catapult magazine

I don’t know about you guys but I find that the carricature of Muhammad issue constantly pops up in casual conversations. Here’s an article by Christopher Hitchens some of you may find interesting. It’s an angry condemnation of Islamic fundamentalists and the cowardice of governments who bow to their barbaric ways. Or should we be nice to them? Reformed Christians haven’t historically allowed depictions of God either, but they don’t go burning embassies when they see one.

http://www.slate.com/id/2135499/nav/tap2/

I’m glad you brought up this issue, Dan. It’s a HUGE issue, with far-reaching implications. Will the West champion tolerance or free speech? Free speech, at what cost? Tolerance, at what cost? Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut are burning. Nato peacekeeping troops are being fired upon. Rioters are shouting for the death of Denmark’s prime minister. It’s not just an isolated event. Hostilities are opening up in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and boycotts against Danish goods threated by 20 Muslim countries could cost Denmark 1.6 billion. Why? Because of a cartoon. Here’s some other helpful links.

http://www.townhall.com/news/ap/online/regional/europe/D8FGF3EO0.html
http://www.townhall.com/news/ap/online/regional/europe/D8FJTCJ86.html

What I think this widespread response shows so clearly is how reductionistic the argument is that Muslims in the Middle East hate America because of its foreign policy and because of its greed for oil. Are these hostilities the result of Denmark’s foreign policy? Are rioters calling for the death of Denmark’s prime minister because of Denmark’s notorious greed for oil? No. In fact, Denmark prides itself on its humanitarianism. Travelers put the Denmark flag on their rucksack because Denmark’s reputation opens doors for them. They hate Denmark because they allowed one of its newspapers to publish a cartoon criticizing radical Islam by charactering Muhammed.

I’m not denying that America’s foreign policy and oil obsession are important factors. I’m denying that these are THE factors. I’m denying that all would be well if we just pulled out of the Middle East and stopped consuming so much oil. This response shows that Muslim distain for the West and for America goes beyond dollar signs and desire for regional hegemony. It has deep-seated religious roots. They hate our society, our greed for oil, and our Middle East involvement, not merely because they find it morally dishonorable, but especially because we stand in the way of the worldwide spread of Islam.

Here is a bit of a blog post I did on this issue. The link to the entire entry is provided below:

The Islamic response to these cartoons, though, highlights a problem intrinsic to Islam. For better or worse, and to the best of my fairly limited knowledge, Islam does not have the internal framework to allow individuals such freedom of expression if it is the majority religion in a country or community. There is some Koranic support for the toleration and accommodation of the other "people of the Book," Christians and, ironically, Jews to live and worship unmolested in Islamic societies, but I cannot envision any support for the Voltarian notion of, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it." Mind you, I do not agree with Voltaire on that one either. If you say something that leads people to pick up stones to kill you, well, I think it might be a case by case thing whether I put my head up do some catching. Actually, If I am brave, I hope would intervene peacebly and then, if necessary, choose to catch some stones, or a bullet for you, but not for your right to say stupid or inflammatory things.

Once on NPR, I heard the author V. S. Naipaul say that of the three major Judeo-Christian religions, only Islam has not experienced reformations that have served to mediate and moderate the temporal power lodged in the religion. I hope that is a fair restatement of his view.

In truth, though, I think that Christianity at its very beginning made that dissociation, but lost it at around the time of, say, Constantine. Think Ananias and Saphira dying without a hand being laid on them and Paul’s deference to civic authorities, even desperately wicked ones, in matters that did not impinge upon the faith. Moreover, as I read the New Testament, God’s family itself shifted from being a regional theocracy to a transnational family not married to any one state, while being instructed to "salt" and better all states through its influence.

Finally, the belief that all people are created in the image of God with dignity to make choices, many which I may believe to reject God’s law, added to the reasons listed above, is the basis for my "toleration" of people with behaviors and words which I might dislike or abhor. My "toleration," then may mirror secularism but it does not spring from the same root.

Islam, though, as far as I am aware, has no such a framework, perhaps appropriately so if it is to be consistent with its founding principles. And, hence, the problems in Europe. I do not really have a solution. I do believe that some of the secularism in Europe, and especially France, is rather totalitarian and unjust, but the reaction of the Islamic world in and outside of Europe cannot really be excused.

On one level, the Islamic response is juvenile and immature, like a prince demanding that his desire must be met and nothing short of it will do. That characterization may be somewhat demeaning, but I believe it is accurate. And the response then, as my vast experience in childrearing tells me, is not to simply roll over and acquiesce. That makes for spoiled and dangerous children. No, I think that, despite what might be ensconced in the tenants of Islam, that Muslims should simply ignore the Danish journalists. If it were a government oppressing their rights to worship, that might be another matter, but it is not.

http://dassler.stlouisblogs.org/archives/000499.html

At one time Islam was a very tolerant religion. The Ottoman Empire from the 11th to the 17th centuries was much more tolerant than anything that had been seen in the Christian world til that time. This was also the time when Islam was the center of learning and art. In this society, Christians and Muslims and Jews lived side by side with very similar rights. Meanwhile Christian Europe was just beginning to rediscover Aristotle while the Spaniards were slaughtering their Jews and their ‘heretics’, France was expelling all Protestants, and Jews in Christian Europe were not permitted to own land.

So I disagree that theres something intrinsically intolerant about Islam and something intrinsically more tolerant about Christianity.

This is less a battle between Christianity and Islam as between fundamentalism and liberalism. What’s more important: free speech or God? (legally) Europeans and Americans say free speech is more important. Muslims say God is more important. Fundamentalist Christians are liberal enough to accept carricatures of, say, Jesus as ‘free speech’. They’ll be offended, but they won’t burn embassies. Muslims in the middle east apparently don’t have this reverence for free speech.

In addition to the Ottoman Turks I have read that during at least part of the Muslim reign in Spain that a Golden Age of learning and tolerance occurred. And, admittedly, there have been many abuses in Christianity. I do think, though, that if taken at face value that the New Testament proves to be a more pluralistically tolerant book than the Koran, and the early church a more peace loving movement than early Islam. Of course, texts are not read out the contexts of intrepretive communities, some would argue they do not exist at all outside those communities. And at the time of the writing of the New Testament, issues of what to do if and when temporal power came into the hands of the church was a nonsensical question. Nonetheless, even given all those things, I think that the New Testament (and I know it does not stand alone, particularly in reformed communities which reach back to OT models to grapple with exactly some of the lack I described in the previous sentence) is a far more tolerant book than the Koran, in a temporal sense. The intolerance of the final judgement, of course, is the same in both books, but that is another matter.

The question, it seems to me, is how do these rioters see the situation. How do they see Islam, how do they see the "battle"? They see a cartoon mocking Muhammed and proceeed to burn embassies. It seems very likely that they view the battle as between Islam and the false religions of infidels who refuse to submit to Allah. We have to take them at their words and understand them by their actions, which are grave and serious.

A crucial difference between Christianity and Islam is that Islam is triumphalistic and refuses to distinguish church and state. They believe that there will be one Islamic world under Allah on this present earth, and accordingly they form states that are properly called Muslim. The fact that we can speak of "20 Muslim countries" threatening to boycott Denmark illustrates the point. Christ said his kingdom was not of this world (and commanded us, "Love your enemies"), and accordingly we should never speak of a Christian state.

Doesn’t this suggest that for Muslims, it is "us" vs. "them"? If we are to take our opponents at their word and try to understand their viewpoint, don’t we have to consider Islam as an important factor in why they hate the West and hate America?

I think it’s important to say here that many Muslims do distinguish between mosque and state and that most Muslims are not extremists. Those we see rioting and burning embassies are not necessarily representative of entire populations. (just as machine-gun toting anti-government evangelicals in Idaho aren’t representative of the broader evangelical community).

Along those lines, here’s an article by a Muslim who explains why the cartoons are offensive to him. I think he’s onto something. Maybe this isn’t about freedom of speech, but about racist stereotypes. What do you think?

http://www.slate.com/id/2135661/?nav=tap3

Good point, Dan. I think there is good reason to be optimistic about Muslim/non-Muslim relations, even as there is need to be realistic. There are those (e.g. Irshad Manji) who want to reform Islam in accordance with the teachings of the Koran. This reformation would certainly make for a more peaceful Islam. As I understand it, there are within Islam two mindsets, one of which is open to such reformation, the other of which is deadset on honoring traditional Islam, not unlike the difference in Christianity between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The problem is that within in Islam’s tradition and especially within its origins, there is a lot of violence. But you’re right to say that this violence is not intrinsic to Islam. It is in its tradition.

As for the article, its very encouraging! There are indeed Muslims who appreciate the "tireless efforts of civic and religious leaders" to promote unity. This illustrates the reason there is hope for future Muslim, non-Muslim relations.

But did you notice the author never denounced the violent response of radical Islam? They are enraged by the publication of these cartoons. Why not be enraged ALSO and especially by the violent response? Which is worse, the violent cartoons or the death of four people and the burning of several embassies? There must be more WITHIN the Muslim community who denounce violence perpetuated by radical Muslims. Why are they reluctant? If the gun-toting radical Christians from Idaho you mentioned committed such violence, there would TONS of Christians to line up and denounce such actions. They would say, This is not Christianity. They would be outraged by such a perversion of their sacred religion. Where are the Muslims who are outraged by the perversion of their religion? Where are the imams who are taking a stand against the violence?

I guess I’m wondering why the author was more upset by the cartoons than by the violent response. Doesn’t the violence do more damage to Muslim, non-Muslim relations than the cartoons did? It seems like an unhealthy perspective. Do you disagree?

To answer your question as to why Muslims are reluctant to condemn the violence, I haven’t seen that. I don’t know how it is in the U.S. but in Canada the vocal Muslim groups are calling for calm and restraint. The following newsstory explains that Muslim leaders in Canadian cities have been under extreme pressure to sanction protests, but the leaders are resisting these calls b/c they are worried the protests may turn violent.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=6defc065-3fc8-4a76-8ddb-fad006194fba&k=98998

I know many Muslims on the fringe condemn the violence. And there are some significant Muslim figures who denounce the hostile reaction of rioters.

I think it is hard for us in the West, however, to imagine that a significant number of Muslim leaders around the world, perhaps the majority, wink at the violence. To their way of thinking violence is an appropriate response to cartoons defaming Muhammed.

Let me illustrate my point. At our church we have an assistant pastor who is around 70 years old. He travels all over the world as a missionary teaching Greek at seminaries. Lately he has been in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In a Sunday School class on the topic of forgiveness, he related an incident that had happened recently, in which a young man and woman from two opposing groups were caught having sexual intercourse. The solution was for one group, the group the young woman was from, to send ten men to defile ten women from the other group in retaliation. His point was that this was a shame-based culture which the gospel-rooted principle of forgiveness was foreign. "You shame me, I’ll shame you ten times over."

It seems crazy to think that killing people and burning embassies in response to a cartoon (of admittedly poor taste) would be treated as acceptable. It’s shocking, appalling. Yet to those who think from a shame-based worldview it seems to make sense. This incident helps to understand something important about those who oppose us, namely, that there is distinctly religious factor in their hatred. Religion accounts for the response. Do you see what I’m trying to get at? What do you all think?