Good old Archbishop George Pell. The Sydney Morning Herald today calls him "the country's most influential catholic", which is surely a bit of an overstatement. He is far too much of a straight talking conservative for that. I also suspect that a small majority of Catholics here (and in most western countries) are of the soft left variety now.
Anyway, he is quoted in the SMH today as saying:
Australia had not been much changed by the rising Islamic threat after September 11, 2001, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said. But this could change depending "on how many terrorist attacks" Islamic extremists could "bring off successfully". "The million-dollar question" was whether intolerance was a modern distortion of Islam or arose out of internal logic. "It's difficult to find periods of tolerance in Islam. I'm not saying they're not there, but a good deal of what is asserted is mythical."
He obviously is not in the Karen Armstrong camp. She gave an interview in Salon recently and had this to say about the Koran and violence:
[Interviewer]: Sam Harris, in his book "The End of Faith," has seven very densely packed pages of nothing but quotations from the Quran with just this message. "God's curse be upon the infidels"; "slay them wherever you find them"; "fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it." And Sam Harris' point is that the Muslim suicide bombings are not the aberration of Islam. They are the message of Islam.
[Armstrong]: Well, that's simply not true. He's taken parts of those texts and omitted their conclusions, which say fighting is hateful for you. You have to do it if you're attacked, as Mohammed was being attacked at the time when that verse was revealed. But forgiveness is better for you. Peace is better. But when we're living in a violent society, our religion becomes violent, too. Religion gets sucked in and becomes part of the problem. But to isolate these texts as though they expressed the whole of the tradition is very mischievous and dangerous at this time when we are in danger of polarizing people on both sides. And this kind of inflammatory talk, say about Islam, is convincing Muslims all over the world who are not extremists that the West is incurably Islamophobic and will never respect their traditions. I think it's irresponsible at this time.
[Interviewer]: But many people would say you can't just pick out the peaceful and loving passages of the sacred scriptures. There are plenty of other passages that are frightening.
[Armstrong]: I would say there are more passages in the Bible than the Quran that are dedicated to violence. I think what all religious people ought to do is to look at their own sacred traditions. Not just point a finger at somebody else's, but our own. Christians should look long and hard at the Book of Revelation. And they should look at those passages in the Pentateuch that speak of the destruction of the enemy.
I think Armstrong is being rather disingenuous here though; it seems she is pretending for a moment that the New Testament, which after all is the modern basis of Christianity, doesn't represent a dramatic change in the view of violence from that contained in parts of the Old Testament. (The Book of Revelation is in its own weird category of its own, and there was considerable disagreement centuries ago over whether it should be included in the Bible at all. Anyway, it's not as if Catholicism in my lifetime has ever paid it much attention. I suppose American fundamentalism pays it more attention, and this form of Christianity is what seems to annoy Armstrong the most.)
As for the correct reading of the Koran, here I am somewhat at a loss to have an independent opinion. The practical problem is, from my cursory look at the book, it seems unreadable as narrative. (I have the same reaction to the Book of Mormon. It seems to come with the territory when the book is claimed to be a direct and unalterable dictation from God. He needs an editor badly.) The Wikipedia entry on the Koran goes some way to explaining why it is so unreadable.
So what does a conservative like me do? Side with the conservative Archbishop, of course! Put it this way: I suspect he may be closer to the truth and that Armstrong, in her project to rehabilitate all religions into one (read the rest of her interview), probably sides with the softer interpretions of Islamic history because it suits her ideas better.
5 comments:
Rising to the bait...
I was appalled by Pell galumphing into America with his views on the Koran. I thought that he should look at our sacred scriptures first, especially the early bits with God doing all the smiting and picking winners.
Geoff
Yes, but you don't think there is something to my point that Christians are Christians, not Jews?
Obviously, the Koran must be capable of being read as promoting peace, just as parts of the Bible can be read as justifying forceful conversion to Christianity. But, wouldn't most people have to agree that Christian religious battle is a little difficult to justify from the New Testament when you have Jesus acting and speaking much more like a peacenik. (Causing a scene at the Temple notwithstanding.) Obviously, Jesus was in the right political setting to promote uprising against the Romans. He didn't.
In Islam, on the other hand, you have a founder who was a tribal and secular leader (as well as a religious one) who engaged in about 10 years of in the field battle. The encouragement to attack the infidel in the Koran therefore is rather more likely to have direct relevance to the Islamic faithful than Jewish tribal battles have for Christians, don't you think?
Having said that, it is possible Armstrong is right, but it seems clear that other historians disagree, and I doubt that they are all right wing warriors.
You have obviously not suffered through enough protestant sermons based on OT wrath of God texts.
If Islam is inherently violent it seems odd that there have been times when it has been tolerant of Jews and Christians while Christians were burning heretics and killing the infidel.
I wonder if Mahomet was the best prophetic voice for his time and people. My preference is for Jesus as an expression of dangerous self giving love that shows us the divine, but Armstrong's chapters on Islam in History of God show other ways that are undoubtedly Islamic but certainly spiritual and life giving.
Geoff
It's been a little while since conversion to Christianity was the motive for actual war, though, as opposed to the hope that the godless would be crushed by the wrath of God.
The suggestion is that the peaceful and tolerant periods (or interpretations) of Islam are not strictly derived from it's source. Just as the violent and oppresive periods of Christianity are not strictly derived from its source. It's the interpretation and practical application of the source which leads to the "aberration" in either case.
So, one can applaud the spiritual and life giving Islamists who are peaceful and tolerant, while also worrying that the motive towards violence in other branches of the religion is indeed inherent in their scripture.
There are still elements of Christianity that want to state a manifest destiny to violently deal with those who disagree with them, but I agree that Jesus is a different sort of beginning than Mohammed (I can't spell the prophet's name reliably).
What I was trying to suggest was that he may have been the best prophetic expression for his time and culture that was possible.
I suppose I run up against the difficulty that I could appear to be down on Christian fundamentalism and not Muslim fundamentalism. I'd like to be against both. But Islam is still largely premodern and needs to be judged against premodern Christianity/Christendom. Perhaps the question is whether Islam has the potential to be pluralist and postmodern. On current trends perhaps not, but then the Catholic Church is still struggling with the same thing.
Could an Islamic Vatican 2 succeed?
The fact that Toledo was possible suggests so.
Thanks Steven, I'm off!
Post a Comment