Over the ages, the human mind has pondered many great mysteries of life, like "why am I here?", "What is my purpose in life", "Who is God?", or even "Is there a God?". The answers that have been proposed have been nearly as numerous as the minds that have been pondering these issues. Along with these high level questions are those which try to explain our current condition. For instance, why is there evil and suffering anyway? Or, is there even such a thing as good and evil?
One of the great subjects pondered by the human mind over the span of recorded history is the question of the human condition. Why do people do such terrible things, especially to each other? Or, for that matter, why do human beings aspire to be good in spite of this? It is the answer to these why questions which perplexes many but is so very important to answer, because in the answer to the question is its solution, and the solutions that have been proposed through history vary widely in their outcomes. While none have been successful at wiping out evil, I would submit that it is obvious that some have done demonstrably better than others at achieving relative peace and freedom.
Internal or External?
The fundamental question about evil-doing in people is whether the evil is built-in or whether it is due to external sources. In other words, do people do bad things because they are broken or because external conditions force them to? You can easily see that the way we respond to evil will depend completely upon which view we have. Take the story of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas as a whimsical example. The Grinch's evil "[he] hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season" is treated as a mystery, on which the narrator speculates "it could be perhaps that his shoes were too tight, or perhaps that his head wasn't screwed on just right; but I think that the most likely reason of all is that his heart was two sizes too small." Indeed, if the Grinch's problem was his shoes, the whole story would find a happy ending when the Grinch got new shoes. If the problem was the Grinch's heart, then the solution to the problem becomes much more complicated!
In Thomas Sowell's book "A Conflict of Visions" these two viewpoints correspond closely with what he calls the "Constrained" and "Unconstrained" visions. The former would correspond to the view that the problems with the human race are internal, a part of our make-up. The latter would correspond to the idea that our problems are from external sources. In his discussions, the constrained vision has humans that are inherently flawed and imperfect, while the unconstrained vision has people who are ultimately perfectible. Again, you can easily see how this might work itself out in real life. In the case of the Grinch, if the people who believe in human imperfection are right, the solution is probably a good police force and a long stay in prison for the Grinch for everyone else's well being (after he is sued in civil court for damages). If the problem is external (tight shoes) then the solution would be to have the Whoville council mandate correctly sized shoes for everybody. (Paid for by taxes, fines or jail time for wearing small shoes?)
Those philosophies of governance based on the external evil model are usually Utopian in scope. I used to have similar views, due to a steady diet of humanistic school teaching and science fiction in my youth. By the time I was in junior high my thoughts were like this: As the sciences of sociology and psychology advance, eventually scientists would discover the perfect way to raise children, eliminating all of the mistakes that fallible (and non-professional) parents made which caused kids to go wrong. At that point it was inevitable that, for the good of society, all children would have to be taken from parents and raised "scientifically" so that the human race could enter a time with no crime, bullying (a constant problem in jr high) and other ugliness in the social fabric. I used to expound on these theories to a Catholic friend of mine, who was (quite appropriately) horrified at my ideas. Even in my example (and the Grinch one above) you can see the problem - utopian visions require restricting freedoms of everybody to achieve their goals.
My thesis in these posts will be that that the philosophies that have the highest view of human nature will ironically lead to the most destructive and repressive regimes in the world, in which finally the individual is lost and destroyed. Conversely, I will try to show that a lower view of human nature have produced more freedom, liberty and happiness, and have led to a higher status for individual humans. (Note that I have separated the concepts of human nature and human worth, which I believe have to be kept separate.) The seeming contradiction of this should make sense by the time I finish.
(Stay tuned for part 2...)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Heart to Heart Response
What strategies can be used to deal with an uncomfortable situation brought about by another person? Fight or flight? Ignore, resolve, or counterattack? Obviously it depends on the type of situation. There are of course times when the situation is hopeless and it is best to do the "ignore it and maybe it will go away" tactic, for instance when a crazy or drunk person is challenging you, hoping for an excuse to get into a fight. Or in some political discussions it may be best to "fight fire with fire" to counter arguments. For the purpose of this discussion, however, I am speaking of times when another person (especially a friend or relative) confronts us about something uncomfortable - either a personal request for emotional support or a rebuke for hurtful behavior on our part. There are only two choices - our response will be either be a good-faith helpful response, or it will not. In the latter case, if we choose to not respond in good faith then we will do one of three things: attack, ignore, or emote. It is these four responses that I would like to discuss.
ATTACK
A counterattack can take many forms. A purely defensive move when confronted with something uncomfortable, a counterattack usually is instinctual rather than premeditated. In the case where someone points out something about you that seems wrong to them, it is usually easiest to question their right to criticize you by pointing out their own faults. There is always something wrong with them that
you can see, and, even if you can't change their mind, you can at least shut them up for a time and leave the conversation feeling justified. What about if the uncomfortable situation is not confrontational? For instance, what if someone comes to you for help? Is there a way to do a self-defense attack in that case? Of course there is, but the counter-attack is different. In that case, we counterattack by either (a) being more pitiful than them or by (b) acting like their request is causing us great emotional stress. This will certainly deflect all requests for help, except from the most desperate people - those who are either totally insensitive to others or who are at least willing to play the "I am more pitiful than you" game.
IGNORE
A more effective (and more often used) strategy is to pretend to listen and respond, but not actually give anything that has been asked for. How many times have we been in the situation where we attempt to ask a friend a question or bring up a painful subject and we have a discussion with the other person, but after we get home we realize that, though we talked for a long time, we can't remember a single, specific answer to anything. Not only this, but generally we can't actually remember anything that the other person said. This is a very effective method, because it takes a considerable emotional effort to have a *second* conversa
tion with the person on the same subject, and besides, they usually now have time to erect defenses to prevent a second discussion anyway. The problem with this strategy is that it allows us to be shabby and mean without too much conviction. The person ignored has their pain doubled by our callousness and is now left hanging, wondering if it is worth the trouble to try again. It is also a clear violation of the admonition of the Lord in the sermon on the mount: "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." (Matt 5:23-24) Sadly, if there wasn't offense before, there is now. Eventually, a family, workplace, or church will be filled with a lot of isolated islands as the walls get stronger between people.
EMOTE
Another strategy is to produce a lot of strong emotions to simulate action. A great display of repentance or caring can be produced without a single actual instance of change or help. This is often
the response of a "feeler", who will often convince himself/herself that they have had a beautiful experience of friendship or personal revelation - often without any actual measurable change whatsoever. There will often be a great public testimony given by the Emoter about the exchange and how meaningful it was: "We had a heart to heart and we both cried", or "so and so challenged me to be a better person", etc. The real question is: did the person originating the interchange go away with their questions or concerns answered? Or will they just feel too guilty to bring it up again?
MEANINGFUL RESPONSE
So what is the alternative? I believe it can be found in the words of Paul to the believers in Corinth, found in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 8-11:
HEART TO HEART
I think that a lot of this passage hinges on the attitude of the Corinthians. They could have decided the "sorrowful letter" that Paul had previously sent them was for the purpose of making them feel bad, and acted accordingly. This would have been childish thinking - sort of like a teenager who tells a friend "my parents hate me and don't want me to ever have any fun" when told that they can't go to the midnight movie on a school night, instead of saying "they don't want me to go out that late on a school night. Sorry. Could we go on Friday night instead? I could go then!" If the Corinthians had responded that way then both they and Paul would have spent their time sorrowful. What a waste that would have been. How wonderful it is that they decided to give Paul the benefit of the doubt and not decided in advance that he just wanted them to emote.
This passage brings up one more interesting item. If we chose the "I'll just feel bad" route, it produces terrible things in our own lives. "the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, ... but the sorrow of the world produces death." There are two kinds of sorrow - there is the kind that produces quick life change and happiness, and there is the kind that produces wallowing in sadness and death - emotional and even physical.
This makes me think of the parallel stories of Peter and Judas. Both of them betrayed Jesus the same night - Peter denied knowing him three times (as predicted by Jesus) and Judas betrayed him to be arrested. Both Peter and Judas felt bad, though there was a marked difference. Before we undersell the betrayal of Peter, remember the emotional scene after his third denial, when from inside the house where the trial was taking place, Jesus looked right into the eyes of Peter with a "I told you that you would do this" look, and Peter went out and "wept bitterly". Wow. It almost looks like Judas repents more quickly than Peter even. While Peter is out weeping, Judas goes back to the high priest and throws the money back at them that h
e had received for his betrayal. But we can see the true source of the sorrow if we look more deeply. Judas felt *regret*, but this seems to be out of a sense of unfairness. Instead of true repentance, he went out in self-pity and killed himself, forcibly taking away from himself the chance of turning from his sin - he confirmed himself in it for eternity. I am sure he cried and emoted and demonstrated his unhappiness all the way to the field where he hung himself, but his self-pitying sorry resulted quite literally in death - physically and eternally.
Peter, on the other hand, while he did withdraw from ministry at first and went back to his old profession, when Jesus confronted and comforted him (at the end of the gospel of John) he turned back, turning his back on the sin he had committed, and became a leader in the church. He preached the first sermon in the history of the church (with 3000 converts), wrote some of our scriptures, and bravely died a martyr's death at the hands of the Romans many years later after a fruitful life of service. He had "repentance without regret" resulting in life - not only for him but for many others! Certainly the opposite outcome from Judas.
CONCLUSION
What does all the above have to do with my original premise? Everything. Part of keeping relationships healthy is making a heart connection to the other person. If someone comes to us with a need, we can either discern what they need or we can do what serves us - avoiding the uncomfortable either by giving empty help with big demonstrations of emotion or by doing something that will keep them at arm's length. Can we then go to God and expect his help, though, if our response to our friend was "be warmed and filled" with no actual help? Or if we responded "sorry, I will try to help you later (which will probably never come)"? Probably not. Can our families/workplaces/churches/clubs thrive if we sit behind our walls when others have reached out to us? Or looking at it another way, how much better would it be if we made it a point to always respond - even negatively if we need to - rather than leaving people hanging for the sake of our comfort?
ATTACK
A counterattack can take many forms. A purely defensive move when confronted with something uncomfortable, a counterattack usually is instinctual rather than premeditated. In the case where someone points out something about you that seems wrong to them, it is usually easiest to question their right to criticize you by pointing out their own faults. There is always something wrong with them that
you can see, and, even if you can't change their mind, you can at least shut them up for a time and leave the conversation feeling justified. What about if the uncomfortable situation is not confrontational? For instance, what if someone comes to you for help? Is there a way to do a self-defense attack in that case? Of course there is, but the counter-attack is different. In that case, we counterattack by either (a) being more pitiful than them or by (b) acting like their request is causing us great emotional stress. This will certainly deflect all requests for help, except from the most desperate people - those who are either totally insensitive to others or who are at least willing to play the "I am more pitiful than you" game.IGNORE
A more effective (and more often used) strategy is to pretend to listen and respond, but not actually give anything that has been asked for. How many times have we been in the situation where we attempt to ask a friend a question or bring up a painful subject and we have a discussion with the other person, but after we get home we realize that, though we talked for a long time, we can't remember a single, specific answer to anything. Not only this, but generally we can't actually remember anything that the other person said. This is a very effective method, because it takes a considerable emotional effort to have a *second* conversa
tion with the person on the same subject, and besides, they usually now have time to erect defenses to prevent a second discussion anyway. The problem with this strategy is that it allows us to be shabby and mean without too much conviction. The person ignored has their pain doubled by our callousness and is now left hanging, wondering if it is worth the trouble to try again. It is also a clear violation of the admonition of the Lord in the sermon on the mount: "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." (Matt 5:23-24) Sadly, if there wasn't offense before, there is now. Eventually, a family, workplace, or church will be filled with a lot of isolated islands as the walls get stronger between people.EMOTE
Another strategy is to produce a lot of strong emotions to simulate action. A great display of repentance or caring can be produced without a single actual instance of change or help. This is often
the response of a "feeler", who will often convince himself/herself that they have had a beautiful experience of friendship or personal revelation - often without any actual measurable change whatsoever. There will often be a great public testimony given by the Emoter about the exchange and how meaningful it was: "We had a heart to heart and we both cried", or "so and so challenged me to be a better person", etc. The real question is: did the person originating the interchange go away with their questions or concerns answered? Or will they just feel too guilty to bring it up again?MEANINGFUL RESPONSE
So what is the alternative? I believe it can be found in the words of Paul to the believers in Corinth, found in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 8-11:
For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.I like this passage because the people in Corinth, whatever their faults (which were many) actually got it. Many people think that they are responding to criticism or other communications when they emote strongly and freely. In this case, the Corinthians could have spent the next month publicly crying in repentance, weeping and gnashing their teeth, or alternatively they could have gotten all offended and gone on the warpath, issuing a strongly worded defense to Paul, vindicating themselves and disavowing his right to criticize them. Instead of these responses, they showed that they understood both Paul's heart and his intent. Paul didn't want to make them feel bad at all. He wanted them to be happy! By his own words Paul said as much, as he expressed his relief at seeing that the sorrow that they had was not a morose, pitiful outpouring of emotion but merely a correction with the result that they experienced joy - joy that they shared with Paul. Look at how specific their response was:
- They changed their behavior ("repentance")
- Earnestly - from the heart with no fakeness or ulterior motives,
- they vindicated themselves - checking against all charges, making sure everything was fixed,
- they were indignant - they agreed with Paul's charges, adopting his values and not just doing 'lip service',
- they had fear - they took it seriously, not flippantly,
- they showed longing - they really wanted to do the right thing,
- they had zeal - their response was not left "on the back burner" to do "when they had time" but was a first priority for them until it was complete,
- they avenged their own wrongdoing - justice was done, they took care of the results of their wrong actions and made things right,
- they demonstrated themselves innocent - not only did they fix things but they made sure that the change was complete and permanent.
HEART TO HEART
I think that a lot of this passage hinges on the attitude of the Corinthians. They could have decided the "sorrowful letter" that Paul had previously sent them was for the purpose of making them feel bad, and acted accordingly. This would have been childish thinking - sort of like a teenager who tells a friend "my parents hate me and don't want me to ever have any fun" when told that they can't go to the midnight movie on a school night, instead of saying "they don't want me to go out that late on a school night. Sorry. Could we go on Friday night instead? I could go then!" If the Corinthians had responded that way then both they and Paul would have spent their time sorrowful. What a waste that would have been. How wonderful it is that they decided to give Paul the benefit of the doubt and not decided in advance that he just wanted them to emote.
This passage brings up one more interesting item. If we chose the "I'll just feel bad" route, it produces terrible things in our own lives. "the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, ... but the sorrow of the world produces death." There are two kinds of sorrow - there is the kind that produces quick life change and happiness, and there is the kind that produces wallowing in sadness and death - emotional and even physical.
This makes me think of the parallel stories of Peter and Judas. Both of them betrayed Jesus the same night - Peter denied knowing him three times (as predicted by Jesus) and Judas betrayed him to be arrested. Both Peter and Judas felt bad, though there was a marked difference. Before we undersell the betrayal of Peter, remember the emotional scene after his third denial, when from inside the house where the trial was taking place, Jesus looked right into the eyes of Peter with a "I told you that you would do this" look, and Peter went out and "wept bitterly". Wow. It almost looks like Judas repents more quickly than Peter even. While Peter is out weeping, Judas goes back to the high priest and throws the money back at them that h
e had received for his betrayal. But we can see the true source of the sorrow if we look more deeply. Judas felt *regret*, but this seems to be out of a sense of unfairness. Instead of true repentance, he went out in self-pity and killed himself, forcibly taking away from himself the chance of turning from his sin - he confirmed himself in it for eternity. I am sure he cried and emoted and demonstrated his unhappiness all the way to the field where he hung himself, but his self-pitying sorry resulted quite literally in death - physically and eternally.Peter, on the other hand, while he did withdraw from ministry at first and went back to his old profession, when Jesus confronted and comforted him (at the end of the gospel of John) he turned back, turning his back on the sin he had committed, and became a leader in the church. He preached the first sermon in the history of the church (with 3000 converts), wrote some of our scriptures, and bravely died a martyr's death at the hands of the Romans many years later after a fruitful life of service. He had "repentance without regret" resulting in life - not only for him but for many others! Certainly the opposite outcome from Judas.
CONCLUSION
What does all the above have to do with my original premise? Everything. Part of keeping relationships healthy is making a heart connection to the other person. If someone comes to us with a need, we can either discern what they need or we can do what serves us - avoiding the uncomfortable either by giving empty help with big demonstrations of emotion or by doing something that will keep them at arm's length. Can we then go to God and expect his help, though, if our response to our friend was "be warmed and filled" with no actual help? Or if we responded "sorry, I will try to help you later (which will probably never come)"? Probably not. Can our families/workplaces/churches/clubs thrive if we sit behind our walls when others have reached out to us? Or looking at it another way, how much better would it be if we made it a point to always respond - even negatively if we need to - rather than leaving people hanging for the sake of our comfort?
"Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed". (Prov 27:5)
Thursday, September 2, 2010
An Islamic Reformation?
Obviously one great problem facing civilization today is the problem of "radical Islam" with its jihad against the west. (Actually, the east is a target also, but in places like China there is not much opportunity due to the stronger control over the populace by an authoritarian police state). One topic that is frequently bandied about in the media and blogosphere is the need for Islam to go through a "reformation". The general argument goes like this:
Personally, I don't think that this is a realistic or rational hope. The problems with this idea are many and I would like to discuss them. Once you wade through all of the wishful thinking and fantasy, the view is based on several misconceptions, which either show a lack of historical perspective or willful ignorance. For instance:
They Misunderstand Original Christianity
The assumptions mentioned above about the early stages of Christianity are not true at all. Jesus was decidedly apolitical. His own nation was waiting for a political messiah to overthrow the Romans and reestablish the earthly throne of David. Instead, he refused (at that time) to
take a political position, even to the point of telling the leaders to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's". He sent his disciples (down to the current day) to preach the gospel of salvation "to every creature" and "make disciples of all nations", but this was to be a mission of making invitations by appealing to hearts, not killing those who would not join. He rebukes Peter in the garden, telling him that "those who live by the sword will perish by the sword". All but one of the apostles died a painful death at the hands of unbelievers, and not even the aggressive evangelist Paul advocated anything but preaching and reasoning with unbelievers to try to woo them to God. The gospel was to be spread through love and friendly outreach. This is original Christianity.
The crusades, torture, and political control came after Constantine and making Christianity the state religion of Rome - an empire whose political structures of religion were left in place but "Christianized". An entire empire filled with non-believers suddenly found themselves conforming to the new order out of a desire to stay in good standing with the new "Christian" state. Those who were what I would call actual Christians (by conviction and heart conversion) were outnumbered by citizens who said "sure, I am a Christian". An empire which had just a few years before been feeding Christians to lions is now telling everyone "you must be a Christian, or else". To the public perception, the persecuted became the persecutors. The structure of the church had an uneasy relationship with the government and over time the old ways changed. A thousand years later it was not only very difficult to recognize the teachings of Jesus in what was now called the church, but when people came along and compared the organized religion called Christianity with the words found in the Bible, the church took the astounding tack of putting the Bible on the Index of Forbidden Books!
They Misunderstand the Reformation
The reformation was therefore not a new "re imagining" of Christianity, but a return to the original religion as described by its founder. It was a stripping off of over a thousand years of accumulated non-christian ideas from the world and its other religions. What Jesus taught was radical. What the "church" became was what all human religions of the time were - a works based, governmental body selling access to God with rules and special favors. The reformers rejected that (at the cost of many of their own lives) to try to get back to the teachings of Jesus. Did they do it perfectly? No, but there was steady progress. For instance, Martin Luther took a bold stand and was wonderful in many ways, but he still held some beliefs of the old church (for instance transubstantiation - there's a big word) and held strongly anti-Semitic views that tarnish his reputation now.
The point of all this is that the Christian reformation was a returning to the content of the Bible. The closer a believer is to the teaching of the Bible, the less like the medieval religion of Christianity they will be.
I should mention at this point that many people (including, sadly, our current president) try to discredit the Bible by pointing to verses in Leviticus and other places with strong punishments for religious crimes. Two things need to be said about that. First, the religious laws in the Torah are administrative laws for a theocracy. The biblical nation of Israel was a theocracy ruled by God and yes, it did have very strict laws. The nation of Israel was to be a special, holy people and these laws were part of their covenant with God and only for their local self-government. Secondly, the Jews were never commanded to go out and subdue the world for God and make everybody else submit to these laws. As Michael Medved has described it: Judaism is political but not evangelistic, Christianity is evangelistic and not political, but Islam is both evangelistic and political. That is the difference in a nutshell. To Islam the whole world is (or at least should be) a theocracy. A couple of real-world examples: While an observant Jew will refuse to eat pork, observant Muslims in this country have tried to force companies to take down billboards with cartoon pigs on them. Devout Christians will dress modestly and try to keep nudity off of prime-time TV, while often Muslims in England and France are right now justifying raping girls in western dress because they "dress like whores".
Author's Note: I don't want to be unfair in my characterizations above. Of course every religion has sickos (for instance the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas). The difference I am speaking of is not what many people might be doing in a religion but what the religion's founding documents, founder, and major leaders say. For example, Christians pretty much universally condemn Fred Phelp's church, as well as racists and abortion clinic bombers - quickly and decisively. Conversely, on 9-11 Muslims danced in the streets and celebrated all over the world. In the U.S., Muslims complain about persecution because people ask them to condemn terrorism (never gonna happen) or suggest a 13 story mosque should be built more than 600 ft from ground zero or make women show their faces for driver's license photos. On the other side, in many Muslim countries Christians hold services outside their burned-down churches which they can't re-build because it is against the law for them to do so. That is the difference I am speaking of.
They Misunderstand Islam
I understand that I am coming from an outside position on this one so I will try to not overstate my case. Islam started with political conquest. Unlike Christianity, the conquest did not start hundreds of years later but started with its founder, who established his religion with the point of a sword. Since then there has never really been a time where this has stopped. The initial spread of Islam reached up into Europe and was only stopped with bloody war. The Koran and other founding documents recount the initial military conquests of Islam and give rules for its continuance. This is a fact.
Some will point out that the Koran contains friendly and unfriendly verses. Established rules in Islam, though, include the law of abrogation, which states that later verses supersede the older ones, and the nastiest ones just happen to be the latter ones.
The very word "Islam" means "submission", and the essence of Islam is a strict system of works-based religious control that includes every part of life. It includes high religious duties as well as details as intrusive as which side to sleep on, what compass direction your bed should point in, which foot to use first when entering a room, which foot to put the most weight on when going to the bathroom, how to pick your nose correctly, etc. etc. etc. All of the individual's life comes under the control of the religion, all politics and family life comes under the control of the Mosque, and in a country under the control of Islam, non-Muslims will be tolerated but will live as second-class citizens, paying a special tax to the Muslim majority for the privilege of living and without any real rights. In countries where there a non-controlling but comparatively large population of Muslims (like Nigeria) there is constant violence - murder, kidnapping, burning down of churches and riots. These kinds of things are not limited to third-world countries but can be seen in places like Denmark, England and especially France. Again, these are the facts.
Moderate Means Different Things to Different People
The existence of large populations of generally nice Muslims in different countries is used to show the feasibility of "moderate" Islam. Added to this argument is the existence of those who call themselves Christians who "don't act all religious" all the time. To many modern people this is the best kind of religion and should be the goal of society. Sort of like a club people belong to. I remember the last episode of "7th Heaven" that I ever watched - one of the pastor's sons had a crisis of faith and went around to all of the different religions represented in his neighborhood. They were all friendly and in agreement with each other and it turned out that dad was regularly meeting with them and in unity with them. That is to be expected, I suppose, in a Hollywood show about a pastor who only mentioned the name of Jesus in one episode that I ever saw (he sang it after his heart attack as part of the song "do Lord"). That is the kind of moderate religion that the world likes. We're all on the same side and believe the same things - even pastors of churches are not "too religious".
The reason that this is important is because those who talk about Islam needing a reformation like Christianity had are thinking that modern, nominal Christianity was created by the reformation, which is totally false. There are nominal believers in every religion, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, both Roman Catholic and protestant.
If We Go "Back to the Book"
If Christians go back to the book, they will be "in the world but not of it". They will seek to love and coexist. There is nothing in the New Testament about establishing a state church or forcing converts or fighting bloody wars "for Jesus". Conquering the world will have to be in hearts, by invitation, one person at a time, through conversation. The final destruction of the enemies of God will be at the spoken word of the returning Son of God, not by his followers. To achieve the same thing in Islam, you would have to get rid of the Koran, and disavow most of its founding. This just ain't gonna happen. Sorry. No way. Just a rumor of destruction of one Koran causes deadly riots all over the world.
The most that non-Muslims can hope for is that Muslims will not follow their religious documents closely, or that they will pick and choose just their nicer doctrines (like nominal Christians who pick and choose but don't really follow Christ). But nominal believers in any religion will not all stay that way. Nominal Christians may read a Bible at any time, become convicted and decide to follow Christ. Nominal Muslims become radicalized by the Koran all the time also. Just think about it. If your neighbor becomes a fundamentalist, biblical Christian, you may have to put up with someone asking you about whether you know Jesus and if you have eternal life. They might (horrors) ask you more than once! (Insert scary music here) But your neighbor becomes a fundamentalist Muslim, he may try to kill hundreds of people to guarantee his entrance to heaven. (Some of the 9/11 terrorists went to the Islamic center about a half mile from my house.) Slightly different outcomes....
Conclusion
The upshot of all this is that all of these hopeful articles about how "Islam needs to go through a reformation and then everything will be hunky-dory" are living in a fantasy world and do not understand the issues involved. Either that or they are hoping for the world described in the song "Imagine", which describes a paradise coming in some wonderful future time where nobody has any beliefs! Ah, wonderful. Only two problems with that view. One, it will never happen unless there is a planet-wide lobotomy reducing all people to little more than vegetables. Secondly, even if you could magically cause the human race to get rid of all organized religions, I believe the world would immediately descend into anarchy or totalitarianism. Besides, that state wouldn't last long. People need to believe in something. If not a god, then some sort of pseudo scientific political philosophy with an all-powerful state. No, a reformation of Islam is not going to happen, and hoping for one will just distract us from dealing with the world that is.
- Christianity used to be a brutal, totalitarian religion with ecclesiastical control of government, torture, and crusades. After 1500 years of this, there was a reformation of Christianity that produced a kinder, gentler version of the religion that concentrated on personal religion and was compatible with modern pluralistic society.
- This kinder, gentler version of Christianity that was invented in the reformation was a more civilized version, which is the sign that the religion is past its uncivilized infancy and is now mature.
- Islam, coming several hundred years after Christianity, is due to be "matured" in the same way as Christianity. It is necessary and inevitable, and all we need is some "moderate" Muslims to take control of the religion and produce Islam 2.0 that will be compatible with our modern culture. Given as evidence of this possibility is
the existence of nominal Muslims all over the world who have no problem mixing in with western culture, who are friendly and basically non-religious.
Personally, I don't think that this is a realistic or rational hope. The problems with this idea are many and I would like to discuss them. Once you wade through all of the wishful thinking and fantasy, the view is based on several misconceptions, which either show a lack of historical perspective or willful ignorance. For instance:
They Misunderstand Original Christianity
The assumptions mentioned above about the early stages of Christianity are not true at all. Jesus was decidedly apolitical. His own nation was waiting for a political messiah to overthrow the Romans and reestablish the earthly throne of David. Instead, he refused (at that time) to
take a political position, even to the point of telling the leaders to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's". He sent his disciples (down to the current day) to preach the gospel of salvation "to every creature" and "make disciples of all nations", but this was to be a mission of making invitations by appealing to hearts, not killing those who would not join. He rebukes Peter in the garden, telling him that "those who live by the sword will perish by the sword". All but one of the apostles died a painful death at the hands of unbelievers, and not even the aggressive evangelist Paul advocated anything but preaching and reasoning with unbelievers to try to woo them to God. The gospel was to be spread through love and friendly outreach. This is original Christianity.The crusades, torture, and political control came after Constantine and making Christianity the state religion of Rome - an empire whose political structures of religion were left in place but "Christianized". An entire empire filled with non-believers suddenly found themselves conforming to the new order out of a desire to stay in good standing with the new "Christian" state. Those who were what I would call actual Christians (by conviction and heart conversion) were outnumbered by citizens who said "sure, I am a Christian". An empire which had just a few years before been feeding Christians to lions is now telling everyone "you must be a Christian, or else". To the public perception, the persecuted became the persecutors. The structure of the church had an uneasy relationship with the government and over time the old ways changed. A thousand years later it was not only very difficult to recognize the teachings of Jesus in what was now called the church, but when people came along and compared the organized religion called Christianity with the words found in the Bible, the church took the astounding tack of putting the Bible on the Index of Forbidden Books!
They Misunderstand the Reformation
The reformation was therefore not a new "re imagining" of Christianity, but a return to the original religion as described by its founder. It was a stripping off of over a thousand years of accumulated non-christian ideas from the world and its other religions. What Jesus taught was radical. What the "church" became was what all human religions of the time were - a works based, governmental body selling access to God with rules and special favors. The reformers rejected that (at the cost of many of their own lives) to try to get back to the teachings of Jesus. Did they do it perfectly? No, but there was steady progress. For instance, Martin Luther took a bold stand and was wonderful in many ways, but he still held some beliefs of the old church (for instance transubstantiation - there's a big word) and held strongly anti-Semitic views that tarnish his reputation now.
The point of all this is that the Christian reformation was a returning to the content of the Bible. The closer a believer is to the teaching of the Bible, the less like the medieval religion of Christianity they will be.
I should mention at this point that many people (including, sadly, our current president) try to discredit the Bible by pointing to verses in Leviticus and other places with strong punishments for religious crimes. Two things need to be said about that. First, the religious laws in the Torah are administrative laws for a theocracy. The biblical nation of Israel was a theocracy ruled by God and yes, it did have very strict laws. The nation of Israel was to be a special, holy people and these laws were part of their covenant with God and only for their local self-government. Secondly, the Jews were never commanded to go out and subdue the world for God and make everybody else submit to these laws. As Michael Medved has described it: Judaism is political but not evangelistic, Christianity is evangelistic and not political, but Islam is both evangelistic and political. That is the difference in a nutshell. To Islam the whole world is (or at least should be) a theocracy. A couple of real-world examples: While an observant Jew will refuse to eat pork, observant Muslims in this country have tried to force companies to take down billboards with cartoon pigs on them. Devout Christians will dress modestly and try to keep nudity off of prime-time TV, while often Muslims in England and France are right now justifying raping girls in western dress because they "dress like whores".
Author's Note: I don't want to be unfair in my characterizations above. Of course every religion has sickos (for instance the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas). The difference I am speaking of is not what many people might be doing in a religion but what the religion's founding documents, founder, and major leaders say. For example, Christians pretty much universally condemn Fred Phelp's church, as well as racists and abortion clinic bombers - quickly and decisively. Conversely, on 9-11 Muslims danced in the streets and celebrated all over the world. In the U.S., Muslims complain about persecution because people ask them to condemn terrorism (never gonna happen) or suggest a 13 story mosque should be built more than 600 ft from ground zero or make women show their faces for driver's license photos. On the other side, in many Muslim countries Christians hold services outside their burned-down churches which they can't re-build because it is against the law for them to do so. That is the difference I am speaking of.
They Misunderstand Islam
I understand that I am coming from an outside position on this one so I will try to not overstate my case. Islam started with political conquest. Unlike Christianity, the conquest did not start hundreds of years later but started with its founder, who established his religion with the point of a sword. Since then there has never really been a time where this has stopped. The initial spread of Islam reached up into Europe and was only stopped with bloody war. The Koran and other founding documents recount the initial military conquests of Islam and give rules for its continuance. This is a fact.
Some will point out that the Koran contains friendly and unfriendly verses. Established rules in Islam, though, include the law of abrogation, which states that later verses supersede the older ones, and the nastiest ones just happen to be the latter ones.
The very word "Islam" means "submission", and the essence of Islam is a strict system of works-based religious control that includes every part of life. It includes high religious duties as well as details as intrusive as which side to sleep on, what compass direction your bed should point in, which foot to use first when entering a room, which foot to put the most weight on when going to the bathroom, how to pick your nose correctly, etc. etc. etc. All of the individual's life comes under the control of the religion, all politics and family life comes under the control of the Mosque, and in a country under the control of Islam, non-Muslims will be tolerated but will live as second-class citizens, paying a special tax to the Muslim majority for the privilege of living and without any real rights. In countries where there a non-controlling but comparatively large population of Muslims (like Nigeria) there is constant violence - murder, kidnapping, burning down of churches and riots. These kinds of things are not limited to third-world countries but can be seen in places like Denmark, England and especially France. Again, these are the facts.
Moderate Means Different Things to Different People
The existence of large populations of generally nice Muslims in different countries is used to show the feasibility of "moderate" Islam. Added to this argument is the existence of those who call themselves Christians who "don't act all religious" all the time. To many modern people this is the best kind of religion and should be the goal of society. Sort of like a club people belong to. I remember the last episode of "7th Heaven" that I ever watched - one of the pastor's sons had a crisis of faith and went around to all of the different religions represented in his neighborhood. They were all friendly and in agreement with each other and it turned out that dad was regularly meeting with them and in unity with them. That is to be expected, I suppose, in a Hollywood show about a pastor who only mentioned the name of Jesus in one episode that I ever saw (he sang it after his heart attack as part of the song "do Lord"). That is the kind of moderate religion that the world likes. We're all on the same side and believe the same things - even pastors of churches are not "too religious".
The reason that this is important is because those who talk about Islam needing a reformation like Christianity had are thinking that modern, nominal Christianity was created by the reformation, which is totally false. There are nominal believers in every religion, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, both Roman Catholic and protestant.
If We Go "Back to the Book"
If Christians go back to the book, they will be "in the world but not of it". They will seek to love and coexist. There is nothing in the New Testament about establishing a state church or forcing converts or fighting bloody wars "for Jesus". Conquering the world will have to be in hearts, by invitation, one person at a time, through conversation. The final destruction of the enemies of God will be at the spoken word of the returning Son of God, not by his followers. To achieve the same thing in Islam, you would have to get rid of the Koran, and disavow most of its founding. This just ain't gonna happen. Sorry. No way. Just a rumor of destruction of one Koran causes deadly riots all over the world.
The most that non-Muslims can hope for is that Muslims will not follow their religious documents closely, or that they will pick and choose just their nicer doctrines (like nominal Christians who pick and choose but don't really follow Christ). But nominal believers in any religion will not all stay that way. Nominal Christians may read a Bible at any time, become convicted and decide to follow Christ. Nominal Muslims become radicalized by the Koran all the time also. Just think about it. If your neighbor becomes a fundamentalist, biblical Christian, you may have to put up with someone asking you about whether you know Jesus and if you have eternal life. They might (horrors) ask you more than once! (Insert scary music here) But your neighbor becomes a fundamentalist Muslim, he may try to kill hundreds of people to guarantee his entrance to heaven. (Some of the 9/11 terrorists went to the Islamic center about a half mile from my house.) Slightly different outcomes....
Conclusion
The upshot of all this is that all of these hopeful articles about how "Islam needs to go through a reformation and then everything will be hunky-dory" are living in a fantasy world and do not understand the issues involved. Either that or they are hoping for the world described in the song "Imagine", which describes a paradise coming in some wonderful future time where nobody has any beliefs! Ah, wonderful. Only two problems with that view. One, it will never happen unless there is a planet-wide lobotomy reducing all people to little more than vegetables. Secondly, even if you could magically cause the human race to get rid of all organized religions, I believe the world would immediately descend into anarchy or totalitarianism. Besides, that state wouldn't last long. People need to believe in something. If not a god, then some sort of pseudo scientific political philosophy with an all-powerful state. No, a reformation of Islam is not going to happen, and hoping for one will just distract us from dealing with the world that is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)