Stand With Pope Benedict XVI

A lot of consideration is being given to Pope Benedict’s speech and its reverberations throughout the Muslim and Western worlds as his call for a dialogue of cultures is continued here on Democracy Project by Bruce Kesler and Mitchell Langbert. Langbert looks at the unfortunate conciliatory fallout from Europe, academia and the media, in using Israel and the war in Iraq as bargaining chips for the losing hands that the West seems to keep playing. This is a discussion that must go forward in secular, political as well as religious spheres. I tackle the discussion with a call to action from the religious sector.

Along with Roman Catholics throughout the free world, Jews, Protestants of all denominations, Evangelicals, Buddhists, Hindus, secularists, skeptics and atheists should all stand together with Pope Benedict and urge him not to keep apologizing for innocuous statements he made about faith and reason in a free society. Instead we of all faiths who are married to reason, instead of extremism, as he admonished, must join hands in saluting Pope Benedict as one of the great intellects and moral leaders of the free world following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II who helped drive decisive nails into the coffin of communism.

In his noteworthy speech at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, the Pope asserted that faith and reason must coexist as it does in Christianity which is based upon the heritage of Greek philosophy and, might I add, the Thomistic tradition. He correctly avows that violence is incompatible with the nature of God and quotes from a medieval source to point out that Islam cannot be considered reasonable if it resorts to such mandates to spread faith by the sword, as they appear in the Qur’an. Here, the Pope lectures on a portion of a medieval manuscript by Professor Khoury, which talks about a discussion between Byzantine Emperor Paleologus and an educated Persian:

In the seventh conversation [text unclear] edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion".

According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident.

The Pope goes on to question Islamic teachings that maintain God’s will is absolute and not bound by conventional rationality. He calls for a modern day dialogue of cultures based on a rapprochement between reason and faith that is not blinded by either.

Instead, as the New York Post article, Muslim Outrage at Benedict Broadside reported on Saturday, the Muslim world has united in condemning the Pope, from Pakistan’s legislature, India’s media, to Lebanon’s top clerics, with the Turkish ruling Islamic-rooted party taking the offensive in accusing the Pope of initiating the opening salvos in the new Crusades. Even the Turkish secular opposition party joined the fray. Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkish ruling party, issued statements condemning the Pope, but said nothing to condemn the Muslim rioters and firebombing attacks on churches in the West Bank and Gaza:

He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages...It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades...He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini.

But where is the Muslim outrage at the violence, the firebombing of churches, the cold-blooded murder of a Nun, the rampages in the name of Allah over the forthright words of the Pope? Where is the outrage at Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s statement to "wipe Israel off the map" or Nasrallah along with top clerics throughout the Middle East chanting the war cry "death to America?"

If so-called moderate Muslims living in America and the free world wish to appear as all good people of faith whose beliefs can civilly mesh with reason and moderation rather than violence and extremism, they must stand in solidarity with the Pope together with Jews and Christians, although they may dispute his statements. If they cannot mount a show of solidarity, strong enough to confront the radical instigators of Muslim wrath and vengeance toward those who express opinions which may not be to their liking, then theirs is not a faith but an ideology of hate and intolerance that must be condemned as an assault against American ideals and those of all free peoples. They must stand up and make that choice if they are to remain as participants in a civilization that protects the free speech and religious liberties of all.

I would propose that "moderate" Muslims, who are very adept at organizing anti-war rallies and lobbying their representatives for protection from profiling, organize a massive NION-style (Not In Our Name) public relations campaign to condemn the intolerant ideologues of Islam. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, called for a "Million Man March" for black unity in 1995 which drew almost one million to the National Mall. Leaders of the Muslim world should once again call for such a show of unity and solidarity with the Pope and the free world.