Once again, Roland Shirk contributes much to the discussion of Christians and their attitudes towards Islam. Pass this along to your Christian friends who still believe that all religions are equally good and benign.
From Jihad Watch April 10 by Roland Shirk
More critical to the contemporary struggle between Islam and the West is the proper attitude Christians should take against their enemies. One thoughtful, long-time commentor, Ole Hartling wrote:
First of all, let me posit that if Christianity really demanded “the impossible, ethically speaking” that this would prove it was false and ought to be abandoned. Of course, the question would then arise, “How do you define 'impossible'? Do you mean humanly impossible, without divine assistance? Saints have accomplished amazing things, and worldly men have always tried to water down the Gospel. All things are possible with God,” et cetera. So instead of the word “impossible” why don't we try a slightly different test: Does the Christian ethical system demand things that are unnatural, undesirable, incompatible with human flourishing? If it did, then that would strongly suggest that the whole religion was evil—which is precisely what we are asserting about Islam. I'm not such a coward that I'm unwilling to subject my own religion to this test.
I'll give a few examples of how one might assay this assertion. Christ in the Gospels asserts in one place that the most perfect way of life is to sell all one's goods, give them to the poor, and follow Him preaching the Gospel. Did Jesus mean this as a universal command, that all should follow? Some heretics over the centuries, including the Waldensians, the Spiritual Franciscans, and later Tolstoy and his followers, said that He did. One need not be an economist to see that the abolition of private property, and the abandonment of all productive activity save preaching, would lead to universal starvation. If the Church had read these Gospel injunctions as commandments, Christianity would indeed have been incompatible with human thriving—and the Romans would have been right to try to stamp it out.
This becomes more obvious when we look at still another of what Catholics came to call the “Evangelical Counsels,” celibacy. Christ points with approval to those who become “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,” and St. Paul urges those who can remain celibate and focus on preaching by all means to do so. But the Church acknowledged from the beginning that most people were called to marriage, and instead of disdaining this calling she made it an indissoluble sacrament. Had Jesus demanded celibacy of everyone, He would have been urging the extinction of the human race, and thereby proved Himself its enemy. Pontius Pilate's sentence would have been just.
The same standard applies when we come to the Gospel injunctions to non-violence. Indeed, St. Paul did not demand that converts quit the Roman army, or refuse to serve in government—the institution whose reason for existence is to maintain a safe monopoly on violence. Many early saints were soldiers, and the conversion of the Roman empire took place after Constantine invoked the Christian God for victory in battle. No one—not a single major Christian figure at the time—suggested that it was hypocritical for an emperor to be Christian. Instead, St. Augustine wrote in The City of God that the need for armies and police was a result of Original Sin, the inborn human tendency toward anarchy and self-seeking, which worldly governments were instituted to restrain. He also pioneered the Church's teaching on Just War, attempting to set a high standard that must be met before Christians resorted to violence. But orthodox Christians always maintained that it was our duty to defend innocent third parties against the aggressions of evil men. Again, if the Christian answer had been different—if the Gospel taught that I cannot defend my children from rape, or my country from Muslim conquest—the religion would simply be evil. Even Islam would be preferable.
However, history bears me out. Not a single significant voice was raised against the Byzantines when they fought Islamic conquests. There are no records of Christian pacifists in Egypt or Syria urging a Gandhi-style non-violent response to the advances of Muslim armies. The new, pre-emptive dhimmitude being urged on us by certain clerics is not the fruit of Christian orthodoxy but contemporary liberalism, which acts as a kind of civilizational AIDS, finding excuses to undermine and render impossible every healthy measure of self-defense. Just as a retro-virus infiltrates and corrupts the existing DNA of human cells, so liberalism twists the tenets of Christian humanism, the Western insistence on tolerance and equality, our decent instinct of respect for other's cultures and beliefs, and turns them into toxic heresies by negating the countervailing values that made these values viable. We are faced with rights ungrounded in any responsibilities, with guilt that cannot be assuaged short of mass suicide, with a monstrous double standard that calls us to loathe our ancestors and subjugate our descendants—while holding our enemies blameless for the crimes they commit today, or threaten us with tomorrow.
So I'll say for the record that despite the excesses that took place as they were waged, the Crusades were a great moment in Christian history—as the Church has recognized by canonizing so many Crusaders (King Louis IX and Bernard of Clairvaux are two well-known examples), and the current cringing surrender many urge before Islam is a sickening, un-Christian scandal—on the order of the suicidally stupid Children's Crusade. Any religion that will not fight in its own defense deserves to be persecuted—and there are plenty abroad in the Muslim world who will happily oblige it.
From Jihad Watch April 10 by Roland Shirk
Defending the Innocent
My last column on the totalitarian nature of the Saudi religious regime raised a number of worthwhile questions. First, since I contrasted the treatment of Jews in the Papal States with that of non-Muslims in what we can fairly call the Muslim Vatican, a number of readers pointed out genuinely regrettable aspects of papal policy. I was not claiming, and I hope I didn't inadvertently imply, that I approve of all these policies. The current pope doesn't, nor did several of his predecessors, and Pope John Paul II issued an apology for acts of anti-Semitism that took place on the papal watch. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that, if we're comparing theocratic regimes, the Papal States have a far better record for tolerance than the Arabians have racked up over the centuries. For a good overview of the Church's fraught relationship with the original People of God, I recommend this article.More critical to the contemporary struggle between Islam and the West is the proper attitude Christians should take against their enemies. One thoughtful, long-time commentor, Ole Hartling wrote:
The main problem is that Christianity is a suicide pact - assured destruction of any society build upon Christians norms and beliefs. Christianity only survived by becoming 'un-Christian' and more like Islam. The Christian Holy Wars (Crusades) under the banner of Christ instead of loving the enemies and turning the other cheek is an example of a more realistic approach to reality - but alas a very un-Christian one.
You should not love they enemies but fight them. In this matter the Muslims are not confused. They fight the enemies of Allah, and that is a more realistic approach to reality than what Christianity demands.
So why do the Christians complain when confronted with the demands from the religion of the Muslim warriors? They should realize that they cannot get the best of both worlds. Either is it about salvation of the soul or of saving this world. It cannot be both. Unless you are a Muslim who believes that killing the enemies of Allah will save the world AND their souls.
So we have an unsolvable conflict between the two universal salvation religions because they advice two different ways to salvation that is incompatible and mutually exclusive. Islam demands too little from man, Christianity the impossible, ethically speaking. If we could just find an ethical middle ground, the problems may be solved.
First of all, let me posit that if Christianity really demanded “the impossible, ethically speaking” that this would prove it was false and ought to be abandoned. Of course, the question would then arise, “How do you define 'impossible'? Do you mean humanly impossible, without divine assistance? Saints have accomplished amazing things, and worldly men have always tried to water down the Gospel. All things are possible with God,” et cetera. So instead of the word “impossible” why don't we try a slightly different test: Does the Christian ethical system demand things that are unnatural, undesirable, incompatible with human flourishing? If it did, then that would strongly suggest that the whole religion was evil—which is precisely what we are asserting about Islam. I'm not such a coward that I'm unwilling to subject my own religion to this test.
I'll give a few examples of how one might assay this assertion. Christ in the Gospels asserts in one place that the most perfect way of life is to sell all one's goods, give them to the poor, and follow Him preaching the Gospel. Did Jesus mean this as a universal command, that all should follow? Some heretics over the centuries, including the Waldensians, the Spiritual Franciscans, and later Tolstoy and his followers, said that He did. One need not be an economist to see that the abolition of private property, and the abandonment of all productive activity save preaching, would lead to universal starvation. If the Church had read these Gospel injunctions as commandments, Christianity would indeed have been incompatible with human thriving—and the Romans would have been right to try to stamp it out.
This becomes more obvious when we look at still another of what Catholics came to call the “Evangelical Counsels,” celibacy. Christ points with approval to those who become “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,” and St. Paul urges those who can remain celibate and focus on preaching by all means to do so. But the Church acknowledged from the beginning that most people were called to marriage, and instead of disdaining this calling she made it an indissoluble sacrament. Had Jesus demanded celibacy of everyone, He would have been urging the extinction of the human race, and thereby proved Himself its enemy. Pontius Pilate's sentence would have been just.
The same standard applies when we come to the Gospel injunctions to non-violence. Indeed, St. Paul did not demand that converts quit the Roman army, or refuse to serve in government—the institution whose reason for existence is to maintain a safe monopoly on violence. Many early saints were soldiers, and the conversion of the Roman empire took place after Constantine invoked the Christian God for victory in battle. No one—not a single major Christian figure at the time—suggested that it was hypocritical for an emperor to be Christian. Instead, St. Augustine wrote in The City of God that the need for armies and police was a result of Original Sin, the inborn human tendency toward anarchy and self-seeking, which worldly governments were instituted to restrain. He also pioneered the Church's teaching on Just War, attempting to set a high standard that must be met before Christians resorted to violence. But orthodox Christians always maintained that it was our duty to defend innocent third parties against the aggressions of evil men. Again, if the Christian answer had been different—if the Gospel taught that I cannot defend my children from rape, or my country from Muslim conquest—the religion would simply be evil. Even Islam would be preferable.
However, history bears me out. Not a single significant voice was raised against the Byzantines when they fought Islamic conquests. There are no records of Christian pacifists in Egypt or Syria urging a Gandhi-style non-violent response to the advances of Muslim armies. The new, pre-emptive dhimmitude being urged on us by certain clerics is not the fruit of Christian orthodoxy but contemporary liberalism, which acts as a kind of civilizational AIDS, finding excuses to undermine and render impossible every healthy measure of self-defense. Just as a retro-virus infiltrates and corrupts the existing DNA of human cells, so liberalism twists the tenets of Christian humanism, the Western insistence on tolerance and equality, our decent instinct of respect for other's cultures and beliefs, and turns them into toxic heresies by negating the countervailing values that made these values viable. We are faced with rights ungrounded in any responsibilities, with guilt that cannot be assuaged short of mass suicide, with a monstrous double standard that calls us to loathe our ancestors and subjugate our descendants—while holding our enemies blameless for the crimes they commit today, or threaten us with tomorrow.
So I'll say for the record that despite the excesses that took place as they were waged, the Crusades were a great moment in Christian history—as the Church has recognized by canonizing so many Crusaders (King Louis IX and Bernard of Clairvaux are two well-known examples), and the current cringing surrender many urge before Islam is a sickening, un-Christian scandal—on the order of the suicidally stupid Children's Crusade. Any religion that will not fight in its own defense deserves to be persecuted—and there are plenty abroad in the Muslim world who will happily oblige it.
No comments:
Post a Comment