The double standard in America between Islamist terrorism and that inspired by the Christian faith was detailed by journalist Scott Bixby on Thursday, who posted contrasting front pages of the New York Post.
The first picture shows the newspaper's front page following Wednesday’s massacre in California that left 14 people dead. Police said that attack was carried out by suspects Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who opened fire on a holiday party that Farook had attended and left at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
The second was published after a recent attack on a Planned Parenthood centre in Colorado that provides abortion services. An extreme evangelical is suspected of targeting the latter, an offence that left three people dead.
Why didn’t the New York Post scream “Christian Killers” after the Planned Parenthood attack? Because America is held together by Christian-infused nationalism, which requires a constant enemy, whether that’s communists, the Chinese or radical Islam.
To implicate Christian terrorism alongside Islamist terrorism is to push against the notion that Islam is inherently bad and Christianity is inherently good. And that is a fallacy that the country is unprepared to address.