Former Lieutenant-General William ‘Jerry’ Boykin, once a deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence in the United States, told the Pro-Family Legislators Conference in Dallas, Texas that “Jesus will return with an AR-15” [assault rifle].

In his capacity as executive vice-president for the Family Research Council, an ultra-conservative organisation, the retired officer — who served in the Army’s elite Delta Force and participated in several high-profile missions throughout his career — insisted that the ‘Son of God’ would be armed, “coming back as a warrior, carrying a sword.”

Boykin further declared: “And I believe now, I’ve checked this out — I believe that sword he’ll be carryin’ when he comes back is an AR-15.”

In 2003, Boykin boasted to church audiences that his work in Somalia, and since then, was God’s labour. At the time, his remarks to a Somali warlord who told the general that he would be protected by Allah, drew the ire of many, as Boykin concluded: “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

Although time passed and America elected a president whose father was a practising Muslim, what was disturbing in this latest prophecy was the laughter and the applause that grew from his latest audience.

After everything that happened in the aftermath of 9/11 and the unending wars that spread nothing but ruin, little seems to have changed among fundamentalist Christians, whose beliefs went beyond the building of an empire. Various reports that highlighted the dangers of fundamentalism that usurped religious norms failed to register, with no corrections made, and none contemplated.

Similarly, equivalent threats spurted throughout the Muslim World with Jabhat Al Nusrah or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) coming online in the Levant, while dormant Muslim Brotherhood cells were activated elsewhere.

Of course, religion and politics always represented a volatile mixture, even if Christianity was founded on love and peace and Islam combined peace with the quest for justice.

Still, what was remarkable about the latest Boykin revelation was its similarity to Muslim outbursts, which mobilised indigenous scoundrels who shared a similar outlook. For example, so-called Al Qaida leaders presented their analyses of the putative ideological struggle with the West in general and the US in particular as an “us-versus-them dichotomy,” precisely the same language used by their Western counterparts.

Such a perspective seldom allowed for anything but extremist violence because one could not adopt an opposite position to that of those arguing for violence. Throughout the Levant, especially in Syria, extremist forces used language that denigrated the Quran, which resembled Boykin’s reinterpretations of the New Testament.

What was remarkable was the General’s reliance on Luke 22:36, where Jesus tells his disciples: “Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one,” to make his case.

Nevertheless, neither Boykin nor fellow Christian fundamentalists bothered to read the rest of the text, which rejected violence. Indeed, when one of Jesus’ followers used his sword on a hapless servant of the high priest in the temple, the discipline was sharply rebuked. Therefore, the real meaning of this scripture was precisely not to rely on violence, and though Boykin may believe that Christ would pack an assault rifle to defend himself, the Bible clearly states: “Thou shall not kill.”

Muslim fundamentalists use the same exact logic when they “interpret” the Quran, and while several verses offer ambiguous interpretations, most believers reject the justification for violence. Sadly, extremists recruit miscreants with nothing else going for them, empowering them to commit atrocities, which does not augur well for tolerance and peace.

What escapes most are clear warnings that gratuitous aggression begets cruelty to one’s souls as well, which was best described by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In his remarkable book Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche wrote that “he who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become one,” and warned that if a person gazes into an abyss for a long period of time, he should understand that the abyss will gawk back.

The trouble with fundamentalists is that they always pick and choose, no matter the religion, without realising that men of Boykin’s ilk, or Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or any number of recent jihadists, fail to add any value to mankind. Not only do such folks seldom heed the advice offered by Nietzsche and others, but they also make genuine crazies look good.

Of course, one must accept that freedom of speech, especially in a country like the United States, means that the government ought not punish you for what you say, even if what you say is idiotic. Still, it is up to the rest of us to call a spade a spade, and while Boykin remains a certified cuckoo, it behoves us to watch these crazies as closely as possible.

For in the end, one should not resent extremist beliefs, as long as the Boykins of this world keep their views to themselves.

When they incite to create wars, or bring about apocalyptic outcomes, however, it then becomes everyone’s business to thwart them, whether they are in Dallas, Texas or Aleppo, Syria.

— Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia (London: Routledge, 2013).