John Brown and Modern Terrorism

After the destructive events of September 11, 2001, some writers and thinkers are again making comparisons between John Brown and modern-day terrorists, in particular Osama Bin Laden. While there are those who do not want to believe that John Brown is a terrorist in the same manner that Bin Laden is, the similarities between the two men run very deep.  John Brown was the man who believed that God had given him a sword to fight against the enslavement of his fellowmen, just as Osama Bin Laden believes that God has given him a sword to fight against what he perceives to be a decadent and godless Western society. Both have attempted to use force to promote their own social agendas for change. Both are motivated by hatred, Brown for the institution of slavery, Bin Laden for the commercial institutions of America. Both expected other like-minded individuals to come to their aid, only to discover that those people that might have helped them were, instead, so horrified by the bloody violence unleashed that they fought against them. And both have witnessed the containment and destruction of the organizations they created to implement those agendas.

Both had also forgotten the examples set by the Founders of the Faiths they followed. Jesus Christ and Muhammad both relied more upon moral suasion than they did on acts of violence. Although some of the teachings of Jesus sound very war-like, such as His statement that He had come not to bring "peace, but a sword," He also urged His followers to love their enemies and to do good things for them. Some of the things he urged His followers to do are interpreted today by Biblical scholars as acts of civil disobedience. For example, when Jesus told His followers that, if a man wanted them to carry his coat for a mile, carry it for two. At the time of the Roman occupation of Judea, a Roman soldier had the right to ask any person to carry his gear for one mile. If that same person carried the soldier's gear for two miles, the soldier would get into trouble with his superior officer. This simple principle probably forced many Roman soldiers to carry their own gear and leave the conquered Israelites in peace.

During the nineteenth century, abolitionists in the northern states of the United States embraced the teaching of Jesus found in St. Matthew 25, part of what is called today the Olivet discourse. Verse 40 reads as follows: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." In that period before the Civil War, those people who were helping slaves escape to freedom in Canada took this verse to heart. In giving aid and comfort to the runaways, they were, in turn, giving aid and comfort to Christ. Brown, on the other hand, frequently gave preference to some of the more war-like passages of the Old Testament, especially Jeremiah 5: 26 and 29 which he had marked in his Bible: "For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"

Like Jesus Christ, Muhammad was reluctant to allow His followers to defend themselves despite  ten years of violent persecution. Finally, His followers prevailed upon Him to allow them to wage war against their enemies, but Muhammad bound them up with such strictures as to make war difficult if not impossible. His troops were not allowed to steal food or wood or to cut down trees for firewood, nor to harm women and children or any person not directly involved in the conflict, strictures that don't even begin to explain the Taliban's harsh treatment of women, nor of Al Qaeda's uncaring attitude about children and women killed aboard the planes that were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ironically, Muhammad won his biggest battle—the taking of Mecca—without a sword being drawn or an arrow shot or a single person being killed or harmed in any way.

In the end, society is changed when it is challenged in such a way that it is forced to see that the old ways are wrong and that social reordering will ultimately bring benefits to everyone. It is this principle that motivated Gandhi to fight by non-violent methods against English rule in India. It is this principle, exemplified by Gandhi, that inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to fight against segregation of African Americans in the United States. Gandhi and King won their battles and made life better for all of us. But they also paid the ultimate price for positive social change by falling to the bullets of assassins.

And so we need to ask ourselves which is better? To follow a bloody course that may undermine the social agenda we wish to achieve? Or to follow the more challenging path of non-violent civil disobedience which may prove to be no less bloody? Our future will be determined by how we answer these questions.

I will leave you now with the following article I prepared as a speech for a fundraiser for the American Red Cross. This speech was originally given on the Sunday following the September 11 attack:

Personal Thoughts on the Recent Tragedy

This is a time for celebration, nor for mourning. This is a time for action, not needless and fruitless worry.

Remember the fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night who chides his Mistress Olivia for mourning for her dead brother who, by her own admission, she believes is happy in heaven. We too must not mourn but celebrate the lives of the victims of this attack who died and now stand in bliss before our Heavenly Father in His eternal kingdom. If you want to mourn for anyone today, mourn for the 19 hijackers who committed an act so vile that even Muhammad, the Prophet Founder of the Islamic Faith, must condemn them. Mourn for them and them only as they stand now before the bar of judgment in the next world and begin to realize what sort of power they have unwittingly unleashed against their fellow terrorists around the globe. When I talk of power, I am talking about the power of justice applied with judicious restraint, not spiteful vengeance which would cause us to lash out at the innocent as well as the guilty.

A lot of people are very worried right now about what’s going to happen next to America. I’m not one of them and I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve seen from history how tragedy has many times made us a little stronger and a little better as a nation. During the Civil War, 620,000 Americans died fighting over the issues of slavery and states’ rights and preservation of the Union. In fact, today, as I write this, sees the anniversary of one of the battles of that war which happened on another September day in 1862 when more than 22,000 Americans died in vicious fighting along Antietam Creek in Maryland, a day that is still unrivaled as the bloodiest day in American history. And after that tragic sacrifice of human life, chattel slavery was ended, and radical legislation was passed in an attempt to give former slaves the rights of full citizenship in the United States. That process is still continuing to unfold, but at least we can see how America became a little better and a little stronger than it was before that terrible war.

After the sinking of the Titanic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, United States Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan formed a committee to investigate that disaster which cost more than 1500 lives and left many of its 700 survivors destitute. From that investigation came legislation which made ships at sea a little safer, and also led to the formation of the International Ice Patrol which eventually evolved into the United States Coast Guard.

We can even see how, after World War II which saw the deaths of tens of millions of people around the globe, the United Nations came into existence and formed the beginnings of a collective world government which, though certainly not perfect by any standards, at least is a step in the right direction toward the securing of world peace for everyone.

And if the tragedy of this past week helps America to rid itself once and for all of its isolationist philosophy, forces us to come up with better ways of making air travel around the world safer from terrorist attacks, and gives us the strength to rise to the occasion as a people, and to come together in a united purpose despite differences of race, religion, politics, or ethnic origin, then those people who died this past week will not have died in vain, and those still suffering from wounds and injuries incurred from this attack will have their sufferings alleviated as they are infused with new purpose.

What action can we take now? How can we rise to this occasion? We can give blood and money to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, and even sponsor or hold fundraisers. We can think about helping some of the many children orphaned by this tragedy. We can offer comfort to our neighbors, our children, our friends and families. We can write poems and stories, letters to the newspapers, our congressmen, or even the president. We can network with other people who are also in pain over this tragedy and consult together to come up with a plan of action in our own communities. The last thing we should do is continue to sit and watch the TV in hopeless frustration, and worry ourselves to death over how safe we are. Then the terrorists will have won, and we can’t afford to give them a victory even in this small way.

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