Turning the Clock Back 1,400 Years
When 45-year-old Sally Jones left her home in Kent, England, to join the terrorist group ISIS, her friends and neighbors were stunned. Once established in Syria, the white mother of two began tweeting about wanting to torture Christians, while pictures were posted on Twitter of her wearing a burka and holding an assault rifle.
Those of us living in the modern West find it hard to understand what drives terrorists in the Middle East. But we find it even more difficult to understand why so many ordinary Western citizens like Sally Jones have chosen to join ISIS's terrorist playpen in Syria and Iraq. Sally, and others like her, are not the sort of people we normally expect to become terrorists. The former...
has a Master’s in Historical Theology from King’s College London and a Master’s in Library Science through the University of Oklahoma. He is the blog and media managing editor for the Fellowship of St. James and a regular contributor to Touchstone and Salvo. In addition to working as a ghost-writer, his work has featured in a variety of publications, including the Colson Center, World Magazine, Sky News, and the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Phillips is the author of Gratitude in Life's Trenches: How to Experience the Good Life Even When Everything Is Going Wrong (Ancient Faith, 2020), and Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation: A Manual for Recovering Gnostics (Ancient Faith, 2023). He operates a blog at www.robinmarkphillips.com.
Get Salvo in your inbox! This article originally appeared in Salvo, Issue #32, Spring 2015 Copyright © 2023 Salvo | www.salvomag.com https://salvomag.com/article/salvo32/isis-the-enigma-of-modernity
