Mohammed loves Jesus

By Henry H. Bucher, Jr.
Jun 4, 2009

“Jesus Killed Mohammed,” titles Jeff Sharlet’s piece in Harpers Magazine (May, 2009). In describing today’s US crusade for a Christian military, he takes his title from a large red script in Arabic on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Samarra, Iraq, spring, 2004. Sharlet details how some significant parts of our military are bringing “freedom” to Iraq while paradoxically breaking their oath to our Constitution to keep religion separate from government.
Ironically, the Qur’an reveres all Jewish, Christian, and Muslim prophets including Jesus (Issa), born of a virgin named Mary. Some Shia Muslims believe he will come again in judgment with their Twelfth Imam. Many Muslim men have the name Issa, as are many men in cultures of Spanish influence named Jesus. The Qur’an refers many times to Jews and Christians as “People of the Book” who should be protected as spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham.
The perversion of faith is only one important aspect of our tragic military occupation of Iraq. The role of religion in the US military is not limited to our presence in Iraq. Soldiers have prayed, worshipped, and sought counsel from chaplains provided by our military since day one. That is not at issue.
The major issues here are: 1) proselytizing within the military; 2) attempting to convert those we do battle against; thus aiding our foes by being what they have always claimed we are—a new form of the Christian Crusades in continuity with those in the Middle Ages; and 3) creating a dangerous situation for the Iraqi Christian communities that date back to the first century.
Seeking converts within military ranks has been litigated at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team, who inserted scriptures to headline official Pentagon memos, is gone; and this practice has been discontinued, we are told. Still, some in our military see themselves as “spiritual warriors” thus mirroring the militant jihadists—the enemy.
Attempting to convert Muslims in the lands we occupy could be seen by some Christian soldiers as at least one argument that “makes sense” out of an otherwise confusing situation. Thousands of Bibles in Pashto, the language of Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, are arriving through our military. Some US fundamentalists parallel this modern crusade with supporting Israel against the Palestinians in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ—for generations now “around the corner,” “soon,” “in our lifetime.” Much of the world see the USA and Israel in alliance since 1948 without any religious significance, but disagree over how to encourage peace in the area.
Iraqi Christians and Muslims know that thousands of Jews, Christians and Muslims were massacred in and around Jerusalem during Europe’s First Crusade (1095-1099). These Christian soldiers, once in control, protected the local Christians, who later became targets for having collaborated with the Crusaders. While some US military today see proselytizing as a part of their “mission,” the US-led occupation as a whole, has caused enormous damage to the indigenous Christians who have lived in the area before Islam and fourteen centuries under Islam. Those who have not become refugees are often seen as collaborators with the USA; and upon our leaving, will be even less secure. Christians numbered 1.4 million in Iraq in 1989; today they are about 400,000. The Pentagon does not keep records of total Iraqi deaths but many more Muslims have been killed, displaced and maimed.
These issues go far beyond Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Since the late 1800s, a favorite hymn among US Protestants was “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which used military metaphor right from scriptures. When some wanted it removed from the hymnbook, defenders noted that all was metaphor speaking to the “inward struggle --a spiritual one--calling on all Christians to “put on the armor of God.” After World War Two, however, with the Cold War and the reality of almost permanent real wars in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, the hymn was removed from some hymnbooks because the image of a soldier with the cross in the left hand and a sword in the other was incongruent with following the Prince of Peace.
What is happening in some sectors of the US military today is a conflation of the war metaphor into a reality that confuses military conquest with spreading the faith—not unlike what Mohammed’s armies did in the seventh and eighth centuries, and the Christian Crusaders in the Middle Ages. History books point out that Jews and Christians were protected by Mohammed’s armies as “People of the Book.” In 2009, we should be learning more about all the daughters and sons of Abraham, not killing each other; nor killing others for that matter.

Henry H. Bucher, Jr.
Adjunct Associate Professor Emeritus / Humanities
Comparative World History / Africa & Middle East
Austin College # 61555
Sherman, TX 75090-4400
hbucher@austincollege.edu
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