Is the democratization of religion even in the interest of humanity, if the goal is Salvation through God — through the One Whose Religion one is trying to escape by democratic means?

While the two Israeli soldiers received a 30-day military prison sentence for this action, Aaron’s grandson Phinehas was rewarded with the priestly line of the Kohanim, perhaps the highest earthly priestly line, for his zeal for God, when he defenden what is holy with a spear. Image: Socialmedia

The images from the southern Lebanese village of Debel caused horror worldwide. One could see a soldier of the Israeli army destroying a cross. For the Christian inhabitants of the village, this was not merely property damage, yet a desecration of a religious symbol and an attack on their religious dignity.

Upon international criticism, the Israeli army distanced itself from the incident, spoke of a violation of its values, and imposed disciplinary measures against the soldiers involved. Nevertheless, the incident raises a deeper question: How could it come to pass at all that a soldier felt called to destroy a religious symbol? Was his action, from the perspective of the true prophetic Scriptures, actually wrong?

What is especially noteworthy here is the symbolism of the cross. For Christians, it stands not only for Jesus, the Messiah, yet for Jesus as God, a Pharaoh.

Therefore, a purely moral or political assessment is insufficient. The incident raises a more fundamental question: How and why have the Standards of religious Truth shifted over the course of history — and what does this mean in relation to the original monotheistic Revelations?

The Strict Monotheistic Foundation of the Early Scriptures

The Hebrew scriptures, as well as the Holy Quran, contain a strict and recurring emphasis on the exclusive worship of God. This is not merely an abstract statement of belief, yet is translated into concrete instructions for action. The Prophets of the Old Testament repeatedly fought against the worship of images, statues, and religious symbols. Time and again, idols are destroyed there, and their removal is presented as service to God. Loyalty belongs to God alone and to no human being, no image, and no symbol.

In the Decalogue, the principle is formulated:

“You shall not make for yourself an image, no LIKENESS of what is in heaven above (such as the Holy Spirit Gabriel), and what is on the earth below (Jesus), and what is in the water (Neptune), and under the earth (Hades). You shall not bow down before them and you shall not serve them.” (Exodus 20:3–5)

This Wording is not only a rejection of foreign gods, yet also a clear distinction from the materialization of the Divine in flesh, creations, images, and symbols.

This line is sharpened elsewhere. In Deuteronomy 7:5 it says:

“You shall tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, and burn their idols.”

Here, not only distance is demanded, yet active removal of religious symbols that are regarded as false objects of worship. The prophetic Tradition thus knows not only an inner attitude of faith, yet also an external consequence in dealing with religious images.

This principle is also carried out in the historical Books, for example when King Hezekiah has the bronze serpent destroyed (2 Kings 18:4), because it had become an object of religious veneration.

And then there are also Isaiah 65:7 and Ezekiel 8:17, namely that our Lord regards idols as an insult, Glory to the Exalted One.

The basic line is therefore clear: the prophetic Tradition protects the exclusive worship of God, even against the solidification of symbols.

The Development of Christology

In early Christianity, however, a different theological structure developed. The question of the nature of Jesus Christ was answered not only historically, yet metaphysically.

What was especially decisive was the early church’s struggle in the fourth century, which found expression in the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and in the expanded formulation of 381.

There it was established that Jesus Christ is “of the same substance as the Father.”
This formulation (homoousios) does not merely mean prophetic closeness to God, yet an ontological unity in essence, one third of trinitarian polytheism.

Thus the language shifts from a Messenger figure to a divinely conceived person: a classical Pharaoh. From a monotheistic perspective, this crossed a boundary that the Prophets would never have crossed.

In many Christian traditions, a practice of veneration of Christ emerged that refers not only to his historical role, yet to his presumed divine nature. At the same time, the cross becomes the central symbol of faith, the heart of the church — not only as a remembrance of an event, yet as a direction of prayer comparable to the Qibla in Islam.

From a monotheistic perspective, this gives rise to a central question: how can the idea of an undivided God be reconciled with a religious practice in which a divine person and a symbol of that person are venerated?

And this leads to another question, which perhaps may answer the first: Which Prophet actually wrote the New Testament? While the books of the Old Testament and the Holy Quran are traditionally associated with Prophets and prophetic Traditions, the writings of the New Testament mainly come from apostles, disciples, and early Christian authors, above all from those who betrayed Jesus and rivaled him, envied him. The basis of Christian teaching therefore does not rest on a later Prophet, yet on theological interpretations by the first Christian generations, above all on haters — as it is explained in the Holy Quran, when the “Best of plotters” upends the plotters’ plan, takes Jesus to Himself, and finally causes the apostles to be massacred in the most brutal way, as He had foretold in the Holy Book.

While the modern world considers the damage to a cross to be sacrilege, representatives of a monotheistic understanding would argue that the Prophets and kings themselves acted against such forms of religious veneration. Aaron’s grandson Phinehas was even rewarded with the priestly line of the Kohanim, perhaps the highest earthly priestly line, for his zeal for God, when he cleansed the holy Tent from sinners — with the spear.

The real debate should therefore not revolve around a single soldier. It should revolve around the question of whether the original Message of the Prophets was displaced over the course of history by later traditions, and whether people today are still willing to discuss this question openly. And if not, whether they will not regret it.

The incident involving the cross in Debel in Lebanon is for many people merely another episode in a long conflict. Yet it points to a much more fundamental question: How could the authentic Message of the Prophets fall into the background?

Has the Mass Displaced the Truth?

With the growth of populations and the spread of large religious institutions, it was not necessarily the authentic Teaching that gained influence, yet often the interpretation that could gather the largest following behind it — the populist one. History repeatedly shows that majorities do not automatically represent the Truth.

This development concerns the historical dynamic of religious traditions. Religious systems spread not only because of their original contents, yet also through social, political, and cultural factors. As followings grow, institutions arise that stabilize certain interpretations and suppress others that are uncomfortable. Thus sunnis and shiites today no longer fast until night, as the Holy Quran explicitly commands, yet only until nightfall, something that smuggled itself in as an anectode through the false hadiths of Muhammad and separates true Muslims from sunnis and shiites.

From this perspective, the Old Testament did not fall into the background because its Message was disproven, yet because later traditions were adopted by vastly larger crowds. The number of followers became the measure of legitimacy, while the question of the original prophetic Teaching increasingly faded into the background.

The Quran as well places the exclusive worship of God at the center. Therefore it should not be surprising that there are significant similarities between the Prophets of the Old Testament and Quranic Monotheism, while later Christian teachings took another, far-eastern path — Hinduism also worships a trinity.

In this sense, one can argue that religious truth in history has not always remained independent of majority processes. Rather, there is a danger that quantitative spread overlays qualitative shifts.

The dispute over a cross in Lebanon is therefore more than a local incident. It leads to the fundamental question of whether humanity has preserved the original Message of the Prophets over the course of its history or whether it has replaced it with later traditions. The decisive question is not which teaching has the most followers, yet which teaching actually goes back to the Prophets.

Democratization of Religious Truth

Against this background, the question arises whether religious Truth can at all be determined by democratic or majority-based processes.

Democratic systems were developed for the organization of human societies. They are based on the idea of collective decision-making within worldly affairs.

Religious Truth, by contrast, is understood in the great monotheistic Traditions not as the result of human voting, yet as Revelation that exists independently of approval or rejection.

The prophetic figures of the Hebrew Tradition are paradigmatic in this respect: they often stand against the majority of their society and proclaim a Truth that is not legitimized by consent, yet by its claim to divine Origin.

Concluding Reflection

Is the democratization of religion even in the interest of humanity, if the goal is Salvation through God — through the One Whose Religion one is trying to escape by democratic means?

This reveals a fundamental tension: if people gradually adapt religious teachings to the ideas of the majority, they may distance themselves from the One Whose pleasure they are actually seeking. Those who expect Salvation from God should therefore ask whether they are following God’s Will or the religious preferences of their time.

The decisive question is not which belief has the most followers. The decisive question is whether it corresponds to the original Revelation. For in the end, it will not be the majority that judges, yet God. And He will also judge His People Israel if it aligns itself with the majority, defends its idols, and in return despises what is His: the Holy Quran, whose disparagement by the soldiers in Gaza remained unpunished. And behold, they are now powerless against the new drone tactics of their enemies in Lebanon, which began when the Israeli army decided to punish its heroes for what their Lord had chosen His People for.

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By Okay Altinisik | 30-5-2026, 18:43:42