On Christmas Day, a day when persecuted Christians are often specifically targeted with exceptional violence, President Donald Trump conducted a successful military strike against Islamic State terrorists in Nigeria.
The symbolism of his decision to order the strike on Christmas Day was, of course, a significant topic of conversation online and in the media. Ahead of the holy day, advocates for persecuted Christians were warning that Christians in Nigeria were in special danger at Christmas. Then Trump took action in such spectacular fashion against the ISIS terrorists who (among other jihad groups) have spent more than a decade committing genocide against Christians.
Trump was sending a signal to Islamic terrorists that persecuted Christians are no longer friendless and helplessly vulnerable to bloody attacks. We can only hope that he will continue to be so strong against Nigerian jihadis, and that his stance will extend to persecuted Christians in Syria, Iran, Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, and other countries (without, of course, endangering our own troops unnecessarily).
Indeed, Islamic terrorism is a global problem, a threat to the United States, almost as much as to Nigerian Christians. True, Islamic terrorist attacks are so far much more localized and isolated in the United States than in Nigeria, but they are increasing all the time, partly thanks to the Biden administration’s open borders policy that allowed in God knows how many terrorists. The Trump administration identified nearly 20,000 suspected terrorists welcomed in by the Biden administration. And just before Thanksgiving, an Afghan national murdered a National Guardsman in D.C. The FBI also just busted a terror plot in California.
Related: Trump Strikes ISIS in Nigeria, Shielding Persecuted Christians
Some people were comparing the strike in Nigeria to the launch of a Crusade. That is perhaps a bit exaggerated, because we are not certain where the Trump administration will go from here. It is a little early for such a comparison. But it is not wrong, I think, to state that Trump was not just conducting a relatively routine strike on a terror target; he was trying to send an unequivocal message to Nigerian terrorists and their supporters in Islamic countries. Hence, our military conducted the strike on Christmas.
Jesus Christ did come to preach love and spiritual peace, but He took up a weapon — a whip — to cleanse the Temple when it was necessary (John 2:13ff). One of the individuals who received the warmest praise from Christ in the Gospel was a military centurion (Luke 7:9). And Jesus warned (Matthew 10:34), “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”
While He was using figurative language to some extent in the latter passage, it is obvious that Jesus did not apply turning the other cheek to every single situation. Sometimes it is morally necessary to fight for one’s religion against evil. That is what the Trump administration did in Nigeria yesterday.
The genocide against Christians in Nigeria has taken more than 60,000 lives in over a decade of mounting jihad-driven conflict. Tens of thousands have been kidnapped and millions displaced. The pro-Islamist Biden administration removed Nigeria from the list of countries of particular concern for religious freedom, but the Trump administration is doing a complete about-face in both openly and aggressively supporting the persecuted Christians against the terrorists.
