The following is Part I in a conversation with Jack Kerwick, author of “The American Offensive: Dispatches From The Front.” Jack received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University. A lifelong Roman Catholic, his work on philosophy, politics, religion and culture has appeared in various publications. He teaches philosophy at Rowan College at Burlington County in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Visit his Beliefnet blog – “At the Intersection of Faith & Culture” – friend him on Facebook, and email him at: jackk610@verizon.net.
Ilana Mercer: In “The American Offensive,” you address the demographic drumbeat meant to downgrade and demoralize what is derisively called the “white vote” in this country. Explain, with reference to 2016.
Jack Kerwick: To no slight extent, it is GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s American-friendly position on immigration that accounts for why both Republican and Democrat Establishmentarians alike despise him. For a half century, American policy has overwhelmingly favored non-white immigrants from the Third World. I think that the doctrine of “American Exceptionalism” – the doctrine that America was “founded” upon some ahistorical abstraction (an “idea” or “proposition”) – coupled with an ideology of anti-”white racism” – the belief that whites are uniquely “racist” – informs contemporary immigration policy. The objective is to simultaneously neglect and repudiate the country’s Eurocentric, Christocentric history.
Trump challenges this narrative. Thus, he is vilified by those who stand to gain from it.
Mercer: No sooner does one immigration give-away fail (the Schubio Gang of Eight), than a new political zombie will resurrect the marvelously intuitive idea of importing masses of migrants from countries in which Christians are being exterminated. On the eve of Christmas, tell us who’s killing whom around the world.
Kerwick: For all of the talk about “Islamophobia,” in reality it is Christians (as well as other religious minorities) in Islamic lands around the globe who are routinely subjected to unimaginably barbaric treatment courtesy of their Islamic oppressors. Inasmuch as this phenomenon of Islamic-on-non-Islamic cruelty transpires throughout Africa and the Middle East, it transcends ethnicity, nationality and culture.
Open Doors (OD) is an organization “dedicated to serving persecuted Christians throughout the world.” OD reports that 40 of the worst 50 countries on Earth for Christians are countries with majority Muslim populations. Still, to listen to the left and (faux) right, with all of their talk of “Islamism” or “extremism,” one could be forgiven for thinking that none of this is happening, that the problem is with something they call “Islamism” or “extremism,” rather than with everyday practitioners of Islam.
Mercer: Slavery was abolished by white Christians; it is still practiced robustly – even religiously regulated – by some Muslims. Tell our readers about this never-discussed reality and the tenets that permit slavery in Islam.
Kerwick: Though, as you mention, white Christians of the 18th century spearheaded a moral revolution that resulted in the abolition of slavery around the world, it is still practiced in parts of the Islamic world. Not being an Islamic scholar, I can only say so much as to why this is the case. Unsurprisingly, the Quran not only authorizes, but commands the practice of slavery. Moreover, Muhammad owned slaves, and – this is crucial–-observant Muslims are expected to emulate the example of “The Prophet.”
While it’s true that the Bible – the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures – also allow for slavery, there is no analogical relationship between it and the Quran on this score. The Bible’s teachings are contextualized within a narrative interpretive framework. The Quran, in glaring contrast, has no such framework. The kind of chronological or historical sequencing of events in the Bible is not to be found in the Quran.
Mercer: I take it you mean to say that the rough passages in the Hebrew Testament do not apply to anyone any longer, unless, in the words of scholar of Islam Robert Spencer, “you happen to be a Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite Perizzite, Hivite, or Jebusite.”
Kerwick: Exactly. When God commands the Hebrews to kill “unbelievers,” He always refers to some specific group, in a specific place and at a specific time. In Islam, however, “unbelievers” refers to all non-Muslims, everywhere, forever after.
Mercer: Very many black Americans are adopting Islam: Why is this a powder keg?
Kerwick: That Islam – or at least a racialized version of it – has attracted scores of black Americans, to say nothing of black American criminals, over the decades is no secret. This connection between black Americans and Islam is at once revealing and troubling. It’s revealing in that it suggests that those who have been reviled for noting the impulse for militancy within the Islamic tradition just may have been on to something all along, for it is precisely the perception of militancy that appeals to those blacks who feel alienated from mainstream American culture. After all, it isn’t Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism or some other non-Western faith to which they’re gravitating, but Islam.
That the phenomenon of alienated black Americans endorsing a militant ideology is troubling is self-explanatory. Those who are already ripe for violence now have a theological justification for violence.
Mercer: What do you mean by the terms “Racial-Industrial Complex” and “racially correct suicide”? How can they be combated and averted?
Kerwick: The RIC consists of those who stand to gain from promoting the myth that “racism” – white “racism” – is an omnipresent, omnipotent force. Since the RIC is every bit as entrenched and powerful as any other industry, its countless agents must labor inexhaustibly to create ever-expansive notions of “racism.” Only if these professional “anti-racists” can show that there is a need for their “services” can they justify their existence.
“Racially correct suicide” consists in valuing some delusion of “racial justice” over any and all other considerations – including that of improving, or even just maintaining, the quality of life in America. For example, following recent incidents of Islamic mass murder in places like France, American commentators were quick to jump on their high horses and castigate Europeans for allowing the formation of “no go” zones, high-crime bastions of Islamic immigrants into which even authorities dare not travel.
