the same time to fight on behalf of the Shiite Muslims
on the Iraq side of the border? What does all this have to do
with the Great Commission and the Gospel of Christ?
REVEREND DOGOOD. By fighting in the Middle East, we help
create conditions that promote the advance of Christianity.
NEW MEMBER. But since we overthrew Saddan Hussein, about
half of the Christians in Iraq, who were protected by Hussein,
have had to flee the country. Conversion to Christianity is still
punishable by death in Afghanistan.
REVEREND DOGOOD. Another reason for the war is, we are fighting
for democracy in Iraq and the Middle East. This is a good cause
which demands the support of all Christians.
NEW MEMBER. Most of the Iraqi people want the American troops
to leave, so shouldn't we leave their country? That is what democracy
is all about, rule by the people, right?
REVEREND DOGOOD. We cannot leave Iraq yet, because if we
did, the Iraqi people would vote out any government that was willing
to cooperate with America, Britain and Israel, and they would
vote in some 90-year-old bearded guy in a black robe who wants
to take the whole country back to the 12th Century. The same thing
would happen in almost every other country in the Middle East,
if full democracy was allowed without our benevolent guidance.
Until the people of Iraq are ready to exercise their democracy
in a manner that is beneficial to our interests, we cannot leave
- it's for their own good. Yeah, we are fighting for them to be
able to have democracy some day, but they cannot actually exercise
it until they are ready for it.
NEW MEMBER. How would we feel if another nation invaded us
and imposed their version of democracy on us, like we are doing
in Iraq? Is democracy something that can be imposed on people
by dropping bombs on them and torturing them?
REVEREND DOGOOD. As President Bush has stated, we are fighting
the terrorists over there, in Iraq, so that we will not have to
fight them over here.
NEW MEMBER. What evidence do you have that anyone in Iraq
has ever come over here to fight us here, or has plotted to do
so?
How does the presence of our troops in Iraq prevent any
Iraqi who wants to fight us over here, from slipping out of Iraq
and coming here to fight us here?
If Bush is so scared of terrorists coming over here to fight
us here, why does he refuse to seal the border with Mexico, while
our Border Patrol agents who try to catch criminals coming across
the border are put in jail?
It just seems to me that if we pull out of Iraq and leave
them alone, the Iraqis will hate us less and be less likely to
come over here to fight us here.
REVEREND DOGOOD. It doesn't work that way. If we pull out,
they will take it as a sign of weakness and come over here to
kill us here.
NEW MEMBER. When we pulled out of Korea in 1953, how many
North Korean terrorists followed us over here and how many Americans
did they kill? How many North Vietnamese terrorists followed us
over here when we pulled out of South Vietnam in 1975? How many
Lebanese terrorists followed us over here when the great conservative
hero Ronald Reagan "cut and ran" from Lebanon in 1983?
How many terrorists came here from Somalia when we left Somalia
in 1994?
REVEREND DOGOOD. You need to look at the big picture, instead
of getting bogged down in all these details. The war in Iraq is
part of a greater crusade against Islam worldwide. It's us or
them - we have to wipe them out, or else they will destroy us.
President Bush is our fearless leader in this glorious clash of
civilizations, and you need to follow his leadership without question.
NEW MEMBER. Then why is our government giving $2 billion
a year in aid to Egypt, as well as lavish foreign aid to most
other countries in the Muslim world, including the Palestinian
Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, etc? What kind of strategy
is that, to first give them billions of dollars in aid, and then
try to wipe them out?
And why does Bush support the establishment of an independent
Kosovo state, when everyone knows that this state will be controlled
by thuggish Muslim terrorists and drug dealers who are friends
of Osama bin Ladin? How does the establishment of an independent
Muslim narco-state in Europe fit into the grand plan of fighting
Islam?
REVEREND DOGOOD. I have to admit that I don't understand
everything that President Bush is doing. But we must remember
that our President is all-wise, that he has access to intelligence
information that we do not know about and which cannot be released,
and therefore the President makes wise decisions based on that
secret information. It is our duty as fundamentalists to follow
and support the President's leadership without asking questions.
If at any time we doubt or oppose the President's program for
fighting Islam, then the terrorists win.
NEW MEMBER. Why didn't you give the same measure of obedience
to Bill Clinton when he was President?
REVEREND DOGOOD. Our sacred duty of absolute obedience to
the President applies only to Republican Presidents. No way would
it apply to a Democrat, especially not a draft-dodging, pot-smoking
womanizing socialist like Bill Clinton. Nor would it apply to
that miserable harridan Hillary, in the event that she is elected
President. She doesn't love Jesus like President Bush does. She
is a member of the apostate liberal Christ-denying pro-abortion
United Methodist Church, you know.
NEW MEMBER. So is Bush. And if Bush loves Jesus so much,
why does he celebrate Muslim holidays in the White House, why
does he say he prays to the same god as the Ayatollah Sistani,
why does he say it doesn't matter if you are a Christian or a
Muslim? If the Muzzies are really out to destroy us all, don't
we need a leader who doesn't act like he is on their side?
REVEREND DOGOOD. We may not always understand the President's
strategy, but it is our duty to obey. It is not for us to reason
why. It is for us to do or die. As fundamentalists, we are to
be known as men under properly constituted authority, and right
now President Bush is that authority, and if you do not like it,
you must lump it.
NEW MEMBER. But Bush has repeatedly stated that we have no
plans to attack Iran, and that he plans to follow the diplomatic
approach with Iran. Yet you keep calling for us to nuke Iran.
In what sense can that be called "following Bush" when
Bush is asking us to support an entirely different strategy?
And if Bush is the final authority, why did you condemn Bush
and preach against him when he called for the establishment of
a Palestinian state, which he described as an important element
in his war on terrorism?
REVEREND DOGOOD. That's different. When the President proposes
something that goes against the best interests of Israel, then
we must oppose him. As good fundamentalists, our first loyalty
must always be to the state of Israel, not to the United States.
This is why we sometimes may have to fight wars on behalf of Israel,
even if those wars are costly to America and do not always advance
our interests. In the 2004 Presidential debates, both Bush and
Kerry publicly stated that we are fighting in Iraq on behalf of
Israel. Whatever your political party affiliation, you should
have no problem with a policy that was endorsed by both major
party Presidential candidates.
NEW MEMBER. If our final authority is Israel, then why in
1995 did you condemn Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's peace
plan with the Arabs? And in 2005, you preached against Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon for giving back land in the Gaza Strip that had been
stolen from the Arabs, and you said God punished him with a stroke
for giving that land back.
REVEREND DOGOOD. Sometimes the Israelis do not know what
is good for themselves, so we have to intervene.
NEW MEMBER. Who then is the final authority as to what is
good for Israel?
REVEREND DOGOOD. God is giving words of wisdom and revelation
to His anointed televangelists such as Pat Robertson and John
Hagee. These are great men of God who speak for Him - it is for
us only to hear and obey.
NEW MEMBER. Isn't Pat Robertson the chap who got his girlfriend
pregnant before they were married, and who says the Bible has
errors in it? And didn't John Hagee commit adultery and then get
divorced and remarried? Some "anointing!"
REVEREND DOGOOD. These men must have God's blessing on them
- just look at how fabulously rich they are. Look, I see you are
just not getting it so far, so I am going to share with you some
deep theological arguments on behalf of our wars in the Middle
East. These are reasons that you as a good Bible-believing fundamentalist
should be easily able to understand.
The reason why we must fight in the Middle East is to fulfill
Bible prophecy - specifically, the prophecy in Matthew 24:6, "And
ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars." There you have
it - it is our duty to make this prophecy come true as a sign
of the end times and to usher in the glorious Second Coming of
Christ.
NEW MEMBER. I don't see how you can call war a sign of the
end when Christ said at the end of verse 6, "But the end
is not yet."
If it is our job as Christians to make that prophecy happen,
is it also our job to make pestilences, famines and earthquakes
happen?
The prophecy refers to "wars and rumors of wars."
Would it be enough for us to merely spread rumors of wars in order
to fulfill the prophecy, or do we actually have to go out and
kill people? How many people do we have to kill?
In recent years, there have been wars going on in places
like Sudan and Sri Lanka - wouldn't those wars be enough to fulfill
the prophecy, without our having to go out and start another war
in Iraq?
REVEREND DOGOOD. The wars in Sudan and Sri Lanka do not
fulfill prophecy, because they are too far away from the Middle
East and from the valley of Armageddon. So those wars do not help
to fulfill the end-times scenarios of prophecy teachers like Hal
Lindsey and Tim LaHaye - we need a war in a place like Iraq to
really boost the Rapture fever and promote the sales of prophecy
books and videos.
It is truly regrettable that innocent civilians in Iraq and
Iran have to die in order for these prophecies to be fulfilled,
but that kind of thing happens in war, and there is nothing we
can do about it. If you are going to make an omelet, you have
to break a few eggs.
Our wars in the Middle East may be tragic, but they are necessary
in order to "set the stage" for Christ's coming. Christ
cannot return to earth until dreadful conditions of chaos and
violence in the Middle East, involving the deaths of millions
of Jews, Arabs and Iranians, have been fulfilled.
NEW MEMBER. That sounds like what the fanatical Shiite Muslims
say, that they must create chaos and violence in order for the
Mahdi to return.
REVEREND DOGOOD. Yeah, it's the same concept, but the difference
is we are killing in the name of Christ, not Mohammed.
NEW MEMBER. Our church doctrinal statement, which you asked
me to read and sign, teaches the imminent, any-moment return of
Christ. Yet now you are saying that Christ cannot return until
we "set the stage" for His coming. And the other day
in church you preached that Christ cannot return until the Muslim
mosque in Jerusalem has been blown up and replaced by a Jewish
temple with animal sacrifices.
REVEREND DOGOOD. You know, I hadn't really given this any
thought, but our doctrinal statement may be wrong, since it conflicts
with the newer insights from the prophecy teachers. We used to
think that Babylon was a reference to the Roman Catholic Church
- from the time of the Reformation until recent times, as represented
by the teaching in Dave Hunt's book "A Woman Rides the Beast,"
Protestants and Baptists were almost unanimous in interpreting
the Revelation passages on Babylon as a reference to the Papacy.
But after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, some prophecy teachers
decided to identify Babylon as Iraq, so they deftly switched gears
and rushed into print with books proclaiming that the rise of
Iraq as modern Babylon was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy (incidentally
making a lot of money on those books, although I am sure that
was not their motive).
NEW MEMBER. If Saddam Hussein was fulfilling "Bible
prophecy" by rebuilding Babylon, then why did we overthrow
him and stop him from fulfilling prophecies that must come to
pass in order for Christ to return?
REVEREND DOGOOD. Son, did anybody ever tell you that you
ask too many questions?