In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
The inimitable Conrad Black sums up a recent conversation
with atheist and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and reviews her latest book Heretic here.
Hirsi Ali has taken on the unenviable — and probably impossible — task of
reforming Islam from the outside.
Black summarizes Ali’s five requirements for Islamic reform:
“... revisions of Mohamed’s semi-divine and infallible status and literalist reading of the Koran, particularly those allegedly revealed to the Prophet at the launch of his most radical phase in Medina in the last 10 years of his life; the de-emphasis of life after death over the present life; the abandonment of the draconian Shariah law derived from the Koran; an end to empowering individuals to enforce that law arbitrarily, and to the frequent and capricious recourse to jihad, holy war.”
Tom: Immanuel Can, nobody other than a subset of Muslims and their liberal western enablers likes what
ISIS is up to in the Middle East. But Islam is a religion, not a social club.
You can martyr genuinely religious people, you can convert them, you can keep
them at a distance perhaps, if you’re strong enough militarily, or you can win
over their moderates and disaffected provided you are offering something more
compelling.
But can you reform an entire religion, especially from the outside?
Reforming from the Outside
Immanuel Can: Hard
to say. It seems highly unlikely that Islam could experience reform from the
outside, which is where Hirsi Ali is, now that she’s declared for atheism. But
I suppose anything can happen … it just looks incredibly improbable. Usually,
“reform” is defined as a sort of modification or moderation of an existing
stance, and such things are ordinarily generated by people who are inside and
trying to save a movement, not those who have already abandoned it. What say you, Tom?
Tom: It seems to
me both Hirsi Ali and Conrad Black are wearing rose-colored glasses about the
potential for Islamic reform, but for very different reasons. Islam, like Christendom, is an aggregation: fundamentalist “true believers” alongside political
opportunists, moderates, liberals and even agnostics who use the name “Muslim”
because it’s safe or convenient. Since each group has a different agenda, if
you want to reform Islam, each must be appealed to with different — often
contrary — incentives. That’s a tall order.
And of course the “true believers” you will never reform at
all. Good luck with that. Unfortunately, it’s that group that is the most
dangerous.
Getting Back to Core Truths and Practices
IC: “True
believers”. Interesting point. It seems to me to be crucial that we recognize
this primary difference between Christianity and Islam: for Christianity,
genuine reform has to mean becoming more loving, more generous, more humble,
more kind and more forgiving and also praying more fervently for enemies and doing more good to those who
abuse us.
Tom: Amen.
IC: But “reform”
in Islam has to mean a closer return to the methods, beliefs and character of
Mohammed, and to following sharia law with even more fervor, which means
becoming more angry and oppressive, and taking up the sword and killing
infidels with even less compunction. So despite her good intentions, Ms. Ali
is swimming against the stream of what it really means for Islam to “reform”.
Tom: Yes, when
both Black and Hirsi Ali use the word “reform”, what they actually mean is
“make more compatible with Western societal norms”. They want Islam to con-form to another set of cultural standards. It’s not the best choice of
word, really.
Rose-Colored Glasses
Coming back to Mr. Black for a moment, he too seems to
me to be wearing rose-colored glasses about Western prospects in this
ideological (and increasingly literal) battle. When he says of Islam that they
are “not a menace on the scale of Hitler or Stalin, cunning totalitarians at
the head of great, militarily powerful, more or less Western nations”, it seems
a bit dismissive, but in one sense he’s correct: Hitler and Stalin were “over
there”, with armies engaging in traditional warfare under more or less
traditional rules. Islam is here, in our midst, in numbers significant enough
to eventually change the balance of power and therefore the law, and to do it democratically.
Like many, I think he completely underestimates the seismic
nature of the changes to the Western world being brought about by mass
immigration.
IC: Very likely.
Hitler did not make primary use of immigration, nor did he employ the
mechanisms of democracy to destroy democratic goals in the way we are seeing
Islam do today — as when, for example, the “freedom” to wear the burqa is
demanded on the basis of democratic principles, and women’s oppression is advocated in the name of
women’s rights. But this problem will be played out on a secular stage, I
think; and Christians will not have much say. Nor will Ms. Ali, I fear,
nor her friend, Irshad Manji, another “reformer”. Ms. Manji
wrote The Trouble with Islam Today (2005)
and directed a film called “Faith Without Fear”, but now lives in a house with
bullet-proof glass and a locked mailbox, and cannot appear on campus without
bodyguards.
As an aside, I should say I would be honoured to meet either
of these women. They are extremely courageous persons, and I think we should
all pray that their proposed “reforms” should go forward. But it will take divine
intervention for that to happen, I think: we should not naturally expect it.
Reforming the Church
But now, what does this case offer us as Christians as we
think about “reform” in our churches?
Tom: Well, one
obvious point is that you can’t effectively reform something from outside it.
The Lord didn’t try to “reform” Judaism from outside, did he? In one sense, he
was the ultimate insider. He was “born” King of the Jews. He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it or even rewrite it. His knowledge and use of the Law were in every way superior to that of the
religious authorities. That’s why he attracted attention.
I think he has to be our model in any consideration of Christian reform.
IC: Good point. A
second I’d like to make is that reform goes back to the Originator. We don’t
“reform” Christianity by adding to it the accretions and innovations of modern
life — except to whatever extent the proposed modifications turn back to
the basic principles our Lord and Founder laid down for us by precept and
example. Nor, of course, do we “preserve” Christianity by resisting change for
the sake of some traditional baggage we’ve long held dear. We reform ourselves
by becoming more sincerely devoted to Christ himself, and to his project of
remaking us in his image; then we reform the Church by making her a more
suitable bride for him … no other way. If we are “reforming” with any
other goal in view, it’s not reform at all, but rather rejection of our core calling.
Tom: With that I
very much agree.
“Incompatible with Modernity”
One thing this dialogue brings out is the ease with which secularists
accept the default notion that, with respect to religion, they have a right to change whatever may be, in
their view, “incompatible with modernity”. I must admit to some mild amusement
contemplating atheism thrashing it out with Islam while we stand on the
sidelines, but that’s not a probable scenario. More likely, the increasing
unmanageability of Islamism in the West is going to force governments to crack
down on everything they perceive to be religious, including Christianity.
Do you see any positives for the Church in the fact that
Islam has come to us? I know a lot of Christians who are taking advantage of
the opportunity.
IC: I see a lot
of positives in the number of people of Middle-Eastern descent who are coming
to our shores. They bring with them some amazing cultural and personal assets,
to be sure. As people, they have a lot to offer. And having them with us is surely
an opening for the gospel.
Tom: Especially
when some of the countries they are coming from are not open to it. These are
people we might not be able to speak freely with any other way.
The Good Side of Islam
IC: But is Islam
itself “good” for us in any way? Hmm. Well, it does put the lie to the old
Western liberal myth of the universal equivalence of religions that that has
needed to die for a long time. It does challenge modern secularism with severe
critiques of Western corruption and of our carelessness about belief and our
preoccupation with consumerist egoism. But I think this speaks more to the
corruption of the West than to the superiority of anything in Islam. I observe
that there is no place on earth where dedication to Islamic principles has
brought anything but tyranny, misery, oppression and bloodshed, so I have a
hard time seeing any benefit in Islam itself.
What do you think?
Tom: I think I am
used to this culture because I grew up in it. But as a Christian, I am no more
“at home” amidst Western corruption than I am with the looming prospect of
living under a harsh, totalitarian Eastern monotheism, or under whatever
draconian changes to our culture are required to accommodate coexistence with
its practitioners. I’m not thrilled to see hypersexualized content on my TV or
new and obscure symbols on public washroom doors, or to deal with political correctness in my workplace. Equally, I am uninspired by
black body bags with eye slots or the sound of the call to prayer.
Or, as someone put it, “This world is not my home, I’m just
a-passin’ through”. We’re looking for a city whose designer and builder is God.
Counter All Cultures
IC: Yes. Christianity is inevitably counter-cultural. And it won’t matter much whether the “culture” in question is Islamic or North American. Our Lord’s kingdom is not of this world, and his followers do not fight with the weapons with which secularists and various religions oppose each other. That includes the political arrangements of the day. The weapons of our warfare are not fleshly ones, nor do we kill in the name of our God. We work for the salvation of all — friends and enemies alike — in the name of One who rescued us when we were his enemies. We fear no ideology, secular or Islamic.
They can but kill the body; the soul they cannot have. The Lord secures that.
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