Texas Republicans launch 'Sharia Free America Caucus' aimed at defending 'Western civilization'

Reps. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Chip Roy, R-Texas, are starting the "Sharia Free America Caucus," Fox News Digital learned first.

"Anytime you go to a fight, you bring as many friends with you as you can. I'm a military guy," Self told Fox News Digital. "So what we need to do is build this caucus now so that we can start educating the American people to the dangers of Sharia in the United States."

Self said it was "fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution."

"America is facing a threat that directly attacks our Constitution and our Western values: the spread of Sharia law," Roy said in a statement. "From Texas to every state in this constitutional republic, instances of Sharia adherents masquerading as 'refugees' - and in many cases, sleeper cells connected to terrorist organizations - are threatening the American way of life."

Sharia broadly refers to a code of ethics and conduct used by devout Muslims. Sharia law more specifically often refers to the criminal code used in non-secular Islamic countries, like Iran.

In its most extreme cases, such as when ISIS-controlled parts of the Middle East, charges like blasphemy could carry the death penalty.

But guarantees of religious freedom in the Constitution mean that Sharia law can not be carried out on any governmental level in the U.S.

The Republicans' caucus appears largely symbolic in nature, but it's evidence of the continued culture war raging in the country.