Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8470 Plough Quarterly • Spring 2016 other representatives of the vicious new wave of Islamic extremism. More surprising than the brutality and violence of their crimes is the way these groups have infiltrated our society. Why do young people who should be enjoying the fruits of liberal democracy become radical- ized? Much of our intellectual elite does not see religion as a significant factor in human society and history. For them, the answer to this question must be economic or social – hence President Obama’s persistent assertion that, despite its own claims to the contrary, ISIS is not an Islamic or theological problem. But as the violence mounts and as men and women who are neither poor nor culturally marginalized commit mass atrocities, the heads have begun to come out of the sand. In one of the most read and debated articles of the past year, Graeme Wood argued in The Atlantic that ISIS and Boko Haram are a theological problem (“What ISIS Really Wants,” March 2015). Whatever the influence of economics or other factors, their followers are driven by a particular theology with a particular – albeit ­minority – pedigree and roots in Islam. Wood is right: Islamic extremism is a theological problem. But how do we go about solving it? The solution to the theological problem must be theological, not mili- tary. And the best proposal to date comes from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom. Not in God’s Name is primarily a work of ancient biblical interpretation, but it begins with contemporary social theory. Sacks calls evil committed in the name of a sacred cause “altruistic evil,” the kind that turns “ordinary non-psychopathic people into cold-blooded murderers.” They slaughter with delight, confident that they are doing God’s work. The problem is not religion, per se; as the twentieth century’s body count from totalitarian regimes makes clear, substitutes for religion lead to more violence. Rather, it comes from two factors: our “groupishness” – the fact that we are dependent, relational animals – and dualism. Our social nature leads us not only to altruism (usually directed toward members of our group), but also to suspicion and aggres- sion toward outsiders. Religion is implicated as the most power- ful source of group identity many have. And religion offers a way to explain why the world is not as it should be. If these explanations retain Nathaniel Peters is a doctoral candidate in historical theology at Boston College. Image from Wikimedia Commons (public domain) The Sacrifice of Ishmael, eighteenth-century fresco in the Haft Tanan Museum, Shiraz, Iran