Christians and Muslims: Qu'ran burning re-visited

With the encouragement and apparently under the supervision of so-called pastor Terry Jones, who did not carry through with his own threat to burn a Qu'ran last 11 September, another person in Gainesville, Florida, claiming to be a pastor, that is, a minister of the Gospel, one Wayne Sapp, actually burned a copy the Islamic holy book. The burning, which took place on Sunday, 20 March, dubbed by these folks as International Judge the Koran Day, was witnessed by around 30 people, took place after Sapp conducted a mock(ery) trial of the book.

After Sapp made his case against the Qu'ran, the jury took all of 8 minutes to find it guilty. Given that the book had been soaking in kerosene for about hour prior to the verdict, an appeal would seem a slam dunk for the defense, assuming it had one. As the book burned some of the congregation posed for pictures alongside the barbecue on which it burned. One attendee, a supporter of Jones named Jadwiga Schatz, said she was alarmed by the increasing "threat" of Islam in Europe. She went on to say that, at least for her, Muslims "are like monsters", before going on to state- "I hate these people."

In a post during Christmas, Notes from Eurabia, I quoted a Dutch seminary professor, a lay Christian, who said of the situation in his country, "we would have nothing to fear from Islam, if we were Christians. And it often seems that today the Dutch are afraid of everything: of having children, as they are of immigrants. But fear is the exact opposite of faith." This stands in stark contrast to hate-mongering rooted in fear of the other. It is a good day to remember JPII's motto and constant exhortation: Be not afraid!

Predictably, all too many Muslims in Afghanistan were eager to live up to the worst stereotype, which is the lens through which people like Schatz view all Muslims, just as people like Schatz, Sapp, and Jones are all too representative of Christians in the minds of many. Today riots continue in the country where, the AP reports, "Anger over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a Florida church fueled a second day of deadly violence half a world away in Afghanistan, where demonstrators set cars and shops ablaze Saturday in a riot that killed nine protesters." The report continues that the outrage "even brought violence to the normally peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, when a crowd of protesters — apparently infiltrated by insurgents — stormed a U.N. compound in an outpouring that left four Afghan protesters and seven foreign U.N. employees dead."

All of this makes very timely an interview that appears in the current issue of Christianity Today, which arrived in my mailbox just yesterday. The interview, conducted by CT's Mark Galli, is with Protestant theologian Miroslav Wolf, who teaches at Yale Divinity School. The occasion for their sitdown was the publication of the professor's new book, which I am eager to read, Allah: A Christian Response. The title of the piece is Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? Of course, for Catholics the answer is unequivocally, Yes.

How can I use the word "unequivocally" when answering this question from a Catholic perspective? In the first instance Allah is simply Arabic for "God". Arabic-speaking Christians use the word in liturgies that pre-date the advent of Islam. The Shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, when translated in its entirety (i.e., we don't translate it into, say, English except the word "God"), is "There is no God but God". More explicitly and definitively, we look to Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. (par. 3)

Volf, in answering Galli's question, "Okay, then- do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?" says something notable: "First, all Christians don't worship the same God, and all Muslims don't worship the same God." He goes on to clarify by saying, "I think Muslims and Christians who embrace the normative traditions of their faith refer to... the same Being, when they pray, when they worship, when they talk about God."

This brings up a great question, namely what normative Christian tradition do Jones and Sapp embrace? I also wonder whether I worship the same God in whose name they claim to act.

Volf insists that there are several things that should never be forgotten when engaging the question about whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The first is that for both Christians and Muslims God is one. Secondly, God is merciful. Thirdly, God is just. Volf goes on to give a very good lesson on God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- one God in three divine persons: "Some Jews and Muslims accuse Christians of being idolatrous for believing the Trinity." Volf rightly points out that Jews and Muslims who think this "fundamentally misunderstand the Christian understanding of the Trinity. It's not that we worship three distinct entities who sit on three thrones next to each other; we worship one undivided, divine being who comes to us in three persons" (no doubt Volf is not implicitly endorsing modalism here- he is walking the tight rope of orthodoxy). He goes on to say that the explicit denials of the Trinity found in the Qu'ran "are denials of an inappropriately understood version of the Trinity". Hence, what Muslims deny about God as a Tri-unity of persons "ought to be denied by every right-believing Christian".

Volf ends the interview on a note very reminiscent of Pope Benedict's take on these matters:

We've come up with this idea that Muslims are our enemy, and the Muslim terrorism and extremism are the most important enemies we should be combatting. I think this is bogus. Terrorism is an important issue, but it pales in significance compared to the hedonistic character of the culture we inhabit. to have Muslims as our allies in combatting de facto hedonism is a very important thing.

To have a robust conversation between Muslims and Christians about what provides for good living, a life that's an alternative to hedonism, is what's required of us at this moment. Just like evangelicals at one point discovered Catholics can be their allies, I think in a much more attenuated sense (because we are dealing with two religions) , Muslims can be our allies in struggles for a proper way to live in the world today.

I would add that any meaningful Christian/Muslim dialogue must also include a serious discussion about religious freedom, which JPII put right after the right to life as the most fundamental of all human rights. The deliberate and even constitutional denial of this right in many Islamic countries, even to the point of persecution unto death, must begin to be rectified. By insisting on this, let's not forget that it was not until Vatican II, specifically the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignatatis Humanae, that the Catholic Church formally made this important concession. It began with acknowledging something that was not new, namely that "[t]he truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power". (par. 1)

Building on the axiom above, the Catholic Church then formally recognized- the oft-repeated "error has no rights" notwithstanding- "that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits." (par. 2) The council also declared "that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right." (par. 2)

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Democratic perils in Egypt

This morning it is necessary to follow-up with some observations concerning yesterday's post. I cannot restate too strongly the need to approach what is happening in Egypt with cautious optimism. To that end, despite calls from the both the left and the right to speak more clearly, that is, more simply about what is an irreducibly complex situation developing in the land of the Nile, the Obama Administration deserves credit for maintaining its cautious optimism while continuing to call for a for a methodical and well-planned transition to democratic rule in accord with the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people.

A Pew Forum on Religion survey conducted last April and May in seven countries with Muslim majorities: Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria, reveals that a sizable majority of Egyptians want democracy. In fact 59% of Egyptians agreed "that democracy was preferable to any other kind of government." However, 22% of Egyptians felt "that in some circumstances, a non-democratic government could be preferable" and some 16% "said it did not matter what kind of government is in place for a person in their situation."

More to the point I was trying to articulate earlier, another survey for the PewResearchCenter's Global Attitudes Project showed that 82% of Muslims in Egypt are in favor of stoning "people who commit adultery." 77% of Egyptians support "whippings and cutting off of [the] hands" of thieves and robbers. Most saliently, 84% of Muslims surveyed in Egypt supported "the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion." These views stand in contrast to the more moderate view of Muslims in Turkey, Indonesia, and Lebanon, who "largely reject the notion that harsh punishments should be the law in their countries."

The plight of two Egyptian women, Camelia Shehata, who is the wife of a Coptic priest, and Wafa Constantine serve as an examples of the lack of religious freedom in Egypt even now. As their stories have it, both women were Coptic Christians who converted to Islam. However, rather than being able to register with the government as Muslims, they were returned to their Christian families and not allowed to convert. Now, the stories of both women are hotly disputed and, as a result, are too complicated to hash out here, but the point is that religious freedom in Egypt is already non-existent and, judging from the Pew data, likely to get much worse.

In Dignatatis Humanae, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council pointed out that in the first instance "[r]eligious freedom... has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society" (par. 1). This landmark declaration goes on to assert that "[t]he human person has a right to religious freedom" and that all people "should have such immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human power, that no one should be forced to act against his conscience in religious matters" (par. 2). According to the magisterium of Pope John Paul II, the only human right more fundamental, that is, necessary than the right to worship God according to one's own conscience, is the right to life.

It bears noting that the Pew Forum data does not bode well for the twenty-two point Islamic reform set forth by leading Egyptian intellectuals late in January, which I posted in full yesterday.

A deep diaconal bow to Sandro Magister for bringing the Pew Center research to my attention.

Rosh Hashanah

I love Shofar Callin', which is odd because generally I don't listen to rap, not that I don't like it necessarily, it just isn't really part of my reportoire. Sundown this evening marks the end of Rosh Hashanah. So, I thought this would make a great Friday traditio. Plus, as mentioned last Saturday, I read Marek Halter's Sarah, which, while not a great work of literature by any stretch, is a very imaginative and interesting re-telling of the story of Abraham and Sarah, written in the voice of Sarah. Additionally, I am most of the way through Kugel's fantastic book on the Jewish Scriptures.

The "passive-aggressive death threat"/"informal fatwa" must be culturally resisted

There are so many things going on presently, including the daily doses of hubris on Capitol Hill from Goldman Sachs executives and one arrogant young man, dubbed by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, Wall Street's Mr. Fabu-less, also known as Fabrice Tourre, mastermind of the scheme that succeeded in getting Goldman Sachs sued by the S.E.C., and author of such e-mail missives as, "The whole building is about to collapse anytime now. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab . . . standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities!!!" Okay, enough about all that, monstruosities, indeed!

I now turn my attention to a most troubling development: the assault on free speech by on-line jihadists right here in the United States. I am referring to Comedy Central's decision to censor the recently re-broadcast Super Best Friends episode of South Park due to commercial pressures, which still resulted in a threat by one Zachary Adam Chesser, a twenty year old convert to Islam, who lives in Virginia, and who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee. Al-Amrikee simply means "the American" in Arabic. Due to the fears of the not-so-brave folks at Comedy Central, you can't even livestream Super Best Friends from southparkstudios.com. According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who knows a bit about death threats from the Islamic fringe, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Zach found this installment of South Park, "which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also 'featured' the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume," offensive and issued what Hirsi Ali calls an "informal fatwa" against South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone on RevolutionMuslim.com, which seems to have subsequently gone off-line. While I readily admit to not being a huge South Park fan, I do enjoy it from time-to-time. Most recently I thoroughly enjoyed Make Love, Not Warcraft, which I saw for the first time, despite the fact it originally aired in 2006, just to give you an idea.

Hirsi Ali, citing Zach's missive, writes that he reckons for their blasphemy Parker and Stone "will probably end up" like Dutch film-maker, Hirsi Ali's collaborator on the film Submission, Theo van Gogh. "Van Gogh, readers will remember," continues Ayaan, "was the Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam. He was killed for producing 'Submission,' a film that criticized the subordinate role of women in Islam, with me." You can watch Submission on-line, beginning with part one below:

WARNING: NOT FOR THE PRUDISH OR EASILY SQUEAMISH

Coming from my cultural and religious background, this film also depicts very well why I am a staunch opponent of plural marriage as practiced among certain groups and, at least here in Utah, often indulgently tolerated.

Of course, Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch parliament, while not, as it turned out, exactly in the Netherlands legally, having lied on her asylum application, all of which has since been resolved; she remains a Dutch citizen, though now living in the U.S., requires 24 hour protection, much like Salman Rushdie, who has lived under a fatwa, issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeni, since 1989.

Both Ross Douthat and Kathleen Parker weighed in on the side of free speech.

I am on-board with Ms. Hirsi Ali's proposals:

1)"One way of reducing the cost is to organize a solidarity campaign. The entertainment business, especially Hollywood, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful industries in the world. Following the example of Jon Stewart, who used the first segment of his April 22 show to defend 'South Park,' producers, actors, writers, musicians and other entertainers could lead such an effort." Given my very small sphere of influence, I will use my blog to stand in solidarity with Parker and Stone. Rather than castigate Coemdy Central, let's stand together.

2) "Another idea is to do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with." Because I am a Christian, whose faith is routinely ridiculed, caricatured, and degraded, and because I have a healthy respect for Islam and Muslim friends, I will not do anything to insult the sensitivities of true Muslims, those hundreds of millions of devout men and women, who seek to surrender themselves to the will of Allah, which is the Arabic word for God, the same word used by Arabic-speaking Christians to call upon the Almighty. As Nostra Aetate, promulgated by Vatican II, says: "The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God" (par. 3). Nonetheless, I do not hesitate to push for reforms in Muslim countries and the abolition of many so-called Islamic practices that are neither in the Qu'ran nor the hadiths, but primitive cultural accretions that pre-exist Islam, like female circumcision and other unjust and cruel practices against women.

I agree with Douthat when he writes: "if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down." I am glad that he mentioned last year's controversy at Yale University Press over its fear-driven decision to publish the book The Cartoons that Shook the World, edited by Jytte Klausen, which is an anthology of academic essays regarding the 12 cartoons by different artists published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper back in September 2005, without the cartoons appearing anywhere in the book and over the stringent objections of the book's editor. It was these cartoons that sparked widespread violence and attacks in 2006-07 in Europe and parts of the Muslim world.

Christos Anesti

A picture with a few words is worth gallons of ink and gigs of bytes

The bishop of Salt Lake City, The Most Rev. John C. Wester said at this rally: "We are gravely concerned about the collateral human consequences of immigration enforcement raids on the family unit. Many of our local churches, wards, synagogues, and temples have helped to respond to human needs generated by enforcement actions."

Photo and quote by Intermountain Catholic newspaper's Christine Young

Bishop Wester in the Deseret News

Last Friday the LDS-owned Deseret News published a wonderful story on Bishop John Wester, who serves the Diocese of Salt Lake City. It is a generous and gracious article about a generous and gracious man. Bishop on a mission: Wester aims to maintain community cooperation, by Scott Taylor. I think it is very true that bridges are built between "those of different faiths are based in simple friendship and understanding."

Indeed, as Bishop Wester points out, "There are all kinds of values that we cherish together and so much we can do together," he said, adding that while doctrinal differences may exist, "you work on what is common."

Statement of Cardinal Francis George, President USCCB, on recent SSPX events

Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the personal penalty of excommunication incurred by four schismatic bishops belonging to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. This gesture on the part of the Holy Father was an act of mercy and personal concern for the ordained and lay members of this Society and was meant to coincide with the fiftieth commemoration of the convening of the Second Vatican Council.

The Holy Father's lifting of the excommunications is but a first step toward receiving these four bishops, and the priests who serve under them, back into full communion with the Catholic Church. If these bishops are to exercise their ministry as true teachers and pastors of the Catholic Church, they, like all Catholic bishops, will have to give their assent to all that the Church professes, including the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

As is now widely known, one of the four bishops, Richard Williamson, has recently made some deeply offensive and utterly false statements about the Holocaust of the Second World War. Bishop Williamson has denied historical facts about the Shoah, in which six million Jews were cruelly annihilated, innocent victims of blind racial and religious hatred. These comments have evoked understandable outrage from within the Jewish community and also from among our own Catholic people. No Catholic, whether lay person, priest or bishop can ever negate the memory of the Shoah, just as no Catholic should ever tolerate expressions of anti-Semitism and religious bigotry.

I make my own the words of the Holy Father spoken at the General Audience on January 28, 2009: "[May] the Shoah show both old and new generations that only the arduous path of listening and dialogue, of love and forgiveness, can lead peoples, cultures and religions of the world to the longed-for goal of fraternity and peace, in truth. May violence never again humiliate man's dignity." We Catholic bishops in the United States are as committed as ever to building bonds of trust and mutual understanding with our elder brothers and sisters, the Jewish people, so that together with them we may be a blessing to the world.

Francis Cardinal George