8 Replies to ““We in the administration and the government should give voice to the plight of Muslims” [Darleen Click]”

1. newrouter says:

   February 23, 2015 at 7:56 pm

   Rebutting Snopes on ‘Obama’s Muslim Gang Sign’

2. Ernst Schreiber says:

   February 23, 2015 at 9:16 pm

   The fact that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and the Islamic faith is one about peace and brotherhood.

   So I keep hearing. But never from Muslims. Well, there was this one time, just this weekend in fact, that I heard it second hand. From DHS Secretary Johnson on Meet the Press. I just wish the Muslim leaders who say things like that in private would say them in public.

   Because right now, the public message is “we’ll have peace and brotherhood when all the non-believers have been converted or killed.” That’s what I think the Islamic faith means by peace and brotherhood.

3. geoffb says:

   February 23, 2015 at 10:03 pm

   Excuse the length. From a 2006 post by Bryan Preston. I’ve added extra paragraphing to make it less “wall-o-text” like.

   If a holy writ holds sway in the life of an enemy, then that writ and its authority need to be understood on their own terms by us or we won’t formulate an adequate response to it.

   The basis of the title of this post is that it’s consistently atheists and adamant secularists who understand the Islamist enemy the least, yet they’re also the quickest to slam or argue against anyone who does quote the Koran on its own terms to argue that it is animating violence. They are also the quickest to equate Christianity with the villain du jour, because Christianity is to them just one among many faiths that they may think they understand, but ultimately don’t.

   […]

   In the life of a religious believer, regardless of the sect, faith or creed, some writing or another or a set of writings hold some position of moral authority. The degree of authority held depends on several factors, including the degree of an individual’s belief and the position of a given writing with respect to other writings that the faith holds dear. Some writings hold more sway than others in any faith. That’s just a fact. And it’s one easily misunderstood by those who hold no faith at all, and therefore assume that all scriptures held sacred by a given faith hold equal weight.

   For instance, secularists typically use parts of Leviticus, an Old Testament book, to argue that just because a scripture contains violent language or instruction is no reason in and of itself enough to assume that the faith based in part on that scripture will be violent. Fair enough, but that actually doesn’t tell us much because Christianity isn’t based on Leviticus per se. It tells us even less about Islam, for reasons I’ll get to later.

   Leviticus forms part of what’s known as the Law (along with Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), and in the Christian way of thinking the civil and ceremonial components of the Law hold no command on our behavior today because the purpose of the Law was fulfilled in Christ. Christians are not bound by the legal commands of the Law, and we do eat pork and do lots of other things that the Law forbids, and likewise we don’t do many things the civil and ceremonial Law commands us to do.

   I don’t want to get too esoteric here for the non-believers to be able to follow me, but essentially, those parts of the Law are no longer authoritative over the behavior of the Christian believer. They have been abrogated by later acts and writings. That doesn’t mean those five books are without value; far from it. They’re incredibly valuable for many, many reasons. But the civil and ceremonial Law belongs to a set place and time and was abrogated by, among other things, Christ’s death and resurrection and Peter’s vision in Acts 10. The Law’s overall purpose–making humans presentable to a holy God–was fulfilled in Christ. I won’t pretend to speak for Jews as to the authority of Leviticus today, but I suspect they would say much the same thing: It’s an early part of scripture that has been abrogated by later scripture.

   […]

   The point is, in the Law there are moral, civil and ceremonial commands, but through the work of Christ the latter two have been abrogated while the first remains in force. So Leviticus is no weapon useful for smiting a Christian, something secularists are ill-equipped to understand. They should look for violent language in the New Testament if they want to argue that Christianity promotes violence. They will look in vain if they do that, though.

   […]

   By contrast, the Islamic Suras quoted by Robert Spencer and others that promote violence by Muslims against non-Muslims come from the second half of the Koran. They have not been abrogated by later scripture, because there is no later scripture. Spencer’s argument is that if any Koranic verses have abrogated any others, then the weight has to be given to the later verses–and they’re the violent ones. But if you don’t understand the principle of abrogation or the fact that not all scriptures hold equal weight in any faith, and it’s clear those who don’t hold to any faith at all probably don’t since they keep quoting Old Testament civil Law to slam Christians, then you’re ill-equipped to make the distinctions that mark Leviticus less authoritative on behavior than the Gospels for the Christian, and earlier verses less authoritative than later ones for the Muslim.

   The position of the violent Suras in the Koran is both a fact and a problem, one Spencer attempts to engage on its own terms, and one secularists consistently misunderstand because they don’t understand how a given text relates to a given faith and to other texts within that faith.

   That said, what are the chances of an Islamic Reformation sweeping the violent segments of Islam aside? That’s probably a subject that should be treated in a book instead of a blog post, but suffice it to say that in my opinion conditions and assumptions in Christianity which could foster Luther’s Reformation do not exist in Islam. In Luther’s day, Christianity in the West was centralized around the papacy and the Church’s doctrines were the only ones that existed and therefore made for one large, rather than many small, targets to attack.

   Islam is decentralized, its sectarian arguments largely focused on lineages instead of doctrine, and therefore is too diffuse for a Luther to attack and thereby reform it. And secondarily, reformations are attempts to better understand and therefore get closer to foundational doctrines. In Luther’s case, it was the church’s emphasis on works and deeds as earning salvation–which was not what the New Testament actually taught–that motivated him to revolt and reform. He was sparked to reform by actually reading the New Testament for himself rather than just accepting what the other priests and pope told him it said. He wanted to get closer to the New Testament’s teachings on grace through faith, not works alone, and his Reformation did that.

   Over time, Christianity became less sectarian and less violent, in part because of the passage of time but also in part because the concept of grace as understood by Paul and passed through Luther sunk in. That concept leaves no room for the true Christian to look at himself as better than anyone else, because he isn’t–he knows he has been saved not through any goodness of his own, but because God is gracious and merciful. It’s a concept that has taken centuries to sink in, and is in fact still working its way through the church. And the Christian church is less prone to violence now than it was a century ago, or two or three, in spite of what Rosie O’Donnell thinks.

   For what it’s worth, the concept of grace is not taught and does not exist in Islam. Islam is works- and ritual-based. The foundational assumptions of Christianity and Islam with respect to the personality of God not only don’t agree, they’re near polar opposites. Even a cursory understanding of the New Testament vice the Koran reveals that much. Because of this, a reformation in one should not be expected to produce the same results as a reformation in the other. You might as well expect an apple tree to produce bacon.

   Additionally, an Islamic reformation would most likely be an attempt to get Muslims closer to the text and teachings of the Koran if the dynamics of religious reformation hold, and there’s no reason to believe that they wouldn’t. An Islamic reformation would be an attempt to take Muslims closer to the more authoritative teachings in the Koran, which based on position and logic would be the ones toward the end of the Koran unless there is some logical reason to believe otherwise.

   I believe that we are living in the midst of an attempt to reform Islam, which has been going on since the 18th century. That Wahhabi reformation is in large part producing the war that we are fighting.

   Two others which concern the doctrine of abrogation are this by Robert Spencer and this by Raymond Ibrahim.

   Jeh just proves himself either a liar, a simple fool, or both, as does his boss and other henchmen.

4. sdferr says:

   February 23, 2015 at 10:30 pm

   There’s a plight of the Muslims sho nuff. It’s adherence to Islam. That’s the problem.

5. Dave J says:

   February 24, 2015 at 7:25 am

   Jeh, is thanking his lucky stars that a bunch of LGBTs arent lining up at mosques to get married.

6. McGehee says:

   February 24, 2015 at 8:02 am

   If a holy writ holds sway in the life of an enemy, then that writ and its authority need to be understood on their own terms by us or we won’t formulate an adequate response to it.

   To us, this makes so much sense as to be self-evident at first sight — “Well, yeah, I shouldn’t have needed to be told that, should I?” — but to the pneumocephali infesting the Obama Maladministration it’s word salad.

7. 11B40 says:

   February 24, 2015 at 7:00 pm

   Greetings:

   If elected, in my administration we will give more plight to Muslims.

8. McGehee says:

   February 24, 2015 at 7:06 pm

   Pass a Minimum Plight Law now!

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