Musicmystery
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I know these are challenging topics for you, but guess what? That's not militant.
Bombing an abortion clinic--much better example.
Not to mention militant Christian groups globally:
Anti-Muslim violence in Central Africa
Further information: Central African Republic conflict under the Djotodia administration
After the predominantly Muslim Seleka militia took control of the Central African Republic under President Michel Djotodia in 2013, a period of lawlessness and sectarian violence continued. Following warnings of "genocide" by the UN and a controversial intervention force by MISCA, Djotodia resigned. Despite neutral Catherine Samba-Panza being made president, the Anti-balaka Christian militants continued sectarian violence, including reported targeted killings, against Muslim civilians.[21]
Anti-Hindu violence in India
Christian violence arose in various contiguous states in North-East India.[22] In 2000, John Joseph, a member of India's National Minority Commission, described Christian militancy as rampant in the northeastern states.[22]
Tripura
Further information: Tripura rebellion
The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), is a rebel group that seeks the secession of Tripura, North-East India, and is a proscribed terrorist organization in India. Group activities have been described as Christian terrorists engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs.[23][24] The NLFT includes in its aims the forced conversion of all tribespeople in Tripura to Christianity.[25] The NLFT says that it is fighting not only for the removal of Bengali immigrants from the tribal areas, "but also for the tribal areas of the state to become overtly Christian", and "has warned members of the tribal community that they may be attacked if they do not accept its Christian agenda".[26] The NLFT is listed as a terrorist organization in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002.[27] The state government contends that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT.[28][29][30] Reports from the state government and Indian media describe activities such as the acquisition by the NLFT of explosives through the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura,[30] and threats of killing Hindus celebrating religious festivals.[31] Over 20 Hindus in Tripura were reported to have been killed by the NLFT from 1999 to 2001 for resisting forced conversion to Christianity.[32] According to Hindus in the area, there have also been forced conversions of tribal villagers to Christianity by armed NLFT militants.[32] These forcible conversions, sometimes including the use of "rape as a means of intimidation", have also been noted by academics outside of India.[33] In 2000, the NLFT broke into a temple and gunned down a popular Hindu preacher popularly known as Shanti Kali.[25]
Odisha
See also: Religious violence in Odisha
In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, accused Radhakant Nayak, chief of a local chapter of World Vision, and a former Rajya Sabha member from Odisha in the Indian National Congress party, of plotting to assassinate him.[34] The Swami also said that World Vision was covertly pumping money into India for religious conversion during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and criticized the activities of Christian missionaries as going against tribal beliefs.[35] In 2008, he was gunned down along with four disciples on the Hindu festive day of Krishna Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men.[36] Later, the Maoist terrorist leader Sabyasachi Panda admitted responsibility for the assassination, saying that the Maoists had intervened in the religious dispute on behalf of Christians and Dalits.[37][38] The non-governmental organization Justice on Trial disputed that there had been Maoist involvement, and quoted the Swami as claiming that Christian missionaries had earlier attacked him eight times.[39][40]
Nagaland
Main article: National Socialist Council of Nagaland
Nagaland is a Christian majority state in India. Many terrorist incidents have been documented there as a result of an insurgency against the government. This insurgency was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), who has indulged in terrorist activities varying from kidnapping, illegal drug trafficking, extortion, etc.[41] The group has committed religious violence, as a part of NSCN's described mission of forcibly converting the animist Naga to Christianity, which has been described by B. B. Kumar as Christian terrorism.[24] Other goals include the formation of a greater Nagaland. There are occasional reports of the NSCN using force to convert locals of neighboring states to Christianity.[42]
Manipur
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland, Issac-Muivah faction (slogan: "Nagaland for Christ"), is accused of carrying out the 1992–1993 ethnic cleansing of Kuki tribes in Manipur, said to have leave over 900 people dead. During that NSCN-IM operation, 350 Kuki villages were driven out and about 100,000 Kukis were turned into refugees.[43]
Sabra and Shatila massacre
Maronite Christian militias perpetrated the Karantina and Tel al-Zaatar massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims during Lebanon's 1975–1990 civil war. The 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, which targeted unarmed Palestinian refugees for rape and murder, was considered to be genocide by the United Nations General Assembly.[44] A British photographer present during the incident said that "People who committed the acts of murder that I saw that day were wearing [crucifixes] and were calling themselves Christians."[45] After the end of the civil war, Christian militias refused to disband, concentrating in the Israeli-occupied south of the country, where they terrorized Muslim and Druze villages and forcefully recruited men and boys from those communities into their groups.[46]
Northern Ireland paramilitaries
Terrorist acts, with various motives, were committed by loyalists and republicans during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Although most loyalists were Protestant and most republicans were Catholic, it is widely seen as an ethno-nationalist conflict that was not religious in nature.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] Some experts who subscribe to this view argue that religion was also a motivating factor, with Philip Purpura calling it an "overlap" between religious terrorism and ethnic/nationalist terrorism.[61][62][63] Professor Mark Juergensmeyer argues that some terrorist acts were religious terrorism or justified by religion.[64] Professors Jonathan Matusitz (a critic of religion) and Ayla Hammond Schbley (a counterterrorism expert) described the Provisional IRA as Christian terrorists,[65][66] a characterization that is at odds with multiple other analysts.[48][49][56][57][67][68][69]
Sociology professor Steve Bruce noted that most loyalist paramilitaries are fundamentally different from Islamists, in that they see religion and politics as separate and do not advocate killing "heretics". He did, however, characterize three small loyalist splinter groups – the Orange Volunteers, Loyalist Volunteer Force, and Red Hand Defenders – as terrorist groups motivated by violent "Christian imagery" preached by Protestant evangelicals.[70] The leader of the Orange Volunteers, pastor Clifford Peeples, defended their attacks on Catholic churches on the basis that they were "bastions of the Antichrist".[71][72]
Utøya Island killings
Main article: 2011 Norway attacks
In July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik was arrested and charged with terrorism after a car bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting on Utøya island that killed 77 people. Hours prior to the events, Breivik released a 1,500-page manifesto detailing his beliefs that immigrants were undermining Norway's traditional Christian values, and identifying himself as a "Christian crusader" while describing himself as not very religious.[73][74] Although initial news reports described him as a Christian fundamentalist,[75][76] subsequent analyses of his motivations have noted that he did not only display Christian terrorist inclinations, but also had non-religious, right-wing beliefs.[77][78] Mark Juergensmeyer and John Mark Reynolds have stated that the events were Christian terrorism,[79][80] whereas Brad Hirschfield has rejected the Christian terrorist label.[81]
Lord's Resistance Army
The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult and guerrilla army, was engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in 2005. It has been accused of using child soldiers and of committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, and using forced child labourers as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves.[82] A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism,[83][84] it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.[85][85][86][87] LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.[83][88][89][90][91][92]
Christian Identity and anti-abortion killings
See also: Anti-abortion violence in the United States and Christian terrorism in the United States
After 1981, members of groups such as the Army of God began attacking abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.[93][94][95] A number of terrorist attacks were attributed by Bruce Hoffman to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ.[96] A group called Concerned Christians was deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999; they believed that their deaths would "lead them to heaven".[97][98]
The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on 31 May 2009 was the belief that abortion is not only immoral, but also a form of murder under "God's law", irrespective of "man's law" in any country, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.[99][100] The group supporting Roeder proclaimed that any force is "legitimate to protect the life of an unborn child", and called on all Christians to "rise up" and "take action" against threats to Christianity and to unborn life.[101] Eric Robert Rudolph carried out the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent attacks on an abortion clinic and on a lesbian nightclub. Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist. James A. Aho, a professor at Idaho State University, argues that religious considerations inspired Rudolph only in part.[102]
Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and some "Christian militia" as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component".[103]
< Message edited by Musicmystery -- 1/16/2015 11:15:54 AM >
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