N. T. Wright Quotes
When people with power see things happen of which they disapprove, they drop bombs and send in tanks. When people without power see things happen of which they disapprove, they smash store windows, blow themselves up in crowded places, and fly planes into buildings. The fact that both methods have proved remarkably unsuccessful at changing things doesn't stop people from going on in the same way.
Wright, N. T. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
This quotation is used by the moderate Egyptians and other moderate Arab leaders as well as Israelis and other experts in combating Islamic Fundamentalism to illustrate the thinking process of the Muslim fundamentalist terrorist leader. They are more than willing to sacrifice those they lead (though rarely themselves) if they think that something is to be gained. But if there is nothing to be gained, their “moral” responsibility requires not “wasting” their followers’ lives. Therefore, the way these experts believe they should deal with the radicals is to face them with overwhelming force (a variant of the Powell Doctrine) and never concede anything or let them gain anything from violence. A single concession makes the terrorism, sacrifice and violence worthwhile, but if there is no gain, the leader has wasted the lives of his followers and is less likely to initiate another attack.
The king was making his judgment that the English whites did not have the “gut” to kill the number of people and perpetuate the other cruelties to forcibly convert Black Africans to Christianity, and even if they did, it would be inconsistent with the moral tenets of the religion. He was not familiar with the Reformation persecutions of previous generations, nor did he anticipate the effect of colonialism by which large parts of Africa were culturally and religiously converted.
He had a lifelong hatred toward the Internal Revenue Service. Finally he crashed his single engine airplane into the IRS offices, killing an IRS agent and committing suicide in a different version of suicide bombing.
Nicholas Thomas Wright FRSE, known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He then became research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's College in the University of St Andrews in Scotland until 2019, when he became a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford.
