Travis Kavulla - candidate for PSC! - over at ECW has a bee in his bonnet. To wit:
"It's not the religion. It's the people who are fundamentalists. Religion is not violent."
How many times have you heard that or some variation thereof?
These days, the line usually serves as a moral equivocation about Islamic fundamentalists' suicidal and murderous proclivities.
I'm happy to agree that Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, even Buddhism have martial beliefs which can serve to foster violence. But it's foolish to assume that each fundamentalism of each religion is somehow equal. Each faith is backed up by a different set of scripture and associated theological texts. Religions are different: They say different things about the role of women; about when war is just; about what you can eat; about who and how you can marry; and about a lot else besides....
It stands to reason that, if religions have different scripture, different role models, and different theological readings flavored by local histories, their position on the use of violence for proselytism would each be different. (And, again, a caveat: I concede Christianity has a rich history of proselytism by force, although I would argue it is rooted more in Christianity's theological and historical emanations, while the same coercive proselytism is, in the Koran, more embedded within the text of scripture itself.)
For starters, I agree with Kavulla that religions aren't all some amorphous blob that all act in the same way. But, still, the shorter Kavulla is this: Islam is bad, Christianity is teh awesome.
Which is probably neat consolation for the folks who, over the years, have been stoned, flogged, tortured, drowned, burned, strangled, and gassed for not being Christian. Oh, wait! I forgot! That's about "historical and theological emanations," not Christianity itself! In short, Christian violence is result of erroneous and egregious misreading of scripture.
But then, so, too, is Islamic terror:
We need a phrase that is more exact than "Islamic terror". These acts may be committed by people who call themselves Muslims, but they violate essential Islamic principles. The Qur'an prohibits aggressive warfare, permits war only in self-defence and insists that the true Islamic values are peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. It also states firmly that there must be no coercion in religious matters, and for centuries Islam had a much better record of religious tolerance than Christianity.
Like the Bible, the Qur'an has its share of aggressive texts, but like all the great religions, its main thrust is towards kindliness and compassion. Islamic law outlaws war against any country in which Muslims are allowed to practice their religion freely, and forbids the use of fire, the destruction of buildings and the killing of innocent civilians in a military campaign. So although Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have all too often failed to live up to their ideals, it is not because of the religion per se.
Armstrong notes that bin Laden - as is "almost every fundamentalist movement in Sunni Islam" - was inspired "by the writings of the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb," not mainstream Islamic thought, so "there is good cause for calling the violence...'Qutbian terrorism.'" It's kind of like pointing to the Westboro Baptists, Leviticus 20:13, and d*mning all of Christianity for it. Armstrong also notes that Qutb formed his radical and violent teachings during a 15-year stint in an Egyptian concentration camp, so it's hard to separate his views from the social and political events of the time. That is, the "historical and theological emanations" of the twentieth century.
The irony here is this: it's the secular advances of religious tolerance, democracy, the concept of individual liberty, the tradition of Western law, etc & co, that form the elements of Western civilization that we find agreeable, not Christianity. We know Christianity didn't produce those things: we have ample evidence that Christianity provided the intellectual basis for irrationality, intolerance, and violence. That's not to say that Christianity - combined with social and political "emanations" - didn't abet or even enable the rise of these secular values; I suspect religions' texts defining the structure of religious authority does influence the movement or evolution of ideas. Still, it's a bit disingenuous, even dangerous, to go about proclaiming the natural and universal superiority of your favorite religious text.
Essentially what we have here is Kavulla trying to create universal reasons why his particular and personal beliefs are true. Personally, I don't get into ideas of "universal law." I believe in principles that communities create (and that I create), but I also recognize that people and principles change, evolve. Isn't that why we should constantly question ourselves? Isn't that why we should always strive to learn, to remain curious and open-minded? |
