Can Christians Support a War Against Islamic Terrorism?

I had hoped to spend the Christmas Season posting a wonderful hymn about the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Although I will continue to do so, the recent Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have convinced me to deviate from this joyful thread.

The Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino on December 2 was both evil and horrific.  The husband and wife perpetrators cold-bloodily chose to systematically kill people whom the knew personally and who had shown them kindness.  They clearly intended to go on killing Americans until they were stopped by force.

The radical progressive ideologues who dominate our media and politics immediately jumped into action, mocking prayer, blaming the United States, pushing their political agenda and worrying the most about a possible (but seemingly never actually happening) backlash against Muslims.

If you are worshiping in a Mainline Protestant denomination, the loudest and most aggressive responding voices will likely be pushing a peculiar form of pacifism  that simultaneously excuses / justifies violence by Islamic terrorists (among others) while demanding that our society do nothing to defend itself.  Many Christians will be cowed into silence by these arguments because of the oft repeated falsehood that Jesus Christ is a pacifist.  This argument has power only because of a successful campaign that has turned “Jesus Christ” into nothing other than an avatar for radical progressive beliefs.

This blog has never been about commenting on current events while they are occurring.  Therefore, I will not spend this Christmas season generating commentary on the horrible events that are playing out in the world.  However, come the new year I will take up the issue of Christian pacifism at length.