This morning, I was reading about the Boston Bombings, when I tripped across this quote:
Who might use such a device (as a pressure cooker bomb)? The first possibility would be individuals following al-Qaeda’s recipe, imagining themselves to be furthering its goals by carrying out a “do-it-yourself” attack. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been publishing “open-source ” instructions and ideas for how to commit low-level terrorist attacks, and Westerners hoping to participate in the “jihad” are urged to carry it out at home. It’s too risky to travel to Pakistan to get trained; jihadist volunteers are too likely to get caught. Instead, volunteers are urged to carry out their own low-level, leaderless attacks.
Which left me wondering… if we are truly dedicated towards our cause… why do we not “open source” everything more? Open source is a philosophy that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product’s design and implementation details. When we freely share cooking recipes, which has occurred since the beginning of time, we are open sourcing. Each freely shares what they know and each offers their own variations in measurements, ingredients, etc. based on their own tastes or expertise.
In church work / youth ministry, we need more who are willing to open source that which they know and have seen works. The model of codifying it and selling it all into a binder is a business model that does not empower a “do-it-yourself” spirit in a local effort. It only encourages lazy adherence and comfortable dependence… which is not in the spirit of a jihad, a religious duty to engage in the "struggle" of "striving in the way of God.”
If methods of violence and hatred are open sourced to low-level, leaderless actions, should not love, discipleship, and evangelization?
