From Mr R. H. Stansfield
Sir, - Your leader comment makes sad reading (15
August). It is clearly influenced by the state-church link. To
say that it is impossible to imagine a religious justification for
Islamic State's actions shows that the writer has not looked at the
matter from a Christian stance: the mote and the beam.
Is it not the case that the loss of hundreds of thousands of
Muslim lives at the hands of Christian armies may have hardened the
determination of IS militants to respond with similar violence?
History shows that faith and ideologies cannot be destroyed by
military force. The writer teeters on the edge of advocating
military action against IS or, to put it bluntly, killing them.
By what religious justification? God's will expressed through
Jesus Christ is that all people that on earth do dwell should find
their life to be a pleasant experience. Hence the prayer "thy
Kingdom come." Our Sunday services include opportunities for
confession and the seeking of forgiveness. Is your writer really
suggesting that Christ's problem-solving strategy is a
non-starter?
R. H. STANSFIELD
Dunelm, South Street
Burton Fleming
Driffield YO25 3NZ
From the Ven. Alan Davis
Sir, - For all the thousands of words by others on the issue of
peace in Iraq, Andrew Brown summarises the West's dilemma in one
sentence (Press, 15 August):
"It is one of the great ironies of history that the criminal folly
of the invasion of Iraq should have produced, 12 years on, a crisis
that actually fulfils all the conditions for a just war - at the
moment when the Western powers are so weakened and demoralised by
their earlier, unjust war that there is really nothing they can
do."
Not for the first time, Mr Brown hits the nail on the head.
ALAN DAVIS
71 North Street
Atherstone CV9 1JW