The only effective 'counter narrative' to Islam is Christianity

A string of Islamic terrorist attacks in three different states over the weekend has given the media, Democrats and other leftists another chance to embarrass themselves. They've taken full advantage of the opportunity.

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As you've heard by now, a Somali Muslim went on a stabbing spree in St. Cloud, Minnesota, shortly after bombs were detonated in neighborhoods in New York City and New Jersey. The terrorist in Minnesota, Dahir Adan, was shot dead by a good guy with a gun, and the terrorist responsible for the bombings, Ahmed Rahami, was captured by police Monday morning.

A few points about the reaction to these events:

1. The Godless Liberal West Does Not Have an Effective 'Counter Narrative.'

Today, the White House proclaimed that we're fighting a war of "narratives" with ISIS, and the key to defeating them is to craft a compelling "counter narrative." One might suggest that the key to stopping ISIS is to kill them, not debate them, but I suppose that kind of language is distasteful. Instead, we must talk about narratives as if Islam and the West are locked in a global essay contest.

An FBI robot detonates a pipe bomb in New Jersey. (Image via Twitter/Anthony DiLorenzo)

Of course, it is true that ISIS militants are motivated by a narrative, in the sense that a narrative is a story. But the story has a title, and the title is Islam. Therefore, the true counter narrative is Christianity. Indeed, Christianity is the only force that has shown the ability and willingness through the centuries to combat Islamic extremism. The West stood firm against the threat when the West was Christian. It has slowly folded and surrendered to it as it has become more secularized. That's not a coincidence, by the way.

What we're learning is that a godless, liberalized civilization does not have the energy or the strength to vanquish the barbarians at its gates, nor does it have any way to effectively compete with them on the battlefield of ideas. It's true that we have to be able to not only kill the enemy but also win the hearts of those who might otherwise become the enemy. But modern liberalism is ill equipped for that challenge. It can't win hearts because it doesn't speak to the soul. It has no answers. It offers no direction. And that's why cultures that adopt it have only drifted gradually into oblivion.

Islam offers answers, and it wins converts. They are the wrong answers, of course, but they are answers at least. Islam speaks about the soul, about eternity, about spirituality and about all of the other profound, transcendent things that liberalism denies or ignores, even though all human beings deeply hunger for them. Islam may not say the right things about those subjects, but because it says anything at all about them, it wins.

The West used to combat Islam's answers with answers of its own. Christian answers. The Christian answer is the only one that could prevent the next potential suicide bomber from getting sucked into the lies of Islamic extremism. Outside of that, all we have to stop them are bombs and armies (both useful tools, to be sure).

If liberals think they can mitigate the necessity of bombs and armies by extolling the virtues of left-wing secularism, they are in for a rude awakening (or many additional rude awakenings, I should say). If you want to convert the enemy so you don't have to kill him, Christianity is the only way. As we've discovered, a godless civilization cannot convert anyone to anything. All it has left, then, are the bombs and the armies. A Christian civilization can have bombs and armies too, but it also has the truth. And we're finding out that it's pretty hard to win a war of ideas when you've already given up on the truth.

2. The 'Connection' Is Impossible to Miss, Unless You're Dumb or Dishonest.

For a couple of days afterwards, President Obama was too busy attending fundraisers to utter a single word about the rash of terror attacks on American soil. When he finally found the time to say something about them, he was careful to assure the nation that there is "no connection" between the stabbing assault and the bombings. Meanwhile, rational citizens can't help but note at least one conspicuous relationship between the two: Islam.

If Adan had been Amish and Rahami a Baptist, it would make sense to say there's nothing linking the two would-be mass murderers. Noticeably, however, the Amish and the Baptists aren't often found setting bombs or stabbing random people in shopping malls.  Those are activities most often associated with Muslims for the rather compelling reason that Muslims are the ones most often doing them. At a certain point, it becomes impossible for an honest person to see a terrorist's Islamism as some kind of irrelevant detail. And after approximately one and half millennia of Islamic violence, I would think we've reached that point by now. But perhaps we should give it another five centuries before we call it a pattern.

The Left is so desperate to separate Islamic terrorism from Islam that now they've apparently started referring to terrorist cells as "groups of lone wolves." The idea that we face a coordinated and organized threat from people deeply fueled by a certain religion is unthinkable to them. Or at least it's inconvenient to them, so they pretend it's unthinkable.

They pretend they can't see how Islamic teachings promote violence, although they have no problem seeing how certain kinds of "rhetoric" may lead to violence. In fact, Hillary Clinton investigated this weekend's incidents and found the catalyst not in the Quran, but in the words of Donald Trump. According to Hillary and her ilk, terrorists are in no way motivated by commands in their own holy book to "strike off the heads" of unbelievers, but they may be motivated by the arbitrary ramblings of the Republican presidential candidate.

Remember, conservatives were blamed for the 49 homosexuals murdered by a Muslim terrorist in Orlando, too. The Prophet Mohammed does not encourage violence, only conservative politicians, talk show hosts and bloggers are guilty of that crime. This probably explains why the liberal "Don't point fingers at the religion!" banner is nowhere to be seen on the extremely rare occasion that a Christian attacks an abortion clinic. Only with Muslims do they suddenly become so hesitant to focus on the religion of the attackers.

3. It's Not a 'Phobia' if It's Rational.

The mayor of Minneapolis was quick to expose the real culprit after the knife attacks in St. Cloud: Islamophobia. Mayor Betsy Hodges published a statement on her Facebook page lecturing anyone who might be a little perturbed by the fact that Muslims are killing people all over the planet:

I also urge every Minneapolitan and every Minnesotan to support and stand firmly with our Muslim, East African, and Somali friends and neighbors. A horrible, violent attack like this should never be exploited to attack a whole community and a whole religion. Yet we have seen Islamophobia rear its ugly head in terrible moments like this far too many times — *and* at a moment when one person in particular is playing to fear and hatred of immigrants on a national scale, I fully understand the worry of the Somali community here that it will happen again.

From the first moments after this terrible event, the Somali community of Minnesota came together to decry this horrible act. We all get to come together to reject hate in all of its forms. We must not and will not allow hate to divide us. We are stronger together.

"We see Islamophobia rear its ugly head," the delusional woman says the day after a Muslim stabbed nine people in a mall down the street from her. But where exactly is this Islamophobia? The Rahami family complained about being victims of it themselves — right before Ahmad ran off and maimed 29 people with an explosive device. It turns out the "phobia" people felt toward Ahmad Rahami was pretty reasonable, even if it hurt the poor man's feelings. Could it be that the "phobia" millions of people experience when they think about the death and bloodshed wrought by Islamic militants is also quite natural and justified?

A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Is the fear of terrorism irrational? Is it irrational to draw a connection between terrorism and Islam? We've already established — and the past 13 or 14 centuries confirm — that it is not. So where does the Islamophobia come into play?

Sure, it's wrong to physically attack innocent Muslims. No matter how many Muslims physically attack innocent non-Muslims (and innocent Muslims, for that matter), none of that makes it right to respond in kind. But the good news is that there isn't any widespread epidemic of anti-Muslim attacks. The Council on American-Islam Relations — a Muslim propaganda organization — claimed that a "record number" of anti-Muslim incidents were reported in 2015. Even if we take their numbers as gospel here, and of course we shouldn't, it's still pretty incredible that there were only 64 such incidents. And many of those were "harassment" — a far cry from being blown to bits, stabbed, or shot, which is the kind of treatment we infidels can expect from Muslim radicals.

A reader on Twitter points out that in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 Muslims still weren't the most victimized religious group in the country. That title belonged to the Jews. Catholics and Protestants weren't that far behind Muslims, and we didn't even fly any planes into any buildings.

The point is, Muslims are still extremely safe in this country, no matter how many of our civilians and soldiers are killed by Muslims at home or abroad. And they know they're safe here, which is why they leave Muslim countries to seek refuge in the United States. There is no crisis of anti-Muslim violence in this country, and "Islamophobia" — to whatever extent it exists — is not unreasonable given the circumstances.

But still we're lectured for not applauding Islam loudly enough. And the lectures don't stop after attacks on our soil. They only ramp up. It's ridiculous. And disgraceful.