Influence and Evil

by Rev. Andrew JJ Paton

The Power of Influence

08/01/04

One of the themes running through the Bible books of Israel’s monarchy is that the evil in one generation tends to corrupt the morals of the next, unless with deep repentance someone breaks from their generational roots. For well or for ill the Middle East is a place with long memories.

One day I was in a curio shop near Manger Square in Bethlehem. I was looking through the olive woodcarvings for a piece requested by a missionary friend in Africa. I mentioned this to one of the shop assistants.

A young man overheard us and as I was leaving, beckoned me to the back of the shop. He said he was from a Moslem family and had recently become a Christian. His family kept badgering him about this and he asked that I give him the answer to one of their jibes.

"Why did the Christians come here in the Crusades?"

That’s how long the bitter memories last over there!

"Tell your family that a pastor told you it was because we were greedy and stupid," I replied, "and that we ask for forgiveness."

Dore Gold, Israel’s ambassador to the UN until 1999 wrote a book about how Saudi Arabia supports the new global terrorism.

He has carefully documented the trail of hate that began with the teachings of Muhammad Wahhab in 1700. His radical form of Islam destroyed the tombs of the Prophet Mohammed’s first disciples that had begun to be venerated.

Wahhab’s "Book of Tawhid" is where he taught an extremely Anti- Jewish & Christian doctrine. To be fair, they hated other Moslem sects as well.

Wahhabism smoldered in the 1800s and many small acts of extremism resulted in the area now called Saudi Arabia. In the 1920s the Zawahiri family embraced this militant teaching. A grandson became Bin-Ladin’s deputy.

The 1900s saw the rise of the House of Saud: King Ibin Saud, King Faisal and then King Fahd. In each reign Wahhabi clerics jockeyed for power and greatly resented the influence of the American oil companies.

These were the source of unprecedented riches for the kingdom but also a focus of rising hatred.

 In the 1980s Saudi Arabia regarded Iran as the primary threat. The 1st Gulf War changed all that. Suddenly Iraq was the enemy. A byproduct of the war was the presence of Americans in Saudi shops and streets.

"Infidels" were all over the sacred land!

Sheikh al-Hawali was a preacher who hated the West. By wide distribution of cassette tapes he spread his "message":

"The real enemy isn’t Iraq – it’s the West. Iraq is the enemy of the hour but America is the enemy of Judgement Day."

Young minds absorbed the concept that America exported threats to Islam via its missionaries, its soldiers and its movies.

These days were also the zenith of the influence by activists like Sayyid Qutb. In the 1970s his works greatly influenced Saudi school textbooks.

At the heart of Wahhabism is the belief that only the God of the Koran is real and that any other belief if a threat to Moslem society. This threat must be countered with all force necessary.

This is the background of influence in which Osama bin- Laden grew up.

Forgiveness is the only thorough cure for hatred. Bitterness is the soul-deep cancer caused by hate. The Bible says not to give place to bitterness because when it spreads in you it will defile many around you.

It’s in the nature of hate to influence widely the impressionable minds of the young. No cause on earth is ever just enough to make hatred its ally, for the trouble with bitterness is that it enslaves its host in the end.

Logic? Don’t be silly, you cannot reason a person out of their bigotism. Only the power of a prayer like "Father forgive us our sins as (perhaps even to the measure that) we forgive those who sin against us" will set us free.

Punish evil doers, but keep your heart free of hate.