I Will Draw All Men to Myself

Good news, kids! Washington-based cleric, Abdul Alim Musa, is working toward 'Islamic State of North America' by 2050!

The paramount goal of the movement is the establishment of Islam as a complete way of life in America," his group declares. "This ultimate goal is predicated on the belief – shared by many Muslims worldwide – that Islam is fully capable of producing a working and just social, political, economic order."

The dream of world domination is one with ancient pedigree. From Alexander the Great to Adolf Hitler, this conquering spirit lives on with varying degrees of altruistic motives. In my Jungian-influenced days, I would have said there seems to be a marked proclivity for this conqueror archetype emerging among Muslim clerics like Musa and filtering through the semi-conscious masses of Islam. Sort of a "trickle down" theory of world domination. In this paradigm, the archetype finds a particularly permeable individual who, like the froth on a cauldron, gives voice to and vents this bile for the many. It looks like leadership, but it is really more like a pimple of a hypodermic boil (needing to be lanced, some would say).

More recently to my way of seeing and interpreting current events, René Girard's modality, the mimetic theory of cultural anthropology, would see such matters in terms of a small fish in a very large pond seeing the opportunity to step into the spotlight of public attention, gaining his "fifteen minutes of fame" (Warhol) and a sizable dose of "ontological density" (deLubac) by means of our deepest template of human culture, the primitive Sacred. With Muslim clerics, it is a tailor-fit suit -- or set of robes -- since Islam was born in the crucible of the primitive Sacred. They feel exceptionally righteous making such bold statement, for Islam's founder, the Prophet, looked up from his cave and saw the way Christendom had "conquered" the world that he knew. He forthwith had a "revelation" and, with scimitar in hand, set out to do the same thing. His followers have been following this template ever since. Imam Musa, hence, is doing the same old same old.

Funny thing, though. Christendom never had a founder who said anything about conquering the world for God. He said, rather, "...when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself" [Jn 12, 32]. The empire of the Christians that Mohammed looked up, saw, and has led his followers to imitate, was won not by the sword, but the Word.

I'm afraid Imam Musa, and the plethora of other Muslim leaders planning, plotting, and leading with scimitar, bomb, and Koran in-hand will never -- never -- conquer the world. Indeed, I'll lay my last penny that their offspring one day, too, will be "drawn" to the Word made flesh as so many have been. But in the mean time, vigilant practice of the virtues is the order of the day, gentlemen, knights, and squires. Vigilant practice of the virtues.