There's been a lot of discussion on the internet about an article written by Robert Reich in which he argues that while terrorism is dangerous, it's ultimately just a tactic utilized by the real danger: those who adhere to ideologies that teach humans to reject modernity in favor of a divinely mandated social order. For some reason, conservative Christians have been bothered by this.

Maggie Gallagher writes:

Robert Reich, a former Cabinet secretary, implies in this month's issue of the American Prospect that Christian fundamentalists are even more dangerous than people who blow up skyscrapers. And he defines fundamentalism awfully broadly: "Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernist; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority ... between those who believe in science, reason and logic, and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face."

I think that people have distorted what Reich has written — perhaps deliberately so. For all it's references to "Nature's God," the Declaration of Independence is pretty clear that governments " deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed." The Constitution is similarly clear that the government of the United States is founded upon "we the people," not "God's Grace."

This is the opposition that Reich is talking about: between those who believe in a secular government founded upon the will of the people and those who believe in a religious government founded upon what a few people claim to be the will of some divine being.

Terrorism is a tactic - one that can be employed by any number of different ideologies. The same is true of war. This is indisputable. And, while a dangerous tactic, it would be a grave error to focus solely on the tactic while ignoring the motivations of those who are using it. If someone is threatening you with a knife, it makes sense to take steps to defend yourself against the physical danger represented by the knife - and even more sense to figure out a way to get the guy to stop seeing you as a tempting target for his weapon.

Similarly, while it is important to take steps to defend against the physical threat of terrorism, it makes even more sense to figure out what the motivations are of those wishing to use terrorism and perhaps come up with a means to change their minds. In our current situation, we are faced with people who wish to institute religious governments that derive their powers from divine mandate and that rule based upon what a few people claim is the Will of God.

That's a threat to life and liberty, whether the people advocating it use terrorism to advance their cause or something else. One would think that those who decry the forces of "Islamofascism" would recognize this — after all, what are they complaining about except the totalitarian nature of the system in question? There’s a reason for saying “Islamofascists” rather than “Islamoterrorists,” and the reason is to emphasize the danger of their ideology, not the danger of their tactics.

Gallagher says that “Christian fundamentalists have lived peacefully among us in America for several hundred years,” but that’s not entirely true, is it? In addition to trying to do things like have creationism taught in public schools and get the government to promote Christianity over other religions, various extremist Christian ideologies have been behind the murders of abortion doctors and the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. There is a blindness among many conservative American Christians about just how violent Christianity can be.

Then again, perhaps one of the reasons they use the term "Islamofascism" is to make the ideology appear more secular and thus mask the religious intent behind it. After all, if more people saw the ideological parallels between Islamic extremists and America's Christian Right, they might think twice about the nature of their religious and political commitments. It’s true that Reich’s comments might apply to quite a few Christians in America — but that doesn’t make those comments wrong or bigoted. It might just mean that those American Christians are on the wrong side of history, favoring an ideology pointing them down the wrong path without entirely realizing it.

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