Interview: San Bernardino shooting should not be linked to religion

Though the suspects in Wednesday's San Bernardino shooting were Muslims and Islamic extremists' terrorist attacks happened in many places worldwide, these violent acts should not be linked with the Islamic religion, a group of U.S. theologists said Saturday.

"We should not see the San Bernardino shooting as a religious issue. Violence is never justified by the Quran or the Muslim tradition. This act should not be associated with the heart and soul of Muslim tradition," said Philip Clayton, a theologian and professor of the Claremont School of Theology (CST). CST is a graduate school in Claremont, California.

Marjorie Suchocki, a United Methodist professor emerita of theology at CST, said that some extremists launched attacks in the name of religion.

"The Ku Klux Klan in America was Christian, but they did not represent the Christian value," she said. "Those radicals used the notion of Jihad, which they hoped to mean that they had the mandate to murder and go every place they can to terrify people, they hope the world to organize against Muslims, so they can have some kind of more influence on the Muslims themselves."

"Islam itself is not a religion of terror. (The radicals) they are giving the Islam a horrible name," she said, "This a recent phenomenon. Muslims have been in this country for a hundred of years. They are not terrorists."

On Wednesday, a husband and wife team, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a U.S. citizen and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, killed 14 people and injured 21 others in a holiday party carnage in San Bernardino, Southern California. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday announced that it was investigating the massacre as an "act of terrorism" after it determined there was "extensive planning" involved with the attack.

CST Professor Clayton said terrorist acts are products of political radicalization, instead of religion. And unfortunately, the byproduct of terrorist actions on the U.S. soil is that Americans now make generalization about all Muslims.

"We see it in the refusal of some states to accept Muslim refugees from Syria. But there is a broader consequence, normal American citizens now have fear wherever they may be, whether travelling or at a Christmas party, they may be the target of a terrorist act. And this is the precise result the terrorists wish for," he said.

John Cobb, Jr., a well-known U.S. theologist, told Xinhua that the problem of terrorism in the Middle East and some other countries in Asia and Africa is due to the wrong U.S. policies in the region in the past, and there will be no fast cure.

"Since we have done so many wrong things, there's no quick reverse," the 90-year-old theologian said.

Counting U.S. supports to the anti-Soviet Union, anti-government forces in Asia, Middle East and Africa in the past decades, he said "The groups we supported then became groups we called terrorists now and part of them evolved to IS." IS refers to the Islamic State, the terrorist group.

"The U.S. policy led to the increase of Muslim terrorist groups. And the fact is now they are coming to our country. That doesn't mean we suffer the most. the People in Libya, Syria, Palestine and some other places they suffer the most," he said.

He suggested the U.S. government should change its policies, give up its effort to control those regions and have a more balanced view of the Palestine and Israel issue. Endit