The Religion of Peace
Here are the six predominant Western views of Islam identified by the author of What's your problem with Islam? [use BugMeNot.com to bypass LA Times registration]:
Positions 1. and 5. are pure politically correct nonsense. The views of the majority of Muslims rule out position 3. Position 4. has some validity, but assumes democracy is some panacea for the world's ills. That leaves positions 2. and 6.
Position 2., the neoconservative position, is correct in suggesting that the problem lies with Islam itself, but its analysis is dead wrong. Secularization, the fruit of the Reformation cannot be the answer. [See Edward Feser's Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?]
Islam, like Mormonism, is a Christian heresy. [See Hillaire Belloc's The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed.] That is its problem. That leaves position 6.
The West has embraced secular modernism and is rapidly aborting, sterilizing, contracepting, and euthanizing itself out of exisitence. East Asia (Eastasia?), with an inferiority complex and without any religion to fall back on, accepted secular modernism without much of a fight.
Muslims, God bless them, are resisting secular modernism! However, Muslims are facing its ungodly challenges with nothing to fall back on but a twisted, heretical theology!
Thus, I have a lot of sympathy for Muslims in their unenviable plight. I pray for their conversion daily, entrusting this seemingly impossible task to Our Lady of Fatima:
Describing The Modern Phase, Hillaire Belloc identifies secular modernism as the greatest threat the Church has ever faced. What chance could there be of a temporary strategic alliance with Islam against this shared foe?
"Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?" asks Pat Buchanan in What Does America Offer the World?
Here are the six predominant Western views of Islam identified by the author of What's your problem with Islam? [use BugMeNot.com to bypass LA Times registration]:
1. The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society.
2. The fundamental problem is not religion itself but the particular religion of Islam. It does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that an Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth: Islam is stuck in the Middle Ages. What it needs is its Reformation.
3. The problem is not Islam but Islamism. Fanatics such as Osama bin Laden have twisted a great religion into the service of hate. We can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree.
4. The problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but the specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 Arab League members, none is a home-grown democracy. (Iraq now has elements of democracy but hardly home-grown.) This is not a racist claim but an argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernization.
5. We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, Western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created the mortal enemies of Western liberal democracy. And, after causing (via the Holocaust), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians.
6. The most acute tension between the West and Islam comes at the edges where they meet, where young first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants encounter secular modernity. Its seductions attract them, but, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes or their marginalization, a few Muslim young people embrace a fierce, extreme new version of the faith of their fathers.
Positions 1. and 5. are pure politically correct nonsense. The views of the majority of Muslims rule out position 3. Position 4. has some validity, but assumes democracy is some panacea for the world's ills. That leaves positions 2. and 6.
Position 2., the neoconservative position, is correct in suggesting that the problem lies with Islam itself, but its analysis is dead wrong. Secularization, the fruit of the Reformation cannot be the answer. [See Edward Feser's Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?]
Islam, like Mormonism, is a Christian heresy. [See Hillaire Belloc's The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed.] That is its problem. That leaves position 6.
The West has embraced secular modernism and is rapidly aborting, sterilizing, contracepting, and euthanizing itself out of exisitence. East Asia (Eastasia?), with an inferiority complex and without any religion to fall back on, accepted secular modernism without much of a fight.
Muslims, God bless them, are resisting secular modernism! However, Muslims are facing its ungodly challenges with nothing to fall back on but a twisted, heretical theology!
Thus, I have a lot of sympathy for Muslims in their unenviable plight. I pray for their conversion daily, entrusting this seemingly impossible task to Our Lady of Fatima:
Describing The Modern Phase, Hillaire Belloc identifies secular modernism as the greatest threat the Church has ever faced. What chance could there be of a temporary strategic alliance with Islam against this shared foe?
"Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?" asks Pat Buchanan in What Does America Offer the World?
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
<< Home