In 1979 the Shah of Iran was ousted by a popular revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini returned victorious from exile, promising to replace the old repressive regime with a new enlightened republic, built on the principles of Islam.
Forty-seven years later, the world watches in despair as the Islamic Republic violently suppresses its opponents with apparently no regard for the lives of its own citizens. What has gone wrong?
There are those who say that Islam is a fundamentally violent religion. I’m not a Muslim, and I can’t speak for Islam, but I’m sure the majority of Muslims the world over deplore the antics of the Iranian regime. Also we ought to remember that in the Middle Ages the Catholic church (among others) committed unspeakable brutalities in the name of Christianity.
There are others who say this is all evidence that religion itself is the problem. Get rid of religion, and you get rid of the reasons to be intolerant. But this doesn’t fit the facts – remember that in the 20th Century alone, many millions of people died in persecutions, purges and wars in the name of the atheistic ideologies of Nazism and communism.
The facts as I see them point to one obvious conclusion – the problem is human nature. Wherever you have people you have pride, greed, selfishness and cruelty. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9).
The Bible, alone among all the world’s authorities, provides the answer to this problem. It assures us that there will come an age of peace and righteousness on the earth. It won’t be brought about by the Muslim clerics, or the Catholic priesthood, or any socialist organisation. It will be imposed by Jesus Christ, when he returns to establish the Kingdom of God.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
Chris Parkin
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