The need for the Every Church a Peace Church movement to reclaim the centrality and normativity of nonviolence for following Jesus the Christ is made abundantly clear by the following article. The evidence is not simply the general himself, but that he has an audience. General Casts War in Religious Terms
The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.'
by Richard T. Cooper WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan. Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, Boykin was in the thick of things. Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." "We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year. On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there." Boykin's penchant for casting the war on terrorism in religious terms appears to be at odds with Bush and an administration that have lab
|
