IMPERIAL RELIGION

Imperial Religion


I am very aware that commenting on religion carries much risk. People lose all perspective when theology is discussed because of deeply held beliefs supported by faith alone. For much of mankind’s existence, divine intervention in the affairs of man is a universal belief regardless of race, creed, nationality or circumstance. And because of this universal divine belief, anything relating to the practice of one’s religion carries with it a divine imperative that at once makes it impossible for a secular perspective to exist on the same level as divinity inspired faith. This reality alone makes religion a contentious subject. However, I really don’t want to discuss virtues of theology when discussing today’s religion, I just want to point out an a curious circumstance that is common to both of the world’s most organized religions, the Catholic Church and Islam. For centuries, the Catholic Church has existed as a divine inspired state that knows no national boundaries and throughout history has employed politics to advance the church’s wealth, power and authority by a well-organized Holy See incarnated as the very voice of God. Indeed, the secular meddling in nations affairs by the Catholic Church was largely responsible for the Reformation that continues to diminish the Global authority and power of the Holy See today. The salient point being that the Catholic Church is a global organization that employs church politics to advance its wealth, power and authority by using religion as a tactical vehicle to do so. The Holy See is the governmental administration that merges Christian Theology with secular requirements in order to advance the Church whenever and wherever possible. That the Church was just another global organization trying to expand its power and authority became apparent to me as I was trying to understand the position of the Catholic Church with regards to illegal immigration into the USA. The Church’s political position on this matter coincides with the One World Government movement because the Church is a global political entity and unrestricted movement of people across national borders will quite naturally increase the Church’s global reach and authority. Let me hasten to make it as clear as possible, the Catholic Church uses Christian Theology to promote its global ambitions, it does not authorize the use of physical force or terrorism to advance it’s religion. Nevertheless, it is called Imperialism when a Country endeavors to extend their power and authority over other people and when an organized religion, such as the Catholic Church and Islam, also endeavor to exert global control, it is also Imperialism, albeit Religious Imperialism. Islam is another globally organized religion but does not utilize an easily recognizable vertically organized administration structure like the Holy See to rule its church. Islam is organized in a less recognizable horizontal structure that unites an infinite number of local religious organizations by theology alone and lets each local Mosque administer its own local church, however, each local Mosque can also issue orders that all Muslims everywhere are required to obey. The way in which Islam is organized also is its inherent organizational strength because there is no central authority, like the Holy See, to present an easy target for those wishing to pressure Islam in general to cease it’s imperialistic ways. And here is the biggest problem. Islam is comfortable with using force, including terrorism, to advance its religion and those who use force, like terrorism, cannot be linked to any central authority because each local organization acts independently. This means that all of Islam can support terrorism without being directly connected to those who are perpetrating the violent acts in the name of Islam and do so without being held accountable by the world at large. They do this because Islam decrees all people of the world must become Muslims, either voluntarily or by force if necessary, and if there is no central authority to direct terrorism in the name of Islam, then how do you stop Islam from its Imperial ways? In other words, there is no way to stop terrorism being done in the name of Islam short of attacking the whole of Islam, and no one is willing to do such a thing, because no doubt, most all of Muslims do not endorse terror to advance Islam, but what difference does it make when Islam itself justifies the use of force to promote it’s Religious Imperialism? The fact is that all Muslims are united by theology to support Islam and Islam says all of the world’s people must become Muslims and if some use force to that end, then so be it because most Muslims are not directly involved with the violent acts themselves. However, it is important to note that names are important and there is an ongoing struggle to even name terrorism being done in the name of Islam. This inability to even attach a name to terrorism being done in the name of Islam makes combating terrorism even more difficult. I believe you can attach a correct name to what is going on and the name is Imperial Islam.