To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass.

I believe the correct technical term for "Catholics who abolished the Mass" is "Protestants." Last time I looked, there were more'n a few of 'em running about.

It's certainly possible for Moslems to adopt an interpretation of Islam in which it is a religion of personal conscience which is compatible with civilization and doesn't require flying hijacked aircraft into buildings. (I haven't known all that many Moslems in my life, but I'm pretty sure none of the ones I met felt any particular compulsion to kill everyone around them--well, they didn't try to off me, anyway.) Whether or not that's "authentic" in terms of what Mohammed founded is not my issue, as I am not a Moslem and don't accept the truth claims of Islam.

Darn! Spengler lets the conversion cat out of the "Reformantion" bag.

If Islam cannot be reformed as
Mormonism was reformed, it will have to be reformed as Shintoism was reformed.
________________________________
BTW: Lutherans believe in transubstantiation, with very slight modifications of the Roman Catholic view. Luther's disagreement with Calvin over this is Reformation legend, with Luther standing on the plain words of Sacred Scripture, This is My body; this is My blood," not," This stands for my body; this stands for my blood."
fiv

As Judaism and Catholicism were.

Lou -- I believe that it was Zwingli that had the showdown with Luther. The meeting was at Hesse in 1529. Zwingli cited John 6:63 in support of his argument that the est in hoc est corpus meum (Matthew 26:26) means "signifies."

(When I've taught the Reformation I've gotten a good laugh from the students by noting that Zwingli has a Clintonian understanding of the word "is")

Zwingli said to Luther: "This text [John 6] will break your neck." Luther replied: "Don't brag. Our necks don't break so fast. You are in Hesse now, not in Switzerland." Good stuff.

The difference between Catholicism and Islam in terms of Reformation, I'd submit oj, is that the Church's reformation was relatively simple.

And what was reformed was a 100 year detour by the Church. That is, the anti-modernity that Pius IX inaugurated after 1848, and which Vatican II renounced.

There was no great theological transformation necessary.

I'd emphasize Spengler's note about grace and Islam. That is huge. It is the Catholic conception of God's grace, offered to all, as laid out in Trent's response to Protestantism, and especially to Calvin, that is one of the great humanist statements of all time.

For Islam, it seems to me, a theological transformation would be needed of massive proportions, as this Pope has hinted at.

Judaism I can't speak for.

Islam has been even more easily Reformed. Tell someone who lived through the religious wars within Christianity how little cost has been incurred in this Reformation and they'd scorn you.

Did you even read what I wrote oj? Where dod I talk about THE Reformation.

THE Reformation was a mistake. And the Protestant Reformers --Luther, Calvin, et al., were violent nutjobs.

Or did you miss the part where I said the Catholic Church's Reformation --- by which I meant reconciliation with the modern world -- took place in 1963?

And Islam is not by any stretch reformed yet. And the bloodshed between Shia and Sunni might even mkae that in France and Germany look light.

And once again, citing an individual Christian thinker, even one as noteworthy as Ambrose, does not undermine the Pope's point about Christian God/logos v. Muslim God/transcendent

All of Islam isn't, though much is and we've only been at it a short while and had already caused enormous dysfunction through colonization and Cold war.

The Catholic Church was Reformed by America.

In part. In the sense that America is the modern world made manifest. And that the Church was forced to come to terms with that. And especially to realize that the modernity didn't mean the anticlericalism of continental liberalism.

oj,
While you know you're my number one blogger, we continue to disagree on "Billy Ball" vs. "Money Ball" and the reformation of Islam.
As opposed to Protestant "Reformation" of Catholic thought, the reformation of Islam would/will require a denunciation of all the
"Prophet" has said, ie: The Koran.
Since there appear to be Muslims without number ready to kill/die for what the "Prophet" said "reformation" seems to be doomed from the get/go.
Mike

Islam has the advantage that Mohammed was just a man. We Christians have to disobey a Christ who was God to live our lives.

I should add, upon consideration, that the Protestant Reformation did accomplish one important thing vis a vis Catholicism, and that is that it helped to break down the reliance of the Church on the secular arm and the sword it wielded, which was all to the good.

And of course I exaggerated with regard to Luther and Calvin, tho I'm not a fan by any means. Reading oj on this subject tends to make one exaggerate. It's catching.

The Pope in particular understands the Church's debt to America, which is why he's a Tocquevillian.

"What's ultimately at issue is not the manner in which Islam conducts its jihad, but the felt intuition that it is doomed to be converted by Christendom."

Wow

That's why I look forward to reading this blog so much more than any other. Time and time again your material and analysis are original and enlightening.

Just Great.

Jim in Chicago: You have me on those details: I had been shooting from the hip, strainng to run out the door to a gun club meeting. Let us say that some protestants hold with transubstantiation and others do not.

Your further comments about the Catholic reformation, its detour and its resumption, are excellent.

The truth about Islam and jihad continues to be something some of us cannot handle. It is well the the Holy Father can and does.

Sacrifice. A concept our day does not grasp (or hold).

However, the obedience required in following the Sabbath (or in participating in Communion) is not a matter of habit. The Scriptures make it plain how rote 'sacrifice' is accepted (see Isaiah 1:10-20 and 1 Cor. 11).

"I desire mercy, and not sacrifice". Jesus quotes Hosea, and rebukes the Pharisees, who thought they were the ultimate sacrificers.

"To obey is better than sacrifice". And thus Samuel told Saul he was not fit to be King.

And yet the NT tells us to be living sacrifices, to be holy and good, because God is holy and good.

Spengler is correct - there is no Grace in Islam. The question then is whether there can be sacrifice (absent grace and mercy). Christianity (and Judaism) would say no.

If the 'reform' of Islam involves bringing grace into the equation, then perhaps the radicals are right to be afraid. But that does not excuse their incoherence (and violence), now does it?

Jim in Chicago -- I don't think I've ever heard Luther and Calvin called violent nutjobs before. Seems rather more than simple exaggeration, especially since Luther decried the violence of others that resulted from his actions and Calvin established safe haven for anyone violently persecuted out of France by the Catholics.

People who publicly tried to upset the order in Geneva were burned at the stake, but they knew what they were getting into because it was a well-established punishment. (Evelyn Waugh has an interesting account of this in his book on Edmund Campion, describing how Edmund was graciously entertained in Geneva on his way to England but prevented by his companion from arguing publicly for Catholicism because of the extreme consequence of losing a public debate.)

The real point in this whole kerfuffle with the Pope's statement is that Christ sacrificed himself for others (as we are called to do), whereas the antichrist sacrifices others (sometimes along with himself) for his own gain or pleasure.

The antichrist will never reform.

My guys are forceful and uncompromising. Everyone elses are violent nutjobs.

OJ:

If you are claiming that Christianity advanced solely because of forceful conquest, then let's just bomb Mecca today, and roll across Pakistan and Indonesia with everything we've got. Islam would be a distant memory in less than 10 years.

I suspect one reason the nutjobs are so incoherent is that they just can't seem to hit the right targets. If they hate the House of Saud, then why are they killing African embassy workers (many of whom were Muslim)? If they want to run Lebanon, then why aren't they firing into the Shouf Mountains? They are too scared to hit the real 'enemy', so they kick up a lot of dirt against the US and Europe.

And they call it 'sacrifice'.

I have to say that I think the point here above of the difference betwen Islam vs Judaism and Christianity is hobbled severely by not achknowledging the core difference: Islam is lacking at its core Greek views, thought and thought processes.

Our US political system and the stable systems model ed after it, derive from the Greek ideal, practice, theory it its deriviatives.

Islam is in its essence Near and Middle eastern culture absent the Greek influence.

This occurs on so many levels. The essential unit of the Hellenistic world was the "polis.' The core character of the polis system all over the Near East was pluralism. This is antithetical to Islam.

As Judaism encountered the polis, it found this structure condusive as the polis by definition naturalized all peoples in it and was anti-nativist. It is during this time one finds Judaism spreading and thriving and no longer defined as 'foreign' or 'sojourners' as we had been in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia minor etc.

The critical thought within Hellenism became and still is a key enabler of Judaic thought. Our greatest Jewish philosphers and scholars come out of the Hellrnized world. Christianity is a full synthisis of Judaism and Hellenism. (That is why the ironic expression of anti-Hellenism within certain Judaic narratives is so wrong.).

The founding fathers of the US were profoundly influenced by Greek views.Both directly and those coming from the (the best aspects of) British governance. It isn't just governance and the sence of governance as a social contract between people. It goes to all aspects incldung la where the focus on a jury of peeers which inherently makes law and legal docrtrine a thinking process, as opposed to a set of inflexible laws.

Islam in essences negates and rejects the lessons of the Greeks. While in Judaism we reject certain ideas of the Greeks, the emphatic nature of the rejection should not leave the impression the rejection is broad when the opposite is true. The correlary is also true. While the Christians, whose original theologians and philopshers where Jewish Greeks and Greeks in world view rehject certain aspects of Judiams, including emphatically, they also broadly excepted most aspects.