Another invasion of the Middle East by the United States military will not solve this problem.  It will only exacerbate it.  It will only fill the deserts of the Middle East with the blood of both Arabs and American soldiers.  Radical Muslims will only go underground and become more belligerent.  Remember, they are already here in America.  In the end, it’s not a military problem—it’s a religious problem. The only answer is the gospel.

The tragedy in Orlando is indeed horrific.  It is nothing less than vigilantism.  It is mass murder.

It is also the result of a twenty-first century religious war where the West in its own homeland has now encountered the culture of the Middle East.  By the West I mean the modern secular humanism of both Europe and America. The West has cast off the shackles of its Christian roots.  It is no longer Christian.  It is now anti-Christian.  Not only have we legalized sodomy, but we celebrate it.  The month of June has been officially declared as Gay Pride Month by President Barak Obama.

The West will go to whatever means necessary to promote the so-called LGBT Community as being normal — as normal as being black or Hispanic.  Sodomy has existed for a long time, but now it has been officially declared a legitimate minority group.  It has gone public.  One result of this is that The Gay Pride Movement has become an open target for radical Islamic Americans who think they have an individual right to execute God’s vengeance.

The typical media reaction is predictable.  The blame for such tragedies is firstly imputed to guns or the Second Amendment.  Also, the FBI is accounted guilty even though they have been restricted by political correctness from profiling young Muslim men connected with the Islamic Middle East.  Even the Christian Right has been blamed.

Contrary to the West, the Middle East has inherited the legacy of Islam. Islam believes that homosexuality is a crime worthy of death.  It has taken this position since its inception.

Muslims seeking a better life may come to the West to escape the failure of the Middle East, but they bring with them some of the most dangerous elements of their society. Middle class and upward-bound professional Muslims enjoy the good life while discontented American Muslims in their own ethnic neighborhoods breed a hatred of what they call the evil American Empire. Radical Islam has been in America long enough now to be in-bred.  Omar Mateen was born and raised in the new American culture of diversity and religious pluralism.

So, in Orlando, the city of fantasy and fun, tragedy has struck. The result will be the further replacement of liberty with a police state.  Expect more snooping and more security lines.  The modern religion of the West has come face to face in Orlando with the Middle East version of Islam.

Another invasion of the Middle East by the United States military will not solve this problem.  It will only exacerbate it.  It will only fill the deserts of the Middle East with the blood of both Arabs and American soldiers.  Radical Muslims will only go underground and become more belligerent.  Remember, they are already here in America.  In the end, it’s not a military problem—it’s a religious problem. The only answer is the gospel.

Larry E. Ball is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee.