One of my favorite bands is Pearl Jam. I remember as a kid hearing the song “Jeremy” for the first time, and being awestruck by the aggressiveness of the guitarwork and the lyrical content. The 1991 song is loosely based on a true story, and it’s about a kid named Jeremy who brought a gun to school and shot himself in front of his class.

It’s an absolutely horrible and unsettling thought. And it begs the question, “How could a kid do something like that?”

Well, the song explains how Jeremy’s decision to end his life wasn’t random. There were reasons leading up to the incident. The first verse describes how he felt uncared for by his parents: “Daddy didn’t give attention to the fact that mommy didn’t care.” And the second verse describes his history of being bullied: “Clearly I remember pickin’ on the boy; seemed a harmless little [expletive]. But we unleashed the lion.”

The song is a warning to all who have the influence—look out for those who are troubled, bitter, and unheard. It is possible that our contribution, or even indifference, to their suffering may lead them to do horrible acts. To be clear, we are not bearing the full weight of responsibility for those terrible acts. We cannot completely shift the blame of one’s sinful decisions to one’s parents or one’s classmates. But we understand that there is a correlation.

The Story Behind the Evil

Most of us in America understand this basic principle—whenever evil happens, we must not only condemn the evil, but we must investigate why the evil perpetrator felt drawn to committing the evil in the first place. That’s why, for example, our national response to school shootings doesn’t just involve conversations on gun control. It also involves conversations on mental health. 

That’s also why, in April 2015, when many people in my own city of Baltimore were looting stores and setting vehicles on fire, it wasn’t enough to simply condemn the unrest. We also needed to investigate why so many people felt drawn to such actions. In that scenario, 25-year-old Freddie Gray had recently died in the back of a police van, and many people felt that the death was unjustified, and it was a symptom of a larger societal problem regarding policing culture.

This idea is well-captured by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that “a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Again, in order to be crystal clear, I do not believe that King is condoning riots or justifying violence (and I am not either). He is simply pointing out that riots do not happen in a vacuum. There are always reasons that people riot, and we must investigate what those reasons are. Our desire to ask, “How could this person commit an evil act?” does not lie in a desire to affirm the evil act. It is to better understand the factors at play, so that we can foster systemic changes, such that future evil acts could be prevented.

I believe that our Christian theology must make room for this sort of societal introspection. Whenever we witness evil, we cannot only say, “The reason for that is the sin in people’s hearts.” That is certainly true, but it is not the whole story.

The Bible shows that even the best of us, when confronted with dire situations, are prone to fall into sin. In Genesis 12, Abram, out of fear for his life in Egypt, lies about his wife’s identity as his wife, ultimately leading his wife to commit adultery and bringing about plagues on Pharaoh’s family. In Exodus 2, Moses, upon witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. In Luke 22, Peter, seeing Jesus being arrested and beaten and reasonably being afraid for his life, denied three times that he even knew Jesus.

What all these scenarios show is that while sin is wrong, there are often environmental factors that cause us to be more open to sin than if those factors weren’t there. The devil does not tempt us randomly. His temptations are calculated. He often tempts us is by putting us in desperate situations, such that we feel that sin is the only recourse we have. Of course, it is not. There is always a holy path in every situation. But it is not difficult to understand that certain people are more tempted to sin than others, simply because they are in a horrible bind. And therefore, we must not only condemn the internal factors that cause somebody to fall into temptations, but we must also investigate the external factors that make those temptations more inviting in the first place.

At the heart of it all is humility. I’d like to think that if I were Abram, or Moses, or Peter, I would’ve stood my ground. But the reality is that I don’t know what they went through, so I can’t say for sure. And if I believe that the Fall affects us all, and if I am by nature just as morally depraved as the next human being, then I must be open to the possibility that I could have fallen into the same sin if I were in their shoes.

The Story Behind Radicalization

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. I believe that the same principles can be applied even to terrorism, radicalization, and violent extremism. When we witness horrific acts of terrorism, yes, absolutely, we should condemn them. But we must also ask, “How can this be? What drove these people to such hatred?”

On September 11, 2001, people throughout the United States rightly condemned the terrorist attack. But for many, the conversation didn’t stop there. They also wondered, “Why do so many people hate America so much? Are there aspects of our foreign policy that we should address?”

And on October 7, 2023, which many people have since described as Israel’s 9/11, when Hamas killed over a thousand innocent civilians and abducted hundreds more, we should rightly condemn the terrorist attack. But we must also ask, “Why do they hate Israel so much?”

Sometimes people are quick to accuse Islam as being the source of all of this evil. It is a violent religion, they say. But this often reflects a misunderstanding and oversimplification of Islamic theology. Abu Bakr, one of the earliest leaders of Islam, even wrote about the ethics of warfare: “Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy’s flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.”

One can certainly debate the details of Islamic theology and its legacy of violence (just as one can do the same with Christian theology and church history), but the evidence shows that  Muslims today are not more prone to violence than people of other faiths. An extensive 2011 Gallup project explored why somebody may justify violence toward civilians. The conclusion “suggests that one’s religious identity and level of devotion have little to do with one’s views about targeting civilians. According to the largest global study of its kind, covering 131 countries, it is human development and governance – not piety or culture – that are the strongest factors in explaining differences in how the public perceives this type of violence.”

This study, I believe, hits the nail on the head. Radicalization isn’t correlated with specific faiths. It is instead correlated with poor human development conditions and oppressive government policies. Radicalization happens when suffering hits a critical point, and people are made to feel that their attempts at negotiation, peaceful protest, or advocacy are going unheard. They are made to believe that the path of holiness no longer works. And so they resort to violence.

The Way We Defeat Terrorism

Multiple experts have long noted that it is oppression that drives terrorism. It is undeniable that stories and images from America’s Guantanamo Bay detention camp and Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were used by extremist groups to recruit members. The more communities are made to feel unheard or unvalued, the more appealing terrorism becomes. In fact, Tom Parker, in his book Avoiding the Terrorist Trap, argues that the best counter-terrorism strategy is for those in authority to respect human rights. If you take away the grievances, then you take away the attraction of terrorism.

If that’s the case, then Christians should be leading the charge in the fight against terrorism, for the basic concept of human rights is rooted in Christian theology. The reason we believe in human rights is because all human beings are image-bearers of God. And therefore, Christians should be the first to seek the dignity of all, friend or enemy alike, and to say that every life is valuable. 

For several decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been living in horrible conditions. It is in this suffocating milieu that extremism arose. And the current bombardment of Gaza, which has already claimed over 10,000 lives, including 4,000 children, is only exacerbating the problem.

When an innocent civilian dies, and the watching world does nothing, those left behind to bury their loved ones are tempted to think, “Maybe violence is the only option we have.” When this thought process repeats itself over and over, 10,000 times, it is a recipe for extremism.

The way we defeat terrorism is not just by denouncing it. Nor is it just by obliterating every trace of it. It is by addressing the human rights violations that cause people to be so drawn to terrorism in the first place, and by implementing changes that restore their dignity. If we do that, then we will build communities that will be more resilient to terrorism for years to come.

I pray and hope that Christians around the world would come to embrace the divine call to human rights, certainly in times of peace, but especially in times of war. It is our best attempt to prevent future radicalization and extremism. As Parker writes, “Placing human rights at the center of the state’s counter-terrorist response is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do as well.”