An Easter Sermon

By Scott Horton

One of the more thought-provoking entries in counterterrorism analysis in recent months comes in an op-ed by Robert Wright in Saturday's New York Times entitled “An Easter Sermon.” Wright looks at the Jesus as “an antiterrorism strategist” and juxtaposes against this the counterterrorism approach of the Roman Empire under Tiberius. The Bush strategy, he says, looks an awful lot like the strategy of the Roman emperors of the Augustinian epoch. (He's spot on, and therein lies another essay I will published later this year. But students of the Neoconservative writer Leo Strauss know of his great fondness for the approach and thinking of the Romans of this era, which appears, among other things in his incessant citation to the work of epic literature that reflects them: the Aeneid.)

Mr. Bush is more in the shoes of the Roman emperor than of Paul. America isn't a small but growing religious movement. It's a great power threatened by a small but growing religious movement—radical Islam. But the logic can work both ways. Great powers, by mindlessly indulging retributive impulses, can give fuel to small but growing religious movements. If you want to deprive jihadists of ammunition, make it hard for them to persuade others to hate us.

Right after Paul espouses kindness to enemies, he adds: “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Sounds like naïve moralizing until you look at those Abu Ghraib photos that have become Al Qaeda recruiting posters.

The key distinction is between man and meme. Yes, a great power can always kill and torment enemies, and, yes, there will always be times when that makes sense. Still, when you're dealing with terrorists, it's their memes—their ideas, their attitudes—that are Public Enemy No. 1. Jihadists are hosts for the virus of hatred, and the object of the game is to keep the virus from finding new hosts.

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The ultimate in viral marketing was Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. Deemed a threat to the social order, he was crucified under Roman auspices. But the Romans forgot one thing: If you face a small but growing movement that threatens the imperial order, you shouldn't attack the men in ways that help the memes.

Mr. Bush says his favorite philosopher is Jesus. One way to show it would be to spend less time repeating the mistake of the Romans and more time heeding the wisdom of Christ.

On this weekend Christians around the world contemplate the passion of Christ and wonder what message it holds for them in the challenges they face. Wright has taken a rather unorthodox and political view from it. But it seems far closer to the powerful, transcendent essence of the passion than most of the sermons which will come from pulpits on Easter Sunday.