George Pitcher

They were having trouble finding a Christian voice to go on their 6 o'clock news to condemn the foiled plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. They had other faith-leaders - a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh and a Jew - but no Christian priest. Perhaps they were all on holiday. Perhaps they were stuck in the pandemonium of Heathrow.

I said I'd be delighted to go on. But not to condemn the bombing attempts - who wouldn't? And there had been more than enough of that all day - but to condemn President Bush for what he'd just said. And so I did. I called the juxtaposition of the words Islamic and fascist "dangerous and inflammatory" and said it was unreasonable to make Islam responsible for the attempted atrocities. It moved the story on - Club Asia led its news with my response.

Since then, there have been those who have argued that the phrase "Islamic fascist" is perfectly reasonable. These were people planning the murder of thousands of innocent strangers in an act, if you like, of ethnic cleansing and in the name of Islam, even if that name was taken in vain.

But how would we react - at least those of us who profess the faith - to a world leader who spoke of "Christian fascists"? There were a few of those around in Britain in the 1930s, but I'd suggest that most of us would consider the phrase something of an oxymoron, believing Christianity and Fascism to be somewhat contradictory creeds. Those of us capable of taking offence at such nonsense would do so. I suggest that Muslims are entitled to be similarly offended, that terrorists can't act in Islam's name any more than Bush can act in mine.

And something else intrigued me in what Bush said: "They want to hurt our nation...". This was undoubtedly more accurate - suicide bombers want to hurt America and her allies, such as Britain, deeply. But the idea of a generalised "they" (Muslims), who want to attack "us" (the Judeo-Christian West) is intriguing for its implication that the War on Terror is a territorial, even nationalist, conflict. Further, it implies that our territory - The West - in some way owns the Judeo-Christian faiths.

The documentary-maker Mark Dowd recounts a story of how, on a research trip in the States, he met religious publishers who had printed the Bible with the American Stars and Stripes on the cover. They explained that they needed some self-confidence rebuilt after 9/11 and it made them feel better - it wasn't going to offend anyone because they weren't going to export it (a false supposition, as it turns out). We could laugh at them if the implications of this weren't so profoundly awful - what they're saying is that this is our creed, our story, our gospel; nationhood and faith as one and indistinguishable; Church co-extending with State; the Christian-state model that for centuries was indistinguishable and inseparable from oppressive colonialism. Flag and Cross united. The creed of the crusader.

Leave aside that the Underground bombers of 7/7 were born and bred in the UK. Never mind that the Heathrow atrocities were planned substantially by western converts. The very real danger of this kind of arrogance is that it fuels the very clash of civilizations that the abstruse Bush/Blair War on Terrorism pretends to seek to avoid. History shows that all holy wars of ideology destroy those who wage them, as well as those who suffer at their hands. There is theology behind this prophecy - the arrogant are brought low; the first are last.

So it's worth recognizing that spiritual arrogance when it emerges. There was something of it that directs the lack of audible response from Christian leaders when something like the events of the failed Heathrow plot occur. There was perhaps an unconscious sense of superiority that this is not to do with our faith, the faith of Christendom, but acts of the unspeakable heathen, the infidel - or, in the language of the moment, "Islamic fascists".

A major part of the problem here is the apparent exclusivity of the Christian faith. The Protestant fundamentalist will point to John's gospel for justification: "I am the way, the truth and the life...no one comes to the Father except through me." That's Jesus speaking, not Muhammed. But we need to recognize that his interpreter, the apostle John, was writing this account decades after the historical event of Jesus of Nazareth's life and the mystery of Christ's resurrection; an account that is bound to blur the edges between the ministry of Jesus and the theology of an eternal logos, the universal truth. Too often we confuse these two - the earthly and the eternal: The earthly Jesus, like us possessed of his time, owned and indeed trapped by the context of the historical time in which he lived, and the Christ of all time, from the beginning of times (as John helpfully points out in his introduction) to the end of times.

Jesus could be and was owned by the Jewish nation and its Roman occupiers. The Christ could not be so contained. It's why Jesus progressively realizes in the gospel accounts that his ministry is not just to Jews but is universal - clock the moment that the Syro-Phoenician woman crushingly tells him that even the dogs might eat the crumbs from his table. And it's why the risen Christ can't be possessed by Mary of Magdala at the tomb in the (excuse the pun) deeply touching injunction "Noli me tangere" ("Do not touch me"). Jesus was of space, place and time; the Christ is universal and eternal - and defies nationhood.

To this end, it's simply absurd to lay territorial, nationalistic claim to the gospel, as the Crusaders or the Romans did - and some Americans now do. But the injunction is clear - it is to be constantly engaged with the whole world in which we live. That includes, not as an optional extra but as a matter of centrality for faith, Muslims and Jews and Hindus, those of other faiths and none.

The core belief that drives that is that the universal truth and life that drives our creation is not owned by us, not by George Bush's administration, nor by Tony Blair, nor by our Church, but is universally to be recognized in any and every revelation of truth. We have to hope that this truth is bigger than nations, powers and dominions. And, as and when that hope is fulfilled, we really can have a war against terror.