Pastor's speech outlines motivations behind jihad
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

The War on Terror transcends political ideology alone, Grace Fellowship pastor Paul Kenley recently told the Lampasas Kiwanis Club. In a speech briefly outlining Islamic theology, the pastor said the rise of terrorism results directly from radical Muslims' interpretation of the Koran.

Kenley reminded his audience of the five pillars of Islam: the "witness" -- declaring there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet -- five-times-a-day prayer, alms, fasting and a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy city of Mecca. The pastor said the religion's "sixth pillar," the doctrine of "jihad," does not receive much attention but strongly influences Americans because radicals use the concept to justify the killing of non-Muslims.

"It is their performance of jihad, or holy war, that has most come to impact us, as far as their religion is concerned," Kenley said.

The term literally means "struggle in God's way" or "struggle to improve self and society," Kenley said. Some Islamic scholars also consider jihad an effort to live a virtuous life.

"It can refer to the fight against injustice and oppression," he said, "which is an ironic designation, since jihad is the source of much of the oppression and injustice in our world."

The minister said most often the word refers to armed conflict in defense of Islam, although scholars say the Koran allows leaders to call for jihad only after Muslims have been attacked. Warfare should last only as long as the threat to Muslims continues, Kenley said of Islamic teachings, which he added protect women, children, non-combatants and residential areas from attacks.

"By these standards, acts of overt aggression, like 9/11, are clearly illegal by the standards of the Koran," he added.

Many Muslim fundamentalists, however, consider any Western presence in the Middle East an attack on Islam, and they equate the United States' support of Israel with a direct attack on Muslim states.

At the same time, radical clerics say those who die while conducting jihad automatically go to paradise. Some Islamic leaders even guarantee a spot in paradise to the family members of those killed during jihad, Kenley said.

Such teachings appeal strongly to some fundamentalists, particularly because Islam is a "very works-oriented" religion. Islam teaches "a long list of works and deeds" for salvation, Kenley said, so martyrdom often seems to fundamentalists like an easier -- and more certain -- path toward paradise, he explained.

Along with differing from the Christian doctrine of salvation by grace, Islam parts from Christianity in the religion's teachings about Jesus, Kenley said. Muslims consider Jesus the sixth of seven great prophets, but Islam denies the divinity of Christ, said the pastor. As a result, Muslims do not equate Jehovah -- who Christianity teaches is co-eternal and co-divine with Jesus -- with their god Allah.

Pluralists often say Allah and the Christian God are the same, but the pastor said the Bible clearly denounces that fallacy.

"The teaching is that there are many roads, many paths up the same mountain. We're all going to wind up in the same place. As long as you're sincere in whatever religion you have, you're going to be all right," said Kenley. "That's typical of our culture, but it couldn't be more false."

While emphasizing that most Muslims -- especially in the United States -- reject violent, fundamentalist teachings, Kenley told his audience the war in Iraq illustrates the need to understand Islam and the foreign policy implications of jihadist ideology.

"I really believe that our nation's leaders cannot deal properly with the situation in the Middle East without having a good basic understanding of Islam, because that's really what's driving everything," Kenley said.