Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action | 
 enlarge | Author: George Weigel
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 70233
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 4.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385523785
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.557
EAN: 9780385523783
ASIN: 0385523785
Publication Date: December 26, 2007
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Product Description
“History must be made to march in the direction of genuine human progress; world affairs have no intrinsic momentum that necessarily results in the victory of decency. Maintaining the morale necessary to achieving progress in history requires us to live our lives, today, against a moral horizon of responsibility that is wider and deeper than the quest for personal satisfactions. The future of our civilization does not rest merely on the advance of material wealth and technological prowess; the future of the West turns on the question of whether our spiritual aspirations are noble or base.”
—from Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism More than half a decade after 9/11, safe passage through a moment of history fraught with both peril and possibility requires Americans across the political spectrum to see things as they are.
In this incisive, engaging study of the present danger and what we must do to prevail against it, George Weigel, one of America’s foremost public intellectuals, does precisely that: he sees, and describes, things as they are—and as they might be. Drawing on a quarter century of experience at the intersection of moral argument and public policy, he describes rigorously and clearly the threat posed by global jihadism: the religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is the moral obligation of all Muslims to employ whatever means are necessary to compel the world’s submission to Islam. Exploring that ideology’s theological, social, cultural, and political roots, Weigel points a new direction for both public policy and interreligious dialogue, one that meets the challenge of jihadism forthrightly while creating the conditions for a less threatening, more mutually enriching encounter between Islam and the West.
Essential reading in a time of momentous political decisions, Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism is a clarion call for a new seriousness of debate and a new clarity of purpose in American public life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 A timely and important read July 21, 2008
I am a long time admirer of George Weigel, and have been following many of his insightful articles in "First Things" and "Commentary," and hence I was very excited to get a hold of his latest book "Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism." From his earlier works like "The Cube and the Cathedral" I have come to expect a highly critical and well argued, incisive, prose and this book does not disappoint. The arguments and the prose in this latest book have been streamlined, each one of the points that Weigel is trying to get across gets its own chapter, and the proposed action plan is likewise precisely delineated. The points that Weigel is making are broken down in 15 "lessons" which are:
1.The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological.
2. To speak of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as "three Abrahamic faiths," "the three religions of the Book," or the "three monotheism" obscures rather than illuminates. These familiar tropes ought to be retired.
3.Jihadims is the enemy in the multifront war that has been declared upon us.
4.Jihadism has a complex intellectual history, the chief points of which must be grasped in order to understand the nature of the threat it poses to the West.
5.Jihadists read history and politics through the prism of their own theological convictions, not through the lens of western assumptions about the progressive dynamic of history.
6.It is not "Islamophobic" to note the historical connection between conquest and Muslim expansion, or between contemporary Jihadism and terrorism. Truth-telling is the essential prerequisite to genuine interreligious dialogue, which can only be based on the claims of reason.
7.The war against jihadism is a contest for human future that will endure for generations.
8.Genuine realism in foreign policy takes wickedness seriously, yet avoids premature closure in its thinking about the possibilities of positive change in world politics.
9.In the war against jihadism, the political objective in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic world is the evolution of responsible and responsive government, which will take different forms given different historical and cultural circumstances.
10.In the war against global jihadism, deterrence strategies are unlikely to be effective, because it is almost impossible to deter those who are committed to their own martyrdom.
11.Cultural self-confidence is indispensible to victory in the long-term struggle against jihadism.
12.Islamist salami tactics must be resisted, for small concessions in the name of a false idea of tolerance inevitable lead to further concessions, and then to further erosion of liberty and society.
13.We cannot, and will not, deserve victory (much less achieve it) if we continue to finance those who attack us. Therefore, a program to defund jihadism by developing alternatives to petroleum-based transportation fuels is a crucial component of the current struggle.
14.Victory in the war against global jihadism requires a new domestic political coalition that is proof against the confusions caused by the Unhinged Left and the Unhinged Right.
15.There is no escape from U.S. leadership.
Insightful review June 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book by Wiegel is well-written, clear and most insightful. He outlines ways of looking at the problems that I had not experienced before. We ignore the signs at our own peril.
Superb and timely. May 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was particularly well constructed and arrives a time where it is becoming unthinkable to think. Weigel begins to examine the world in which we live, not from a "post 9/11" standpoint, but from a person who is challenging the world to think about what is happening and look with a greater objectivity to how we can work for a world of true freedom.
 faith,reason,and the war against jihadism May 3, 2008
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
While I agree with the premise and the purpose of this book I found it difficult to read and a little disjointed.I think the author could have better made his point in about half the pages.I also think the author should realize not every one has his vocabulary or the needed background in Islam to know what he is talking about.I love to read his essays in the weekly Catholic paper.
The Real Battleground with Jihadism February 24, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
The Real Battleground with Jihadism
George Weigel correctly locates our civilization's real battle with Jihadism's attempting to destroy our nation and other nations. The battleground is in our contrasting theological concepts and the resulting actions and emotions. Jihadists view God as being remote and requiring total submission, versus Christians' view of God as our loving heavenly Father who sent his Son. These contrasting views are contained in the history and the documents of the two faiths, the Qur'an (Koran) for Islam considered to be dictated directly, word by word to one person in about 600 AD in Arabic and so not to be translated, whereas the Bible had many writers over many years, who are believed by ecclesiastical consensus to have been directly inspired by God, but who actually used the words and language of the writers' own particular historic period to document that inspiration for all.
The many confrontations with Jihadism are best understood in the context of this deep, long-term theological battle noted above. Even secular leaders and individual atheists should accept and utilize the reality of this real theological battle in their understanding and actions to be effective. Defense against the Jihadists avowed intention of eliminating non-Moslems and their culture can not be achieved by way of our military power and economic resources, as continually demonstrated by recent events. The reason for this impasse is because the battle between Jihadists and the rest of the world is asymmetric, and as per Weigel observation really theological.
Minimizing the Jihadists threat to our lives and culture will not be achieved by accommodating to their complaints against western culture, as is frequently done now, since that accommodation is regarded by them as just us acknowledging our failing and weakness with regard to Islam. We must stand firm in the applications of the rule of law, freedom in individual conscience, and social structures that are built on our Judeo-Christian history and scriptures which preceded Islam many centuries. Weigel documents how Islam's interpretation of this prior common history/heritage is very distorted by them, even wrong.
Weigel says that majority Moslem's within their own culture must work-around and then deny the Jihadists' cults for destruction for non-Moslems to truly join our global, pluralistic, contemporary world. Islam's own history of past success can serve as a basis for this correction. We of the Judeo-Christian heritage and persons of other religions must facilitate this possible transition by our frank and frequent public words both about history and contemporary concerns, plus our continued examples of social, political and material success. We must also show patience during the process of the Moslem main-stream's denying the Jihadists' their destructive positions toward themselves and the world.
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