This will be short. Seems the Pope has gotten into a bit of controversy because of a couple of ill-conveived remarks he made about Islam. Now, like most people, he probably meant Those Bad Ones Over There, who wear bombs and kill people in order to get into heaven. But he used a wide brush and painted them all as violent. The Vatican is trying its best to backpedal and make the best of it, but the fact remains, that like a lot of people, Benedict probably said what he felt. Islam, as a religion, foments violence against infidels. Many people who are not Muslim–heck, even some Muslims perhaps–believe that.
The problem is not so much that Benedict got it wrong–after all, Islam has this concept of the House of Submission, which it is charged with bringing everyone into, and it certainly has never suffered the handicap of having a turn-the-other-cheek ethic to wrestle with–but that, like most people, he didn’t cast a wide enough net.
Here’s the deal: all evangelizing religions foment violence at some point. It’s built in. They must convert the unbeliever. Since they will inevitably, eventually, run into people who will not be converted they are left with only a couple of options in dealing with them. Frustration, suffered long enough, more often than not leads to violence. Christianity had its conversion by the sword period (and there are some Christians who would still prefer that method), as did Judaism (although “conversion” wasn’t quite so high on the list of priorities, more a matter of slaying the unfaithful en masse). Islam as a movement made a good stab at it back in the first couple of centuries of its existence (pun intended) and ran out of logistical steam. It’s instructive to look at the intellectual life of someone like Martin Luther to see how this can happen. He broke from the Church and one of his differences was over the treatment of the Jews. He was magnificently tolerant–at first. The longer the Jews he knew (and as a people) continued to refuse to accept Jesus, the less tolerant he became, till finally he was hating them pretty much on par with everyone else of a Christian persuasion in Europe.
Most people also pretty much ignore that aspect of their religions. It would apall so-called mainstream christians if their leaders told them one day to pick up arms and kill anyone who didn’t believe the way they did. Part of the reason christianity got over this more or less easily is that bit of “give unto Caesar” talk Jesus gave, which implies–powerfully–that religion ought to be separate from the state. Otherwise…well, we have a rich history of theocracy and its abuses to show us why. Islam doesn’t have such an out, though. There is a political aspect to it. Still, most Muslims still keep the two separate.
But–as with all other evangelizing faiths–the propensity for theological violence is built in.
I’m sorry Benedict got himself into such a situation, but really it’s his own fault for not remembering–for not recognizing, for not admitting–that the problem is not with Islam per se but with the whole Spread The Word and Convert the Unbeliever ethos, of which his own church subscribes whole-heartedly. He didn’t include everybody. He didn’t include himself.
What was that line about the beam in the eye?
