Surely now President Obama must believe at least part of the Bible—specifically, I’m thinking about the part that says: “Pride comes before the fall.”
If there is a perfect modern-day application of this biblical injunction, we have been watching it unfold during the last six years.
Oh, how Mr. Obama used to brag that he could handle foreign policy better than his predecessors. He often explained how, because of his ethnic background and upbringing, he understood the Muslim people and identified with them. Through his empathy, he would cause them to love America and the West.
He even made his first foreign trip as president to two Muslim countries—Turkey and Egypt. There, he apologized for America and its previous foreign policies. He assured them that he was their friend and that they could trust him.
President Obama even surrounded himself with Islamists and Islamist-sympathizers as advisers in the White House. He boasted that his envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference had memorized the Quran.
But nearly all of his bragging has now collapsed like a bad soufflé. Islamists do not trust him. Muslim leaders do not respect him. And around the world, leaders have no confidence in his once fawned-over rhetoric.
The resulting tragedy is that the American people are the victims of his misguided self-confidence.
But the core problem with all secular-thinking leaders on both sides of the political aisle is they create foreign policy that is divorced from the other-worldly realities of Islamists.
“Secular,” by definition, means “this age,” which is opposite of the invisible world where Islamist minds reside. Their religious gurus have convinced many that when they die in the act of killing “infidels,” they will live in paradise, with lots of alcohol and 70 virgins for their sexual pleasures.
To be very clear, not all Muslims embrace that viewpoint—for I have many Muslim friends who reject the notion.
But when you put secular thinking up against such other-worldly fantasies, you have a formula for global explosions with catastrophic results. That is something I have written about since the early 1980s to a skeptical world across the political spectrum. Sadly, now the whole world is experiencing it firsthand.
Our foreign policy—regardless of whether it is Democrat or Republican in origin—must understand the other-worldly motivations inherent in Islamist thinking. They not only resent our secular approach to their demands, but they reject and outright ridicule them.
If politicians in the West truly want to protect their fellow citizens, they must fully understand the Islamist mind. Then those politicians will not be able to avoid facing the reality of the situation: It is either kill or be killed. That is the reality Churchill faced when dealing with Hitler. And unfortunately, that is the harsh reality that we face today. Any other thinking is delusional and, ultimately, suicidal.
I’m sure some on social media will attack my Christian bona fides after expressing such a terrible choice. As a Christian—especially as a Christian—I find such a choice very disturbing. But as a Christian, I must also face the reality of the present world and not advocate that our country lie to itself and run from its troubles.
Michael Youssef, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, a worldwide ministry that leads the way for people living in spiritual darkness to discover the light of Christ through the creative use of media and on-the-ground ministry teams. Youssef was born in Egypt.
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