A one-way thing cannot be “both” ways. If something is absolutely wrong, then it’s wrong – isn’t it? Can it be wrong only sometimes or only for some people? Such a proposition is for the realm of relativity, not for the absolute, and we here in the West seem to have determined – absolutely – that the terrorism of present-day jihadism is wrong. Yet, in our bi-polar fashion, we hold conflicting beliefs and send mixed-signals on the subject. We tend to think timing is everything.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the founding and current caliph of Islamic State, the new caliphate established in parts of Syria and Iraq. He’s finding much of the rest of the world today is not in the mood to recognize the authority of a religious zealot, at least not one who seems as disturbed and disturbing as he. Our response to him has been to try to bomb him to Hell. We tell him, his followers and their sympathizers that the goals and tactics of his group, and of those like al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, are wrong. At the same time, we have spirituals (Joshua Fit De Battle Ob Jericho) glorifying that very behavior. We celebrate in song the birth of a nation that began with the slaughter of men, women, children and livestock in every town encountered by the killers – all on orders from God. Al-Baghdadi, who probably never has heard a Negro spiritual in his life, surely knows as well as you and I that Joshua is exalted in the Koran as well as the Bible.

We have a problem with what young Abu is doing to Shiites, Christians and Yazidis, but no such problem when reading, hearing or singing about what old Josh did to the Canaanites. Why? Some of us believe time changes things, that we can’t judge people of the past with the mores of the present, that it is a mistake for us to look at them through a modern-day lens. I’ve seen that thinking applied in various situations, most often in discussions about slavery and Jim Crow. I’m not one who has ever bought that line of reasoning. To excuse people’s behavior using that “logic” would be to discount or dismiss the lives of everyone who knew slavery and racial discrimination were wrong and worked against it at the time it was happening. Are we to believe there were none among the ancient Israelites who thought it was wrong to acquire coveted land through the extermination of its inhabitants? (In fact, in the book Judges, we find there were some. God, however, promises punishment for not killing everyone as instructed).

So, back to the question of “Why?” If it’s not about timing, why are we cool with what the former Hebrew slaves did in Canaan after their sojourn in Egypt, but not with what the militants today are doing in Syria and Iraq after their sojourns in places like Liverpool, Paris and Pittsburgh? After all, Muslims, just like Jews and Christians, worship and are spoken to by the God of Abraham.

Aside from anti-Muslim bias, perhaps the answer lies in what we think we know about those Canaanites. Here in Western Christendom, steeped in Judeo-Christian culture as we are, we are taught the Canaanites deserved to be annihilated because of their unrelenting wickedness. They were said to be a people who burned their children on the altars of their gods, and practiced sodomy, bestiality, and all sorts of vice. The writer of Leviticus tells us that “the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.” William Foxwell Albright, the man considered in his lifetime to be the dean of biblical archeology, wrote “The Canaanites, with their orgiastic nature-worship, their cult of fertility in the form of serpent symbols and sensuous nudity, and their gross mythology, were replaced by Israel, with its nomadic simplicity and purity of life, its lofty monotheism, and its severe code of ethics.” The writer of Deuteronomy disagrees with the good Professor Albright’s estimation. It wasn’t about how good the Israelites were, but how bad the Canaanites were. “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, …”

Okay. Stop. Just stop. Now, consider this question: How will we appear to posterity, thousands of years from now, if the only surviving history of us was written by the likes of the Taliban? If we think we will come out looking any better than how the citizens of Sodom, Gomorrah or Jericho appear to us, we are seriously fooling ourselves. If we think the Old-Testament writers who told us of the fates of those three cities don’t share a mindset with the man now intent on taking Damascus and Baghdad, we are seriously mistaken.

I suspect part of the grudge the Israelites had against the Canaanites is something we would find familiar today. I’d be really surprised if part of the problem didn’t have something to do with certain features of Canaanite culture that had nothing to do with burning their children. I’m guessing it had more to do with the rights of women – in that they had rights. Women could own land, enter into contracts and initiate divorce. Horror of all horrors, women also could and did serve as Priestesses. The Canaanites also were not averse to science and learning, having been proficient in mathematics and navigation, and having developed the first alphabetic writing system. Their skill in shipbuilding and commerce made them a society able to afford the splendor of wealth. You get the picture.

The same type of folk who didn’t like any of that then do not like it now. Some may find it unconscionable to compare the zealots of today with those of the past. Some may simply find it uncomfortable. It may raise questions one may prefer not to have to answer. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no doubt, sees himself and his kind much the same way Professor Albright saw the ancient Israelites with their, “simplicity”, “purity” and “severe code of ethics.” I have nothing against any of that – when voluntarily applied to oneself. Forcing it upon others is a different matter. When that happens, it’s time to fight – something the West and its Muslim allies in the Near and Middle East have been doing for some time.

There is more than one reason the fight remains yet to be won. Social, economic and cultural impediments to advancement, coupled with spiritual malaise, continue to be a powerful recruiter of those easily seduced by violence. We also should consider the possibility that our ability to fight and win is compromised by our thinking. Confronting savagery on the one hand while revering it on other hampers us, causing us to fight as if holding one hand behind our backs. Hypocrisy is not an antidote for zealotry.