Jesuit scholar: “Muslims have a right to know the Gospel.”
September 25, 2012 07:26 EST
By Carl E. Olson
The CWR Blog
www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/1613/jesuit_scholar_muslims_have_a_right_to_know_the_gospel.aspx
Prior to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent trip to Lebanon, National Catholic Register contributor Edward Pentin interviewed the Egyptian scholar Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., author of 111 Questions on Islam (Ignatius Press, 2008). While some of the interview was speculation about aspects of the papal visit, Fr. Samir also shared some frank thoughts about Islam and recent terrorist attacks and activities in the Middle East. Some excerpts:
Muslims have a right to know the Gospel. When they are convinced of their faith, they think we Christians have the right to know the Quran. In this sense, I think we only, as Arab Christians, could say something to Muslims that can be passed to both their and our culture.
A second point, one that is internal to the Church, is reform in the Church. The Catholic Church in the Middle East is a little bit too clerical. The role of the laypeople is very important here because they can say something on social, political problems, and we have no other voice. They have real dialogue every day with Muslims, but if we do it through the bishops or the patriarch, then it remains at this theoretical level.
It’s important that lay Christians understand their responsibility towards the state; it’s more important than in Europe, where people are of a Christian culture, if not of the faith. …
What is your reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Cairo and Benghazi?
Firstly, the fact that we had an attack on embassies in both Libya and Egypt suggests that there is a connection and that it was not a spontaneous and improvised act.
Secondly, this is a typical reaction of radical Islam. We had a similar thing when the pastor Terry Jones in the United States burned a page from the Quran, and Muslim radicals in Mazar-e-Sharif (northern Afghanistan) killed eight foreign U.N. employees.
But it must be said clearly that because the film was made in America does not mean that America supports this film. It’s essential to make clear what freedom of speech means, which is unknown to most Muslims. I can say things which are wrong, and you will contradict me, but you cannot kill someone or destroy an embassy or anything like that because you disagree with me. If we go this way, there is no possibility of a dialogue of cultures.
In this sense, the reaction of Hillary Clinton was certainly understandable. She said, “The United States deplores any effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
But I say: “Yes and no.” It’s not the United States but someone who is denigrating beliefs of others, so it’s his problem. It’s not the nation’s problem. But she was right that there can never be a justification for such violent acts as these.
So the sentence needs to be reworded. The United States has nothing to do with someone who is denigrating another belief.
Muslims will often say their religion is one of peace. What do you say to this view when such attacks are carried out?
If they really think Islam is a religion of peace, then they should go on to the street and demand that these people who carried out the attacks are tried. But they … protest when Muslims are criticized, and when Muslims kill innocent people, they are silent.
If Islam is a religion of peace, then organize a protest against these aggressors, and go to the U.S. Embassy and say: “Please excuse us as Muslims; we don’t consider them as Muslims.” But they don’t do anything.
Why don’t they do anything?
Because they don’t have the courage to confront their brothers in Islam and to say: “Your Islam is harming Islam.”
And, secondly, maybe because they are not so convinced; perhaps they think, in a way, they [radical Muslims] are right. They think: “These Western people, these Christians” — they confuse the two — “should be judged and condemned for making such a film.”
Read the entire interview on the Register website: www.ncregister.com/site/article/pope-faces-middle-east-turmoil/
If Islam is a religion of peace, then organize a protest against these aggressors, and go to the U.S. Embassy and say: “Please excuse us as Muslims; we don’t consider them as Muslims.” But they don’t do anything.
Why don’t they do anything?
Because they don’t have the courage to confront their brothers in Islam and to say: “Your Islam is harming Islam.”
All the above is hogwash. By its very tenets, Islam is a violent religion.
It sounds so good, right? And of course, it is hogwash. But why? Because Islam is actually a religion of violence and so there is no help for it but to destroy them, and so let’s all vote for the candidate most likely to make war on them? I don’t think so. I think it is hogwash because it is pure liberalism. What is Fr. Samir actually saying? That muslims learn to tolerate it when humans mock their god. (I do not capitalize it because unlike our Holy Father recently re-asseerted, in his The Church in the Middle East, that Catholics, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same god, I know we do not. We Catholics worship a trinitarian God.)
And no. We should learn to not tolerate it, ourselves, and we should understand that our failure to do so is part of the fuel to the fire for them. In fact, Father Samir said this himself in another recent statement, that
“If we want to free the world from violence, we must also free ourselves from the violence of words, from this strong way of offending religion. Unfortunately, the Christians of the West are submissive and unresisting in the face of insults to Christianity.” (www.asianews.it/news-en/Fr.-Samir:-The-taboos-of-the-Muslims,-the-false-freedom-of-the-West-25885.html)
You cannot have it both ways, dear liberal Father Samir, spreading the poison of religious freedom and at the same time wishing you wouldn’t, at home. If we sheep are to understand, you have to be consistent.
I tell you, I truly wish somebody would really DO something about the insults heaped on Our Lord in this God-forsaken nation of our own, instead of continually falling prey to hatred of Islam for doing the same. I do not mean violence, but at the very least civil disobedience. Why do we not? Because we are paralyzed by falling for bait to hate Islam for doing what we should be doing for our own beloved and battered Christ.
Jan said:
“You cannot have it both ways, dear liberal Father Samir, spreading the poison of religious freedom and at the same time wishing you wouldn’t, at home.”
I respectfully disagree. I don’t see religious freedom as a poison, but rather that we need to carefully determine where there should be limits to free speech. For example, you cannot falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Where do people cross the line where a “reasonable person” standard sees someone’s expression of religious disagreement as inciting to violence? Within a democracy, how do we do what the pope suggests and free ourselves from the violence of words [and, I might add, the violence of certain images]; from a strong way of offending religion? Is there a way that we can begin to realize that what some people might view as, for example, artistic expression is really a form of hate speech which should be banned? How do we protect freedom of religion from being turned into freedom from and against religion? And yet, we do not allow an “anything goes” standard in terms of, for example, “parental rights”. Even if done in the name of religious beliefs, we do not allow child abuse in terms of things like proper medical care, nutrition, appropriate sexual boundaries, educational needs, etc.
And then, we have things which deeply interfere with our freedom of religion such as certain provisions in the affordable care act. How did contraception and IVF become considered “essential” health care? But, don’t we want medical coverage for pregnancies? Still, the affordable care act does leave out some things which are, in my mind, essential. For example, some over-the-counter products for chronic conditions should be covered, such as incontinence products or suppositories for people who have bowel dysfunction, like, for example, a spinal cord injury.
Rather than reacting against religious freedom, I think we need to thoughtfully and prayerfully look for ways to limit severely offensive extremes.
I also agree that “Muslims have a right to know the Gospel” and hurt for Muslims who suffer persecution from within their own religion for disagreeing with radical Islamists whose numbers seem to be increasing. I highly recommend the book “Why We Left Islam, Former Muslims Speak Out” compiled and edited by Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson.
Jan said:
“…unlike our Holy Father recently re-asseerted, in his The Church in the Middle East, that Catholics, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same god, I know we do not. We Catholics worship a trinitarian God.”
Do you disagree that God is one? Three persons in one God? Do you disagree that the God we worship is the same as the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob?
Kudos to Jan for an incisive comment.
One other corrective to Fr. Samir: It isn’t fair to demand Muslims write out from the fold those who are violent or our otherwise transgressors of some kind. They can and should be encouraged to say that such folks are bad Muslims and are misinterpreting their faith. But, if such Muslims don’t disavow an Islamic fundamental, it does not seem sound or fair to make an assertion that they cease to be Muslims. Sinning does not automatically constitute an act of apostasy, unless it is very foundational to doctrinal fundamentals.
It’s an obligation. Same goes for Jews, Buddhists and Hindus.