islam, violence, christianity
There are two separate issues bound up in what the Pope's been saying. One is whether he's quoted a fair assessment of the use of 'the sword' in Islam. The other is whether he's got the right to present his comments as those of the world's most significant Christian leader.
Of course, all over the world, Muslims are protesting about the fact that a link has again been prominently made between Islam and violence. However, the way they choose to make this protest is, er, with violence. As in: You're just a big bully. No I'm not! And I'll hit you if you say that again! The caption attached to the second image on the BBC's In Pictures is hugely ironic - "Some Indian Muslims burnt an effigy of the world's Roman Catholic leader who quoted remarks which linked Islam to violence." At least it was only an effigy, I suppose.
However, it should be a worry that the Pope is being taken as a spokesman for Christianity, rather than just the spokesman for the Roman Catholic tradition. Muslim-Christian relations on the ground in Muslim-majority situations are already strained enough, without someone like the Pope handing out gratis further excuses to penalise and marginalise local Christians. You can read far more about that than you'd ever wanted to find out by going to the Barnabas site, where the latest report is of a convert from Islam to Christianity being shot and killed in Somalia, about a week ago. The plight of indigenous Christians is constantly being exacerbated by the actions of Western political leaders - they don't need spurious Christian leaders to make things worse.
That, of course, is completely without mentioning how a spokesman for the Roman Catholic church can imagine he has a leg to stand on in terms of criticising the use of violence to achieve religious ends, but that's a whole other issue, and I just don't have time right now!
If anyone has any thoughts on the Pope's perception of the relation between faith and reason, incidentally, it would be good to hear from you. That, apparently, was the main point of his speech after all.
Of course, all over the world, Muslims are protesting about the fact that a link has again been prominently made between Islam and violence. However, the way they choose to make this protest is, er, with violence. As in: You're just a big bully. No I'm not! And I'll hit you if you say that again! The caption attached to the second image on the BBC's In Pictures is hugely ironic - "Some Indian Muslims burnt an effigy of the world's Roman Catholic leader who quoted remarks which linked Islam to violence." At least it was only an effigy, I suppose.
However, it should be a worry that the Pope is being taken as a spokesman for Christianity, rather than just the spokesman for the Roman Catholic tradition. Muslim-Christian relations on the ground in Muslim-majority situations are already strained enough, without someone like the Pope handing out gratis further excuses to penalise and marginalise local Christians. You can read far more about that than you'd ever wanted to find out by going to the Barnabas site, where the latest report is of a convert from Islam to Christianity being shot and killed in Somalia, about a week ago. The plight of indigenous Christians is constantly being exacerbated by the actions of Western political leaders - they don't need spurious Christian leaders to make things worse.
That, of course, is completely without mentioning how a spokesman for the Roman Catholic church can imagine he has a leg to stand on in terms of criticising the use of violence to achieve religious ends, but that's a whole other issue, and I just don't have time right now!
If anyone has any thoughts on the Pope's perception of the relation between faith and reason, incidentally, it would be good to hear from you. That, apparently, was the main point of his speech after all.
posted by cath at
10:20 am
2 Comments:
I think it was a fascinating speech. As far as I'm aware, it was given in rather academic circles, so it is rather a dry discourse.
But I thought his contrast between the place of reason in Christianity and that in Islam was very interesting. One of the numerous things that has frustrated me in talking with Muslims is that when you talk to them about a patently illogical and bizaare section of the Quran or Hadith, they seem to shrug it off.
Whereas, if I find a difficult passage of scripture, I will investigate it and apply God-given reason to the issue. It may well require much study of the Word to come to a satisfactory answer, but it has always happened, and I've always been encouraged to do this, rather than turn my reason off.
By
Kay, at 10:01 pm
I listened to the interview on RAdio 4 between an RC clergyman and a Muslim academic in Oxford (can't remember the names ..) and there was an interesting bit where the interviewer picked up on a point made by the Oxford man and said that by casting Islam as a mindset outside rationality, the Pope was subtly doing far more damage to the Western perception of Islam than if he'd really just linked it with violence.
I wondered if that comment itself wasn't actually very revealing about the place of reason in western thinking - if X is unreasonable, treat it with horror; if X resorts to violence to deal with their grievances, have some sympathy! - compared to how touchy the proverbial muslim world gets about allegations of being violent, yet not overly fussed about self-contradictory parts in the Quran etc, like you say.
Re reason being "God-given" - hope i'm not distorting what the pope said, but when he was talking about the "analogy" between "[God's] eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason," he missed an opportunity to state just that - ie that the analogy can only be accounted for by the fact that he made us that way. So that even though he isn't BOUND by our reason or the limits of our understanding, there's nothing about him that CONTRADICTS our reason or the principles of our understanding.
By
cath, at 11:17 am
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