Paul Hill had no regrets about the two murders he committed - on the contrary, he believed that he was doing the will of God and that he would be rewarded in heaven for his deeds. Sound familiar? It should - this is the basic attitude of Muslim terrorists. This demonstrates that, given the right social circumstances, the same sort of extremists can develop in Christianity as in Islam. Christians who criticize Islam and Muslims should remember this.

Rod Thomson writes in the Herald Tribune:

Many in this country have been urging faithful Muslims to stand up and boldly state that the kind of murderous Islamic extremism we are seeing all across the globe is fundamentally wrong and not in line with Islam's traditional teachings. Unfortunately, there has been all too little of that. Much of the response has been of the "you have to understand what drives them" variety that spends most of its time on the laundry list of problems facing the Islamic world that compels young Islamic men to murder women and children.

And so for pro-life Christians, there is the crying need to say that what Paul Hill did was morally wrong, in no way representative of the teachings of Jesus. ... This is not the banner Christians want flying over our faith. Christians cannot allow the name of Christ to be sullied by remaining quiet and not denouncing violence and murder in the name of life by those calling themselves Christians.

Thomson is right, but he misses a key issue: Paul Hill murdered, in part, because he believed that he was rescuing innocent babies from being murdered. He honestly believed that killing in order to defend the lives of others is justified. Pro-life Christians have three choices it seems: accept the logic of what Hill did or reject one of this two premises. I doubt that many will adopt the complete pacifism necessary to refrain from killing in defense of the innocent. The other option is to abandon the rhetoric that abortion is murder.

So, what will they do?

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• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism