Moderator Carl El-Khoueri, in a forum known as Straight Forward, recently interviewed Anjem Choudary, a British Muslim activist, and Joseph Barakat of the Lebanese Forces in Lebanon.

The program opened with a review of recent acts of brutality perpetrated by ISIS against Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.

Mr. El-Khoueri asked of  Mr. Choudary: Given that Mr. Obama has sought $500 million to support moderate rebels in Syria, What is the difference between moderate rebels and rebels.

Mr. Choudary, ignoring the Sunni-Shiite divide, declared that the spectrum within Islam is straightforward.  He said that there really is no such thing as extremists estranged from moderates, and that such divisions are more a  reflection of those Muslims whom America likes and those whom America does not like. For Mr. Choudary, there is just Islam.

More significantly, he prefaced his remarks by describing the actual rift in the world as he sees it:

“Let me begin by saying that there are two camps in the world today.  There are those who believe that sovereignty belongs to man, at the head of which is Obama, and those who believe sovereignty belongs to Allah, at the head of which today is Khalifa Ibrahim.”  [Khalifa Ibrahim Abubakr Al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS]

According to Mr. Choudary the world has two poles, one managed by the secular humanist Obama, the other by the representative of Allah, Mr. Baghdadi.  This is a very grave assessment of our time, since these managers of the universal schism are two of the greatest murderers history has ever known.  Nor do I accept Mr. Choudary’s characterization of Mr. Obama as a humanist.  I believe that if his only failing were to imagine a world in which man is sovereign unto himself, he would be only half as dangerous as he actually is.  [Does Mr. Choudary fail to see that for this American president, for this child of Islam, his every deed curiously works out to the advantage of the growth of Islam? Does this make him a Muslim or is he just betraying his country?]

But I am here concerned with Mr. Choudary’s vision of what it means to represent the sovereignty of God.  Is this really the rule of God in the world, that this man Baghdadi and his minions rape Yezidi women, destroy churches, slaughter Shiites, and behead Christians?

Yet  my concerns go beyond Mr. Baghdadi’s indiscretions.  I want to look at his vision of the sovereignty of God, because I am quite certain that the Islamic idea of divine sovereignty is not different from that of Christian Dominionists, who in fact find that the sovereign power of God is not quite sufficient to bring in the heavenly kingdom and that the deficit must be provided by their efforts to bring the world under their rule.

[Rumor has it that the apparent willingness of Obama to confront ISIS has recently transported his Dominionist generals into the thrill of imagining themselves in an end-time Dominionist showdown with Islam.  Apparently all are ready for nuclear holocaust in order to bring in the rule of Al Mahdi.]

“Christian” Dominionism is the belief that it is incumbent upon Christians to build the kingdom of God on earth.  They are to take dominion over the earth through the mastery of themselves, the advancement of the church, and the control of social institutions, ultimately subduing the earth through the enlightened use of science and technology – until, then and only then, will Christ come and rule over his kingdom.  I.e. only if we create it will God come and rule it.

For instance, in Detroit’s Metrotimes on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 it was reported that,

“Leaders from Detroit’s Christian and Muslim communities have expressed concern about ‘The Call: Detroit,’ whose leaders frequently demonize Islam and promote ‘dominionist’ theology, which advocates a takeover of government, media and business by conservative Christians.”[1]

Catholic Liberation Theology is very near to this Protestant aberration, in that it determines to rule in the lives of cities and nations, a job for which the Jesuits are well equipped.

If we dare to  read the Bible it is not obscure information that Christ does not return to a world which men have conquered for him.  Much rather he returns to a world in near total apostasy and rebellion, most of his saints having been slaughtered by an enraged one world government.  He then drives out Satan, judges mankind, and takes possession of the world on behalf of his own.  This is a portrait of a sovereign God.  He who made us of his own will and power also redeemed us of his own will and power.  He who redeemed us also reaches into the life of the individual and brings him to the knowledge of God.  He who saves us returns for us and brings us into the kingdom of brick and stone.

Islam does not serve the sovereignty of God.  Islam stands the sovereignty of God on its head.  I see Islam give sovereignty to its Shariah Laws, much as the Pharisees in the time of Christ put law ahead of the love and honor of God.  I see Islam give sovereignty to the Muslim state, much as the Catholic church demands sovereign rule over the lives of its people, interjecting itself between man and his God.

Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, has already established the eternal kingdom in the hearts of those who yield their souls to him, and he does so with his hands open at his side, without a stroke of violence.  His subjects adhere to him without need ever to raise a hand against the enemies of  God, since His power is sufficient to establish His kingdom, and nothing, not even death, can separate them from the love of their Messiah.  This is the character of Yeshua, sovereign king over transcendent Israel.

Militant Islam does not have the patience to wait upon the  hand of God, or to live as Abraham lived, accepting nothing but as it comes from the hand of God.  For Islam, as for the Zionists, as for the Dominionist Christians and the Catholics, it is not enough to spread the word of truth in the hearts of a hungry world.  They formulate an idea of the will of God and then go out with their hearts raging to enforce the will of God, bombing, droning, building walls, bulldozing homes, and beheading their enemies. The great religious facades of this world work their own work, and care little for the sovereignty of God.

Lawrence Stewart Jones

lawrencestewartjones@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Metrotimes, “Demonic Islam,” Dominionism and Friday’s Rally in Detroit, posted by W. Lim Heron, Tue, Nov. 8, 2011