The objective of political terror is not so much the harm it does to whom it is directed, but rather the harrowing impact on those who witness it. This is true whether the terrorists are statists terrorizing their citizens or practicing anarchists terrorizing the civil government. In other words, political terror is pure theater, a calculated spectacle. It is especially seductive to terrorists in an age in which images can be transmitted around the world in real time. Christianity is unequivocally opposed to political terror.
Political terror is the gospel of coercion.
It is the tactic of men who deny the power of God, of the Biblical gospel, of regeneration. He can be reshaped by external means. In Western democracies, these means are coercive redistribution of wealth, statist education of the young, and penitentiaries. In totalitarian states they are relentless propaganda, secret police, brainwashing, and torture. They espouse the gospel of human plasticity.