Back in the 1960's Americans were deeply divided on matters of war and race. While Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and religious leaders associated with his Southern Christian Leadership Conference led protests and committed acts of civil disobedience demanding civil rights, they were countered by white Christian preachers in the South who warned of the dangers of violating God's will by ignoring the punishment God had meted out to the "sons of Ham." And while New York's Cardinal Francis Spellman had traveled to Vietnam to bless U.S. troops as they battled "godless Communism," a Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan led fellow clergymen and women in protests against the war, often resulting in their arrest and imprisonment (in one case, for burning the Selective Service files of young men who were to be drafted to serve in the military).
During this entire period I do not recall Christianity being described as a warlike or racist faith. Nor do I recall King and Berrigan being referred to as "Christian protesters." We did not engage in drawn out theological debates in an effort to determine which interpretation of Christianity was correct. Rather we defined these individuals by what they did. There were either "segregationists" and "civil rights leaders" or they were "supporters of the war" and "peace activists."
What we may have understood, at least implicitly, was that because a person or institution used religious language to define or validate certain behaviors that did not make that behavior "religious." Nor did this define, by itself, the religion to which they adhered. This is something that many in the West still understand, at least when it comes to Christianity. Because President George W. Bush, in some speeches, described the Iraq war as America carrying out God's will, we knew not to refer to that conflict as a "Christian" war. Our discussion of Islam is a different matter.
For reasons beyond the scope of this short piece, when dealing with Islam, political leaders, media commentators and ordinary folk here in the West, appear intent on using religious language to describe every aspect of life and all forms of behavior, both good and bad, as "Muslim." In doing so, we create confusion for ourselves and others, leading, at times, to incoherence and some very strange policies.
For example, faced with the threat of individuals and groups using religious language to validate their acts of terror, we refer to them as "Muslim terrorists." But then because we recognize that they represent only a tiny fraction of Muslims, we maintain that they "don't speak for Islam". This then leads us down the tortuous path of attempting to define what is "good" Islam versus "bad" Islam -- creating a kind of "state sanctioned" interpretation of a faith -- something we understood not to do when it involved Christianity.
Another example: a colleague, for whom I have the greatest respect, recently wrote a book in which he first correctly debunks the notion of "Muslim terrorists", but then goes on to write about "Muslim oil" -- by which he means oil coming from Gulf and Central Asian and some African countries. To which I respond: Does that make U.S. and Canadian oil "Christian" or "secular democratic" oil? Or is Venezuelan oil "Bolivarian" oil or whatever?
And finally, the White House recently sponsored a summit for Muslim entrepreneurs -- described in some of the literature as focusing on entrepreneurs from "Muslim majority countries and Muslim communities around the world." Aside from troubling questions about what message this sends to business people from the Arab World or Indonesia or elsewhere who may not be Muslim, or what local sectarian tensions such an effort may exacerbate, what exactly is a "Muslim entrepreneur"? Or, for that matter, what is a "Christian entrepreneur" or "Hindu entrepreneur"?
At the end of the day, there are terrorists, there is oil and there are people who start up and run businesses. They are better defined by what they do. For government or the rest of us to insist on defining them by their faith, or even how they describe themselves or how they define their actions, is at best careless. It also runs the risk of Western governments treading into the murky waters of sanctioning "good" or acceptable Islam or applying a religious litmus test on groups which, in itself, makes a political statement that is most certainly none of our business, and can be dangerous.
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It's hard not to include religious affiliation with people who blow up buildings in the name of Islam or people who murder doctors or blow of abortion clinics in the name of Christianity or attack Palestinians in the name of Zionism.
This self-identification is doing immense harm to reasonable people of faith. Perhaps as much as government, media and individuals who bring religious affiliation into descriptions that don't require it.
The more one yaks about how religious he/she is...the more suspect they are. Sorry.
What if peace just doesn't sell?
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
http://www.vancouverite.com/2010/01/08/top-muslim-clerics-issue-fatwa-denouncing-terror-attacks-on-canada-and-u-s/
http://article.wn.com/view/2010/03/02/Top_Muslim_cleric_to_issue_antiterrorism_fatwa/
http://www.islamfortoday.com/terrorism.htm
Ahh heck, google 'muslim clerics denouncing terrorists' and just work through the nearly 100,000 hits yourself.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
It is an irrefutable fact that monotheistic societies are winners in evolutionary terms. And the judeo-christian faith family ( which includes islam - they share some books ) is a particularly successful strain of monotheism.
I recommend picking up the book 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'. It is a study of the history of cultural conflicts and how the winning side won. While religion didn't git billing in the title they have a fascinating section focusing specifically on how religion makes a society more successful as a whole ( at the expense of individuals in the society, yes. Absolutely. ).
Not better. Not more moral. Not right.
But better equipped to kick over other folks apple carts and take their stuff. Which, like deadbeat daddery, is Darwin tested, Evolution approved.
This is much like how living in squalor allowed Europeans to both incubate/develop and **become resistant to** virulent microbes that devastated indigenous populations with better sanitary habits. Because most of them lived in filth and rarely bathed they got a huge combative edge over, for example, Native Americans. Survival Of The Sickest ( Another good book ).
We can't just say "stop" ( well we can, it just won't work ). We have to find a superior alternative that provides the benefits of religion without the drawbacks.
And evolutionary processes are not limited to squishy biological stuff only, as you alluded. Religions, politics, all kinds of complex, interconnected things also follow seemingly Darwinian models.I think this is why Steven Hawking has recently advised caution in interacting with any space-faring species we might encounter ;) They might be very much like us...
epu
Israel, as a nation, commits immense brutality and dehumanization against the Palestinian people. And explicitly, this is done in the name of the Jewish people. I am against Israel, but I would never refer to them as "the Jews," because I understand that there is a difference between individual believers and how they allow their beliefs to impact others.
Likewise, while some terrorist acts are committed in the name of Islam, one cannot conflate the actions of a handful of fundamentalists with millions of people around the globe; there are human faces here.
It tends to me a bit more then the handful.
Like the Islamic temple near Houston, where the surrounding property was bought by christians and turned in to pig farms. They hold anti-muslim rallies there all the time where great American christians sing Lee Greenwood's song and have guest speakers spout anti-muslim rhetoric through a very loud P.A.
Since then, our country has been subjected to an intense amount of religious influence: the growth of the "new" churches and all those millions who folow. I'm fairly spiritual myself, but the folks I know personally who call themselves Christian seem to me to be quite narrow-minded. Either believe in jesus and all that we believe or you are not "saved" and nothing else will do. And the worst of this is their political leanings. Do they not realize that politics, governance, the Constitution does NOT revolve around religion? Do they not know that this country was founded on religious freedom?
What has happened to my country?
oh hell no!
nuff said
Within some segments of Islam, images of the Prophet are prohibited - this is not from the Koran, but taken from the hadith. Within those segments, some extremists take it further into violence.
Your position is much is like saying Christianity requires women to be subservient to men.
Innthat sense the point of this article is well-taken.
It's an honest question. If the radicals are so few, why are they all we see on the news? Where are the friendly and peaceful folks who want to get along with others and stop the madness? Why are they so quiet when it's their own religion which is taking the hits at the moment? Why isn't Pakistan breaking out in peace right now, instead of hatred?
Violence and radicalism make better news. It's that simple: it sells. Consider how comfortable your life is - when the closest contact you have with conflict in the Middle East, and everywhere, comes in the form of the news. If you don't think the everyday people around whom these wars rage just aren't doing enough, consider that it's pretty hard to stop a fundamentalist group when an occupying foreign army is killing your peoples as "collateral damage" left and right, and when you are simply trying to keep your family fed, safe, and alive.
They are in Iran...
No, really, while our "Allies," in Saudi Arabia have state sponsored textbooks calling America '"The Great Satan" and supporting the Wahhabi faith (the splinter Muslim faith that believes that Jihad is a path to heaven-the state religion of Saudi Arabia), the population of Iran is the most Pro-US group of Muslims outside Indonesia.
BUT, there are those who a willfully collapse all sorts of violence under the descriptor 'Muslim' to advance their own agendas and for the sole purpose of dehumanizing all Muslims. They've been quite successful at it, I might add.
Some press use the term "Islamist" to describe Muslims who want to violently impose a fundamental Islam, and I am also seeing the term "Christianist" in the blogosphere.
I like these terms -- what do you think Mr. Zogby?
this country to genericize all or most activities in much of the Middle East and certain parts
of Asia with the preface of "Muslim." Point well taken -- and appreciated.