June 16, 2008
WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION...:
Islam stuck in the Middle Ages, says Professor Hans Kung (Ruth Gledhill, 6/16/08, Times of London)
Islam is stuck in its own version of the “Middle Ages” which is contributing to a global crisis, one of the religion's leading experts has argued.Professor Hans Kung, a leading Roman Catholic and theologian from Germany, warned in a lecture of a “deadly threat” to all humankind unless new efforts are made to build bridges with Islam.
He said in London that Islam has “special problems” with modernity because, unike Christianity and Judaism, in which he also specialises, it has never undergone a “serious religious reformation”. [...]
He argued: “After the Reformation, Christianity had to undergo another paradigm shift, that of the Enlightenment. Judaism, after the French Revolution and Napoleon, experienced the Enlightenment first, and as a consequence, at least in Reform Judaism, it experienced also a religious reformation. Islam, however, has not undergone a serious religious reformation and so to the present day has quite special problems also with modernity and its core components, freedom of conscience and religion, human rights, tolerance, democracy."
Professor Kung also set out what the three religions have in common, such as injunctions against murder and respect for life. “They do not recognise themselves in our picture of Islam, because they want to be loyal citizens of the Islamic religion.
"Those who make Islam responsible for kidnappings, suicide attacks, car bombs and beheadings carried out by a few blind extremists ought at the same time to condemn Christianity or Judaism for the barbarous maltreatment of prisoners, the air strikes and tank attacks carried out by the US Army - 10,000 civilians have been murdered in Iraq alone - and the terrorism of the Israeli army in Palestine.”
...of why Muslims should want to follow post-Modern Europe over the cliff? The Reformation needs to be along Anglospheric lines, not European.
For starters, there are all the Muslim women who might like to be better than the second- or third-class citizens they are under Islam. To them modern Europe is heaven compared to any Islamic country.
Either Anglospheric or European Reformation would be a vast improvement over what Islam is now, so I'm not picky about which one happens.
Posted by: PapayaSF at June 16, 2008 3:02 PMJust so long as the "Death to _________!" crap is gotten rid of. I am very tired of Islamic Rage Boy.®
Posted by: Mikey at June 16, 2008 3:21 PMThe Protestant Reformation was a movement back to the teachings of its leader and its basic document.
An Islamist would say that he is doing the same thing.
Posted by: Gideon7 at June 16, 2008 3:26 PMGideon7: Yes, that's one of the problems. But by "Islamic Reformation" I mean "calm down, get a bit more secular, and stop trying to kill everyone who disagrees with you on religious issues," which is more or less what happened in Europe after their religious wars.
Posted by: PapayaSF at June 16, 2008 3:38 PMDitto Gideon7. Bin-Laden is the Martin Luther of Islam.
PapayaSF
Somethings tells me "calm down and be more secular" is not what OJ had in mind.
I would settle for calm down and stop trying to make the places you fled to exactly like the places you fled from.
But that's just me.
Posted by: Mikey at June 16, 2008 4:22 PMI know, h-man, but while OJ and I might agree on some of Europe's problems, I don't see all branches of Abrahamism as equivalent. I think Europe's problems are still an improvement over Islam's problems. For one thing, Europe's problems aren't a physical threat to me or my country. So Europe infected with Islam creates problems for me, but Islam infected with the right kinds of secularism solves some. (The various socialist/Nasserite/PLO/Saddamist secularisms being the wrong kind.)
Posted by: PapayaSF at June 16, 2008 4:37 PMh-man:
That's unfair to binLadin, Luther was much more fanatical than he.
And the other reformers . . . man, Geneva and Zurich were charming cities in the 16th c, let alone the places where the Anabaptists and other antinomians gained a foothold -- well, for that brief period before their fellow Reformed started slaughtering them.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at June 16, 2008 5:17 PMI would settle for calm down and stop trying to make the places you fled to exactly like the places you fled from.
Here in the Western US, we call that process "Californication."
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at June 16, 2008 6:25 PMYes, this Reformation too will just return Islam back to the basics of Judeo-Christianity with a Muslim flavor.
Posted by: oj at June 16, 2008 7:00 PMW is the Luther of Islam.
Posted by: oj at June 16, 2008 7:01 PMI'm not a Californicator, Raoul. I just don't like the losers of their internecine wars coming here and acting like they are the victor.
You want to live in America? Then become an American and renounce all ties to your former potentates and adhere to this land. Do not act like an invading army.
The shrift may be very short otherwise.
Posted by: Mikey at June 16, 2008 7:04 PMWhere are Europe's women? It's a society that's chosen suicide, suggesting your view of heaven is in fact a hell.
Posted by: oj at June 16, 2008 7:25 PM....I just don't like the losers of their internecine wars coming here and acting like they are the victor....
Now, now, let's not drag John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow into this Islam reformation discussion!
Posted by: Brad S at June 17, 2008 6:52 AM