emergent church and emergent terrorism: coincidence or conspiracy???

“Terrorist cells just aren’t what they used to be.” That’s what you’ll hear from some of the older, traditional and conservative terrorist. Back in the good ol' days, when the whole Libyan army was essentially a terrorist organization it was efficient enough to bring about the famous Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am 747. This large government sanctioned organization lumbered its way to a single famous bombing: moderate success at best.

Along comes our more familiar foe, Al Qaeda. In comparison to the Libyan army, it was lithe and flexible, but still an easily identifiable organization struggling to maintain its complex internal coherence and its fidelity to a theologically charged ethos. Nonetheless it ultimately failed to flex and conform to the rigors of the emerging political paradigm (think lots of bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq), and thus the form Al Qaeda assumed at the beginning of the “war” largely fell apart in favor of something more dynamic: younger, emerging terrorists say that the failure was due to the lumbering and oversized nature of Al Qaeda’s corporate structure: too much focus on learning certain creedal statements, too much focus on too many programs all trying to make people identify with Al Qaeda as an organization over and above their identification with the Islamic jihad. In short, the militants weren't being sufficiently missional, it was all about bossy boots bin Laden and his ability to stamp his imprimatur on the organized resistance, Al Qaeda. So defending Al Qaeda lost sight of the mission to defend Islam against the Western devils.

So the natural response to Al Qaeda’s structural downfall and focus on organization over mission (think old fashioned and out-of-touch), the emerging terrorism is based on small missional groups enthused by ostensibly in-touch, hip new leaders. Leaders who can speak the language of, and identify with today's young terrorist: meet therefore Fatah al Islam: lean, mean young and vibrant. Fatah al Islam casts off the shackles of the over-stuffed structure of Al Qaeda. Gone are the old fashioned ways of screaming Allah Akhbar (God is great) and shaking a fist, stone or AK47 at the TV cameras. Welcome the new contemporary style chant complete with dance routines: “In unison, they lunged in one direction, turned and lunged in another. ‘Allah-u akbar,’ the men shouted in praise to God as they fired their machine guns into a wall” (though it appears the anonymous, pointless shooting of guns, like a small dog scraping its hind legs, remains de rigeur).

Today’s emergent terrorists, unlike the Al Qaeda purists, are all about the new urban reality, rising out of the hard knock life of Lebanese and Palestinian slums, and spurning the silver spoon suburbanites of the bin Laden brigade. They spit on the lumbering bulk of mega-cells . . . it’s not terrorism with small groups, it’s terrorism of small groups; they shake their fists and guns and vehemently repudiate their soft and self-involved ways . . . it’s not a terrorism of programs and pretence, but of missional fervor and “reality.” They sing and chant about their new found missional agenda with lots of first person structures like: I do this for you, you do that for me. I love/die for/kill for/serve you and you give me what I want alone here in my room with no one else but you and me and it’s all about you and it’s all about me and it’s all about me and you and you and me and when the music fades and it’s just about me, Allah, it’s just about you and me Allah, Allah Akhbar, Allah, Allah Akbar Akbar Akbar, Allah Akbar and here I am coming back to the heart of terrorism and it’s just about me and I’ll do it all for you.

So, emergent church or emergent terrorism: you decide!