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Eye on the world: Prayer to counter Islamic State (IS) threat
Islamic State has been forceful and violent in its endeavors to establish an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and beyond. An editorial in The Christian Science Monitor comments: “The basic error in the group’s message is more than simply that terror in the name of religion – in this case Islam – is permissible. . . . It demands an outward conformity in behavior . . . . In other words, doing religion will necessarily lead to believing in it. Action somehow begets spiritual thought. And if a person does not act with certain physical signs of faith, then killing is justified.”
How to gain our freedom from fear of such thoughts and also bless those in the IS-controlled areas? Here is how some people have prayed about such issues in different times and places and some of the spiritual concepts that inspired them.
In “Delivered from danger,” Mark Stratman states, “Fear and misunderstanding would lead us toward false assumptions and away from recognizing our true place in God’s creation. Not understanding the extent of our divine resources limits our view and lessens our ability to respond to divine guidance.”
“God is law and the only lawgiver to man,” writes Richard G. Lee in “Far from terror.” He goes on,. “As we strive to maintain the fact that the kingdom of heaven is present and operative on earth, we will find and prove, as Jesus did, that fear, and its extreme form, terror, are ultimately illusions that can be corrected and overthrown.”
Michael Pabst explains in “To end all wars”: “Peace needs to rest on something more substantial than a threat of annihilation in order to have the promise of permanence. . . . By looking beyond cultural and theological labels we find common ground in our spiritual natures. Respect and a sense of brotherhood are a natural result.”