We are at war but Christ has already won

I've been following the controversy about the Mohammed cartoons closely at my other site, and a few things seem clear to me.

The main issue I think most of the mainstream media is missing is that much of the rage has been fomented and orchestrated as a direct form of information warfare, of shock and fear tactics to intimidate a weak-seeming and decadent West.

After 9-11, when U.S. soldiers discovered American John Walker Lindt, a young man who had grown up in a privileged household in Marin County California, fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, and when John Allen Muhammed, an American who converted to Islam started shooting people and was dubbed "the beltway sniper" I realized that we're not fighting a group with a defined hierarchy and membership or a country or countries, but an ideology, a state of mind.

That state of mind could infect anyone anywhere who had the right combination of hatred and resentment coupled with a hunger for a religious justification that would make said hatred a form of moral superiority. It is not Islam, but a corruption of the faith, just as the Ku Klux Klan with its cross burnings is a corruption of Christianity.

When I look at all this, it only reminds me that our ancient enemy is at work. Tactics of fear, hatred, resentment, accusation have his fingerprints all over them.

So, what do we do?

We remember this from Ephesians 6:

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

and this from II Corinthians 10:

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

May you bring your thoughts into the obedience of Christ, and know His peace, confident that He is mighty in battle and the victory belongs to Him.

The picture is of Christus Rex--Christ the King--rising from the grave from the Sistine Chapel.