Is Evangelicalism Itching for a Civilization Fight?: A Media Study
Dennis Hoover Monday, 1 March 2004
It has now been a little more than a decade since Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published his influential Foreign Affairs article on the "Clash of Civilizations," which forecast, among other things, a growing rift between Western Civilization (defined largely by the Western "Judeo-Christian" religious traditions—Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant) and Islamic civilization. For fans of this interpretive paradigm, contemporary international crises involving Western and Islamic societies—from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the U.S.-Iraq war to (especially) 9/11 and the "war on terrorism"—all fit the mold and lend credence to the thesis.
But that is not all. To some, the recent reaction of American evangelical Protestants to Islamic militancy conforms perfectly to the forecast of increasing polarization. They point to a number of stinging rebukes of Islam, each amplified by intense coverage by the secular news media, issued by a clutch of evangelical conservatives.
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