It does not need much imagination to see that if this is the necessary attitude once War begins, the same attitude should permeate political life before War is decided on; because actually the war against terrorists has already been going on a long time, and will be with us for a long time yet.
In this situation, to cry, “Jesus is King!” is not a substitute in this dangerous modern world, for an understanding of these other disciplines, so as to be able to choose wise rulers to govern the State. Indeed to proclaim, “Jesus is King” or “Love solves all problems” is almost naively to guarantee that one’s conduct will help to precipitate a descent by the State into a new dark age, as happened in the Roman Empire so long ago. Besides confirming Gibbon’s opinion that Christianity is on the whole a subversive influence, and was a principal factor in the decline and fall of Rome. It is arguable that all the appeasers of the 1930s achieved was to make it impossible to stand firm at Munich, which made war inevitable, in which about 60 million people died. If we enter a new dark age, this time there may be no re-emergence; and we may see everything that makes life worthwhile degenerate into chaos. Islam too must put its house in order, or risk finding that its role in history is to accelerate a descent of Society into tribal hatreds and barbarism, a tendency to which it gives us vividly frequent demonstrations. If action is needed, teaching about the true workings of the human mind, and the limitations of any one-precept creed or religion, is as good a way of fighting fanaticism as any. Creon and Antigone chose one-precept creeds. Creon chose the State as his supreme good; and ended by treating men and women as agents of the State, and as less than human. Antigone chose family relations as her supreme good; and ended by failing to distinguish any longer between loyalty and treachery. Both found their one-precept creeds destroyed everything that made life worthwhile.
One-precept religions are a menace to humanity, and its whole future. Micro-biologists point this out with glee, although they should beware of repeating in their own new religion the mistakes of the more traditional religions. But there is no need for Christianity to be caught; Christ's exhortation to love one's enemies provides a ready-made escape. It is human nature that so often chooses slavery, when it is offered freedom; mob violence and lynch-law rather than the Law Courts and negotiation. But most cultures think the pen is mightier than the sword; and I agree that it is in the long term, but not in the short. Napoleon wrote, "Il n'y a que deux puissances dans ce monde, le sabre et l'Esprit. A la longue le sabre est tourjours battu par l'Esprit". This surely translates as, "There are only two powers in this world, the sword and the spirit. In the long term the sword is always beaten by the spirit". And he ought to have known!