Conquering Rome: Constructing a Global Christianity in the Face of Terror. A Case Study into the Representations of the Beheading of Twenty-One Migrant Workers in January 2015

Abstract

On January 15 2015, a video was posted on the internet by Al-Hayat Media Center, showing the beheading of twenty-one men (Schnellmann.org). The video was claimed by Islamic State’s “Tripoli Province”, a group allied to Islamic State, and addressed to “the nation of the cross”. Political and religious leaders responded with shock and abhorrence. In the video, the twenty-one men were presented as “people of the cross, followers of the hostile Coptic Church”. One of the killers explained that the captives were murdered as a revenge for the suffering of members of the Muslim community in Egypt. Responses to the atrocity, from Egypt as well as from Europe and the US, appealed to religious ideas of unity and solidarity. These ‘frames’ were particularly set through interpretations that were spread on the Internet. In this chapter, I will show how these interpretations played an important role in constructing frames of global religious connectivities. Attention for translocal connectivities is considered a key feature of a World Christianity approach as outlined elsewhere in this volume. This contribution illustrates connectivities and dynamics of incorporation forged through discourse and shows that such connectivities can be construed by agents both from within and outside the Christian tradition(s). By using the word ‘frame’ I refer to a set of convictions and related practices that evolves through selection, emphasis, exclusion and elaboration and promote a causal interpretation between events, and a moral evaluation of these events (McCombs 2004: 89). Starting with a contextualization of the above-mentioned video this article seeks to make clear that information technologies play a significant role in the development of these frames that use well-worn Christian theological concepts with deep historical roots like ‘the baptism of blood’ and ‘martyrdom’ as vivid building blocks to stress a world-wide connectivity and solidarity that support a