Did you know that ISIS militants crucified a 17-year-old boy in Raqqa, Syria a few days ago?

If you follow a number of news sources, you probably read about it online. Or you may have seen the photo in your Facebook feed. But you probably didn’t see it on television news. It may have been reported on one of the news channels, but if it was, I never saw it.

I read about it in a Daily Mail article. The kid was taking photos of the Islamic State headquarters in Raqqa, and they caught him and crucified him for three days before he finally died.

I can’t imagine dying that way. I don’t even want to think about it.

The sign they placed around around his neck charged him with apostasy. I suppose any Muslim who doesn’t fall in line with the Islamic State’s extreme religious and political beliefs would be accused of the same.

I regularly post news articles about these kinds of atrocities on social media, and most people who follow me there know I’m a proponent of using whatever force is necessary to stop extremists like ISIS from doing such evil acts.

Every now and again I lock horns with a pacifist who tells me that Jesus wouldn’t support using military force or killing people under any circumstances. Even ISIS. They remind me that Jesus loved his enemies, and allowed himself to be killed on a cross. He could have destroyed the ones who were murdering him, but he didn’t.

Jesus willingly gave himself, and his death was part of God’s eternal plan. But the boy who was crucified by ISIS did not have a choice. If you had been in Raqqa watching this unfold, and you’d had the ability to stop it, would you have done it? Even if it meant killing his captors? 

I would have.

Sometimes it’s all too easy to beat a war drum when we’re doing it from the relative safety of the United States. But it’s also pretty easy to swear off violence when we aren’t watching innocent people about to be slaughtered firsthand.

The article from the Daily Mail made me angry, and the photograph sickened me. (We’ve posted the censored version of it.) For someone to die in such a cruel fashion, especially in this day and age is horrifying.

We don’t even know the victim’s name.

With ISIS, we’re dealing with a group that’s just as evil and ruthless as the Nazis were. We must intercede for these people, many who have been brainwashed and misguided by a wicked, cancerous ideology. And when we ask God to thwart evil, we should also pray that as many lives be preserved as possible.

But sometimes a spiritual battle moves into the physical realm, and defending the defenseless and preserving life means making tough choices.

It’s my conviction that killing someone as a last resort to save lives is justified.

But it should never be easy.