The Editorial Team of Prophecy Today want to express their compassion and concern for all the families who have suffered in the terrible events at Sousse in Tunisia.

The news that most of the holidaymakers on the beach were British and that the number of dead is likely to exceed 30 has numbed the nation. The carnage on the beach shown in a multitude of photos on the media resembled a war scene and the list of dead and injured appearing on the Internet has sent a shockwave right across Britain.

In an interview this morning on BBC Radio Four's Today Programme Prime Minister, David Cameron said that the Islamic State had declared war on us.

He said, "I think that frankly, we are a target. They have declared war on us, they are attacking our people at home and overseas whether we like it or not... They are attacking our way of life and what we stand for."

He warned, "There are people in Iraq and Syria who are plotting to carry out terrible acts in Britain and elsewhere and as long as ISIL exists in those two countries we are at threat." He said that Britain is the second most active country in launching air attacks upon the Islamic fighters. But he added that it wasn't enough to "destroy [IS] at source".

He said "We have to deal with this appalling radical narrative that's taking over the minds of young people in our country. It's a battle of our values and our narrative against their values and their narrative. We have to get that right as well as the military end of things." [emphasis added]

The Narrative Battle

The Prime Minister is right in saying that the real battle is to do with values. But he is wrong to speak about a military defeat of the Islamic State. You cannot defeat an ideology by weapons of war: it can only be successfully tackled with a counter-ideology that is more powerful and compelling.

If a full-scale war between Islamic radicals and the West is to be avoided, we have to act now before the situation deteriorates further. We have to recognise the nature of the ideological conflict between the values being propagated by radical Islam and those of the West which are still based predominantly upon our Judaeo-Christian heritage.

You cannot defeat an ideology by weapons of war, only by a counter-ideology that is more powerful and compelling."

The right way to deal with this situation is for Quranic scholars and Biblical scholars to come together and examine their Scriptures. We have to stop these foolish statements about "we all worship the same God". This is clearly untrue as even a cursory comparison of the teaching of Jesus and Muhammad shows.

One of the sayings of Muhammad is, "The recompense of those who make war on Allah and his messenger and exert themselves to cause corruption in the land is that they should be killed or crucified, or that their hands and feet on opposite sides should be cut off." (Quran 5:37)

This is in strong contrast to the teaching of Jesus, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy'. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:43).

It is this basic contrast in values that lies at the heart of Islam and Christianity which has to be faced. At the same time we are warning against an escalation of the war in the Middle East and calling for a dialogue between the scholars of Islam and Christianity.

Call for Dialogue

We know, of course, that there have been many periods in history when those who claim to be followers of Jesus have not followed his teaching as in the atrocities of the Crusades. And we know that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people who follow those parts of the Quran that advocate peace rather than war.

Our call is for the scholars of both Christianity and Islam to come together and solve what David Cameron rightly describes as a 'clash of values'. We do not see this as some kind of attempt to harmonise the two religions, but rather to highlight the differences in social values that may lead at least to peaceful co-existence and counteract the attraction of the Islamic State's propaganda that is currently attracting young Muslims.

In Prophecy Today we will elaborate this call for dialogue further later this week, in an article entitled "Who are the true Muslims?" In the meantime we ask all our readers to pray for the families of those who have lost loved ones and also for the protection of the nation from further terrorist attacks as we come up to the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings of 2005.