One the great distinctions between Roman Catholicism and protestant fundamentalism in recent times has been Catholicism’s respect for free scientific inquiry, specifically comfort with evolutionary biology. Reason and faith are not in conflict, the Second Council told us, and the Church has nothing to fear from open scientific inquiry, based on empirical research and peer-reviewed study. Not for us Catholics the know-nothingism of the literalist fundamentalists, who still hold that the world was made in seven literal days, or that Adam and Eve literally existed, or that God somehow directed the random process of natural selection. Well, now we have Benedict in charge and the rush back to the Middle Ages, already seen in fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Protestantism, looks as if it is going to be endorsed in the Vatican. I expected reactionary radicalism from Benedict. But this kind of stupidity? I fear there’s much more to come. Remember that Ratzinger was an anti-intellectual intellectual. Free thought not controlled by Vatican diktat is anathema to him. And so we return to the nineteenth century. The thinking may also be nakedly political. Benedict – in order to pursue his secular war against freedom for gays, or reproductive freedom – needs an alliance with the Protestant right. This is exactly a way to bolster the new anti-modern Popular Front. It would be depressing if it weren’t also infuriating.
IRSHAD: The Huffington Post is full of part-time bloggers calling for negotiating with al Qaeda, withdrawing from Iraq, and generally laying the blame for the mass murder of innocents on George Bush and Tony Blair. But as part of Arianna’s attempt to credentialize her blog as something more than a collection of far left paranoids and Bush-haters, she does have a few non-Fiskies. Among them is my friend Irshad Manji. Here’s her post demanding a stand from Muslims, and not just public rhetorical blather. It was written on the day of the massacres in London:
The preachers will express condolences for the victims and condemnations of the criminals. Then they’ll add, “But Britain should have never invited this kind of response by joining America in the invasion of Iraq.”
The trouble with this line of reasoning is that terrorists have never needed an Iraq debacle to justify their violent jihads. What exactly was the Iraq of 1993, when Islamic radicals tried to blow up the World Trade Center? Or of 2000, when the USS Cole was attacked? Hell, that assault took place after U.S. military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia.
If staying out of Iraq protected anyone from terrorism, then why did “insurgents” last year kidnap two journalists from France — the most anti-war, anti-Bush nation in the West? Even overt solidarity with the people of Iraq, demonstrated by CARE’s top relief worker in the area, Margaret Hassan, didn’t shield her from assassination.
These are the facts that ordinary Muslims must take to their preachers at Friday’s sermons. A clear repudiation of the London bombings will not bring back the dead. What it can do is help the rest of the world differentiate between the moderates and the apologists.
You can find some encouraging responses here. One step, as Irshad implies, could be to abandon the noxious bill now before parliament making it a crime to “defame” Islam. In effect, the bill would make it a crime to abhor Islamist terror and to ascribe murderous intent it to a twisted, but still vibrant, part of modern Islam. In other words, the bill would make it much harder to make distinctions between legitimate Islam and murderous Islamism. Such a distinction is critical to winning this war. Making it legally perilous to speak out about this is a step quite firmly in the wrong direction.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured- especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.” – E. O. Wilson, “Consilience.”
The Dish 