My friend Robert Wright writes a typically incisive piece in Slate about why he believes Islam hasn’t become as tolerant of other faiths as modern Christianity. Read the piece to see his arguments in full. His basic point is that economic and social development – by sheer chance in some respects – encouraged a more individualistic and tolerant form of Christianity after the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. The monolithic rule in non-European parts of the world didn’t allow for these experiments in democracy to take root and flourish, and so the Islamic world remains mired, for the most part, in economic stagnation and religious intolerance. I buy some of this, but not all. Here’s where I differ. Wright argues that the Islamic texts and Christian ones are virtually interchangeable with regard to the use of violence, and that therefore social and economic context is the primary way to understand why they developed differently. I think this is demonstrably untrue. The call to war and intolerance in Islam is strikingly more pervasive than in Christianity. And although there is plenty of war in the Old Testament, the call to peace – even turning the other cheek to violence – is the principal message of the New Testament, which is the central text for Christians. I think it’s impossible to read the Gospel of John and the Koran and not believe that they represent not just different but radically different views of morality. This is particularly true when you realize that Islam came about several centuries after Christianity’s moral and spiritual revolution. The fundamental meaning of the Cross is the paradox of triumph through surrender – a thought far, far less prevalent in Islam. That’s why the critical argument for social peace in the 17th century – the argument that won – was not just about social peace but about Christian morality itself. Locke argued that forcible conversion was a violation of Christ’s teachings – and so should be abandoned. It would have been and still is extremely difficult to make such a Lockean argument from the texts of the Koran as a whole. That’s not to say that socio-economic factors weren’t involved in Christianity’s softening, as well as the sheer experience of gruesome religious wars. It is to say that the meaning of the faith was also central to the shift.
BACK-EDDIES OR TIDE?: The secondary problem with Wright’s argument is that modernity is not necessarily the cure for religious fanaticism. You might even argue, as I have, that the withdrawal of Christianity from warfare ironically paved the way for worse, secular fanaticisms from 1789 to 1989. In fact, the alienation of modern life can actually intensify such fanaticism, religious and secular. Wright may be right that in the long run, this might soften. And he fairly concedes that the process could be wrenching. But quite how long the long run is I don’t know. Looking at many Muslims in the West – in Northern England and parts of America, for example – one sees a dogged resistance to assimilation by many, as well as integration among a few. The Muslims of France also seem radicalized by their presence in a modern state. What I was trying to explore in my New York Times essay (“This Is A Religious War,” posted opposite) was the drama of this relationship between modernity and fundamentalism. I guess, my doubts about a happy resolution stem from my far less optimistic view of world history than Bob’s. I don’t see faith withering away as the world ages. I see it resurgent and permanently dangerous when allied to political and revolutionary goals – prone to emerge at any time and place. Look at the rise of some fanatical fundamentalism in America in recent years. Only our constitution – not our socio-economic success – keeps this at bay. In the Middle East, we also have a couple of examples of secular democracies dealing with religious fundamentalism, in Israel and Turkey. In both countries, modernization has brought with it less cultural secularism and more militant fundamentalism than, say thirty years ago. You can argue that these are mere back-eddies in a larger tide. But that’s scant comfort to those who drown in the meantime.
The Dish 