Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6134883-20130320185019/@comment-5846164-20130323202920

and the chaos cults and its chaos gods (wich managed to corrupt 9 super humans of the emperors own making) is a bit different then what is today, since there is not any proven insane holy/unholy power today (by science that is). but the chaos gods you can follow, and they grant gifts and got servants that can be made real in the world.

as to the name, some ancients name still stick in the 40K universe, the word bearers once used the word "jihad" so i think that might just been given since it was fitting since they are sinners in the world of the god emperor but are still his sons/daughters and are doing penance for their missdeads.