De Arteaga suggests there are several dangers in the present demonstrations to produce some collateral damage, especially damage that would result if extremists got control of the demonstrations. He encourages Christians to pray specifically for good fruit to result from the demonstrations.

Quotations from the article:

Historically, the assertion that frustration leads necessarily to violence is nonsense. Such statements give the TV commentators or politicians who say that a feeling that he or she are making a worthy moral observation. In fact, in regimes where injustice and tyranny are highest but the police apparatus brutal and merciless, the public swallows its anger and suffers its injustices without comment.

It would have been spiritually beneficial for prominent clergy to say the simple, biblical thing, “Sin should not be met with counter-sin. Police brutality is a sin, but looting is evil and a sin also.”

The famous Russian dissident and prophet, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, in his Harvard commencement address of 1978 noted that the abrupt end to the Vietnam War, forced by the anti-war movement, cost millions of lives. I and many of us who were in Vietnam agree. Had we stayed a bit longer, and continued to give the South Vietnamese Army our air support, we would have today in South Vietnam a democratic, economically vibrant and spiritually healthy county similar to South Korea.

Politics normally breeds exaggeration, and protest movements exaggerate the exaggerations. The TV reporters and pundits often use the phrase “endemic racism” about Americans. This is an exaggeration that is convenient to the protest organizers and politically Left groups, but this can be a sin of false or exaggerated judgment. … Also note how many Whites participate in the demonstrations. This alone should be cause to temper the accusations of “endemic racism.” Let us begin using the phrase “vestigial racism” to signify those who have not yet overcome their prejudices.

Protests on May 31, 2020 in Washington, D.C.
Image: Koshu Kunii

“A Charismatic Historian’s Response to the George Floyd Demonstrations”
Link to the blog: http://www.pentecostaltheology.com/a-charismatic-historians-response-to-the-george-floyd-demonstrations/

Perhaps no other Christian magazine is as poised to offer as complete a picture of the historical conflict between Islam and Christianity as Christian History. In a few brief and readable articles this issue summarizes the rise and beliefs of Islam in direct relation to the Church.

Since the purpose and memory of the Crusades is such a point of contention in this day, it is appropriate that many articles discuss it. Professor Paul Crawford writes that there has been a collective amnesia on the part of the West, especially in the Church, as to what the wars known as the Crusades were all about. Only in recent decades has the Islamic world increasingly attached guilt to the West as aggressors in the Crusades; wars which were started, and eventually won, by Muslims.¹ Ignoring history, many in the Church have accepted this guilt. “But if Christians are allowed to wage war when attacked, and if Christians believe that their religion has a right to exist outside the sphere of Islamic law,² perhaps modern Christians should take a second look at the crusades and their historical context, in which Christianity was under near constant pressure from the Islamic world from the seventh century to the seventeenth” (“A Deadly Give and Take,” p. 24).

Mateen A. Elass explains that jihad means more than warfare, but that the sword is central to Islam in “Four Jihads.” “Imperial Evasion” by Andrew F. Walls relates the evangelistic opportunity and blunder that occurred during the time of European imperialism when most of the Islamic world came under the rule of “Christian” nations. Also discussed by articles in this issue are the differences of belief between Islam and Christianity and stories of witnesses of Jesus to Muslims in history. The issue closes with an interview with Fuller Seminary professor J. Dudley Woodberry asking how Muslims view the West today and what can be done to bring “Justice and Peace” to the rising tide of Islamic militancy.

Those who are purporting the notion that Islam is a “peaceful” religion will find little to like in this issue of Christian History. Possible side-effects from reading this issue may include intense thirst for resources that go deeper than the well-written but brief articles found there. As always, this issue of Christian History is certainly going to get you thinking, imparting a desire to know more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ in the world.

Reviewed by Raul Mock

Issue 74 of Christian History may be found [as of May 1, 2014] on this page: www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/issue/christians-and-muslims

Notes

¹ Muslims stressing the importance of Jerusalem is also a rather recent development, since historically less significance was attached to the city because it is the third holiest to Islam.

² For more about how oppressive “toleration” of Christians has been historically, read Christian History editor Elesha Coffman’s article “Secrets of Islam’s Success,” pages 16-18 in issue 74.