Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- There can be little doubt that the force that killed Daniel Pearl was what traditional Christian theologians consider the devil's creation -- raw hate. The Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief died a gruesome death not because his murderers tried to accomplish anything. They butchered him not because he had done anything to them or even their cause. Advertisement They put him to death because he was an American -- and presumably because he was a Jew. "Hatred turns humans beings dark and ugly even though they are meant to be more beautiful than angels," Martin Luther said. This is even more the case when this hatred is linked to a love for God -- especially the God of Abraham whom Jews, Christians and Muslims worship. It is this particularly sinister aspect of this atrocity that sends shivers down one's spine. Advertisement The Nazis and the Communists were atheists. They slaughtered millions because in their blindness they surmised that they would never be held accountable. They followed a philosophy of envy, which is hatred's twin and the brood of unbelief. In the Nazis' case, German resistance leader Carl Goerdeler once suggested, they murdered the Jews for the "crime" of having "invented" God. Muslims cannot get around the fact that God first revealed himself to the Jews. The Koran acknowledges as much, at least implicitly. But that means that whatever blind hatred these particular Muslims, Pearl's murderers, might have felt for his faith was directed against God's people -- a strange theology for fervent monotheists. One gladly believes the assurances of main-line Muslims -- if this is an appropriate term -- that they are appalled by the heinous crime that was committed in Pakistan in their religion's name. One must respect other religions even if they do not affirm God's unconditional love, including his love for the sinner though not for sin, as Christianity does. One esteems Muslims even if they do not teach their believers specifically Christian virtues such as turning the other cheek and loving one's enemies. And one hopes that at least in the United States, Muslims received an inkling of Bible-inspired compassion when Christians and Jews came out in droves to show their solidarity with Islamic congregations that were under threat from bigots after Sept. 11. Advertisement But to say that the hate-filled killers of Daniel Pearl represented no more than a minute minority among the world's 1 billion Muslims, and a mere aberration of Islam, would be mendacious. Let's not ignore the hate-mongers in many a pulpit from London via Khartoum and Jeddah to Jakarta. To be sure, they may well be the equivalent of a small clique of pro-Nazi or pro-Communist "Christian" preachers in Europe's dark past. But the churches went out of their way to denounce, at great peril to themselves, these fiends as heretics while they were still at their peak, and then to atone on their behalf, as happened in Germany after World War II. While churches should never force their theology on Islam, including their radical theology of love, they have a right to expect their Muslim partners in dialogue to follow at least this particular Christian example. This is the time of the Hajj, the pilgrimage of millions of Muslims to Mecca. It would be wonderful if hundreds of renowned Muslim divines made a little detour to Karachi to mourn the death of a man whose Holy Book, which they also respect, admonishes us: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him" (Leviticus 19:17). Advertisement Let's hear their thunderous shout at their wayward co-religionists reverberate around the globe: "In the name of God -- stop!"
