RSS Feed Menu“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.”
-Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York
Christian tradition tells us that one day Jesus went into the region of Samaria with his disciples and stopped at a well. His disciples went into a nearby town to get something to eat, but Jesus stayed at the well. Now, Samaria was a region that most Jews liked to avoid. They didn’t much care for Samaritans because of their mixed heritage and because they worshipped God a bit differently. But Jesus didn’t seem to mind, and so here he was at this well.
After a while, around noontime, a woman comes up to the well to draw some water. It was a bit odd for this woman to come to get water in the heat of the day, but here she was. Then, Jesus did something strange: he asked the woman a question. He asked her if she had any water.
The woman was shocked because this man was talking to her. And Jesus kept talking to her and because of this her life was forever changed.
This story, sometimes called the Woman at the Well is one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture. It’s a wonderful example of Jesus reaching across the many boundaries of that time to treat this woman with respect. It was nothing short of a miracle for a Jewish man to be talking to a Samaritan woman. Two people, from two different faiths were able to cross what had become a great divide.
The recent controversy surrounding the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” has me wondering if my fellow conservatives are able to reach across a modern religious divide. So far, the results are not encouraging. Leading conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani have come out against building this place of worship because it is two blocks from Ground Zero, where thousands died on September 11, 2001.
Yes, we know that it was Muslim extremists who somehow thought God would be pleased if they rammed planes into buildings. That said 19 people who had a warped sense of their faith should not be considered the standard bearers for a faith of a billion adherents.
This issue has confirmed something that I have suspected for a long time: that there is a growing problem with religious bigotry within conservatism. I hear many conservatives talk about dealing with “radical Islam” and I tend to think that when those words are uttered it means that all of Islam is radical, not just a small portion.
As conservatives, we love to talk about how we tend to adhere to the Constitution and yet this issue has shown our love for that document to be a lie. If we can’t respect the very first amendment which guarantees freedom of religion, then I doubt we will respect the rest.
There has been a lot of talk about sacred ground recently. Ground Zero is definitely such a place. The mosque inside of the Cordoba Initiative is also a sacred space for people to commune with their God. As Christians, we see our churches as sacred spaces as well. But sacred ground can occur whenever we learn to see our sisters and brothers of differing faiths as…well, sisters and brothers. It happens when we learn to live with each other and try to respect our differences.
September 11 happened because there were some that didn’t want to live with others different from themselves. I think to not allow this mosque to be built would have basically supported their beliefs to divide people, to disrespect others and treat them as less than humans.
It’s time for conservatives to not take the bait. We must be willing to say no to those who want to spread death and division. We must be willing to say yes to creating sacred ground in our communities, to welcome those who might not even worship the same god or worship no god at all.
It’s time for us to go into our own Samarias, come to the well and meet whoever is there. We might realize we are standing on sacred ground.
Originally published at NeoMugwump.
jakester // Aug 4, 2010 at 10:15 pm
busboy33
you can pretend that Muslims, fueled by Islam, had nothing to do with 9/11, hundreds of other attacks or jihad in general, but I won’t. No mosque at ground zero. Okay, the law is on their side and maybe that is good in a legalistic sense. But any non Muslim who supports this contemptible Saudi funded mosque is truly a useful idiot.
Bebe99 // Aug 4, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Balcones. All Christian religions have missionaries and other outreach programs desingned to’save souls’ by displacing another religion. This is the mainstream idea of all of them. Millions have been spent trying to force schools to teach creationism instead of science and this is considered admirable by many. Just because they use the courts instead of bombs for their religious coersion doen’t make them more tolerant, just more civilized,
Shawn Summers // Aug 4, 2010 at 10:52 pm
I understand better now, Annie, and I’m sorry for unfairly using you as an example of the tendency I attacked in my post.
I think what Alex is trying to say, and I’d agree, is that Islam, as currently generally practiced in majority Islamic countries, is an ideology which is uniquely antithetical to the secular, liberal values upon which Western civilization is largely founded. Other ideologies are equally in conflict with enlightenment values (like, say, Chinese authoritarian capitalism, North Korean juche, or Dominionist Christian fundamentalism), but Islamic fundamentalism (radicalism? fascism? Whatever you want to call it) is at this moment in history particularly pernicious, especially in places like the Parisian banlieues or “Londonistan”.
That doesn’t mean that Muslims as a whole are evil, any more than Communists or Methodists as a whole are “evil”. A baby born into a family in which he will be indoctrinated into Islam isn’t evil, nor is he morally responsible for his actions. However, the ideology with which he grows up shapes his choices as an adult. This is true for everyone, so to excuse violence or hatred with the rationale that “that’s how he was raised” makes it very hard indeed to hold anyone morally culpable for anything. It’s true, yes, but can’t figure too prominently in our ethical calculus regarding the choices made by mentally competent moral agents. After all, Hitler was neglected and beaten by his father and exposed as a young man in Vienna and Munich to all kinds of vile anti-Semitic propaganda which inculcated in him an abiding hatred for Jews. Can we thus excuse his behavior as well? That’s not to say that we can’t have compassion for a wife-beater who was himself raised by the buckle of his father’s belt or who saw his mother slapped around. But it’s hard to justify any moral system without choices by responsible moral agents (of course, that’s not to say people haven’t tried).
Nor does it mean that there are no Muslim American patriots or Muslims who support Enlightenment values. However, I’d submit that such people are not really being good Muslims in doing so, just like any Christian American patriot is not consistently following his own religion’s teachings. As has been brought up earlier, both religions demand, first and foremost, primary allegiance. You can be “for God and Country”, but only in that order. Christians get a little escape valve in the “render unto Caesar” anecdote, but Phillippians 2 (and one particularly annoying Contemporary Christian praise chorus) makes it pretty clear that the Bible fully expects “every knee to bow”. As for Islam, the very word means “submission”. I tend to agree with those who’ve said that Islam (again, as currently practiced) is more of a total worldview than “merely” a religion. It’s hard, across most of the Islamic world, to separate the state from religion. Of course, five hundred years ago, one could have said the very same thing about Christianity. Perhaps Islam will soon get its Voltaires and its Montesquieus, as Alex said in an earlier thread. One can only hope.
Of course, there have been lots of nasty ideologies throughout history, most of which the West simply ignored unless forced to confront. However, totalitarian Islam (maybe that’s a good qualifying adjective) seems like a unique threat to secular, rational values at this time. Not even so much because of terrorism (we’re still waiting for that follow-up to 9/11 bin Laden keeps promising), but rather because totalitarian Islamists seem to have a perverse capacity to subvert Western culture – openness, religious freedom, anti-racism – and institutions – see the attempted rape of the UN Declaration of Human Rights by prohibiting “defamation of religion”, or the ghastly “human-rights” tribunals in Canada and elsewhere – to further a thinly-veiled agenda of societal transformation. It is simply unacceptable in the United States in 2010 that South Park can’t show the visage of Mohammed because of Comedy Central’s fear that they and their families will be murdered (murdered!) for violating a prohibition which isn’t even in the Koran to begin with.
Now, as it happens, I don’t have a problem with the construction of the Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan. The sponsors seem to have good intentions, even if I think their choice of location is truthfully rather insensitive. But the danger Alex rightly, in my opinion, identified is not so much pernicious Islamic “infiltration” per se but rather mutli-culti hand-wringing by Westerners who are too eager to make false equivalencies about the West’s crimes or shortcomings or cry racism and bigotry whenever someone points out that totalitarian Islam is fundamentally incompatible and antithetical with the liberties we enjoy, especially those enshrined in the First Amendment.
There’s much more to say about that, but this post is already quite long enough. I don’t think I’ve misrepresented anything Alex has said; if I have, I hope he will correct me.
Churl // Aug 4, 2010 at 11:45 pm
forkboy1965 // Aug 4, 2010 at 7:29 pm says, “Odd…. I always think about the Christian crusades.” Odd as well, so does Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Islamic violence nutjobs. Can’t get the crusades out of their tightly-turbaned heads, and they’re still miffed about getting booted out of Spain ca. 1492. For some reason they’re really sore about the loss of the city of Cordoba.
Some folks just can’t get over disagreeable stuff that happened centuries ago, but want us to make nice about an atrocity less than 10 years in the past.
anniemargret // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:01 am
You make good points, Shawn. But my and others points was that even if you equate Islam with evil intent, you still cannot equate every Muslim with evil intent – and that is what I keep hearing.
Of course Islamic radicalism is ‘incompatible with the liberties we enjoy” and I don’t equivocate. But I also don’t aspire to broadbrush an entire people or culture as ‘evil’ because evil exists in some of their theology. The Bible was used for thousands of years in oppression of women – and in many cases still results in spousal abuse for which this country still is trying to deal with . The Bible was used to justify slavery during the Civil War, and now the same “Christians’ are trying desperately to thwart civil marriage for gays . Is this not evil too? To use God’s name to suppress humanity or abuse humanity, to justify their actions?
And yet…you and I and millions of others know that broadbrushing Christianity or Christians is just as wrong as broadbrushing Muslims. We’ve got to be better than that . If we are all not free, even those we dislike, mistrust or even hate, then we live a lie. That is not the America I want to see.
Wasn’t Communism the scourge of 50s and 60s America? The world? Did not 58,000 young men and women sacrifice their lives to stop the advance of communism in southeast Asia? Communism is still antithetical to our values, but we fear them less. Perhaps someday we will temper our rightful anger against individuals who do evil in the name of nations or religions, but learn to have tolerance for those that do not, even if we do not accept all their tenets.
busboy33 // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:04 am
@jakester:
“you can pretend that Muslims, fueled by Islam, had nothing to do with 9/11, hundreds of other attacks or jihad in general”
Never said that the people responsible for 9/11 wern’t Muslims. They clearly WERE Muslims. They also clearly believed that they were doing God’s work . . . like the murderers who kill abortion doctors in the name of the divine innocents.
They are both wrong. Their religion and their faith do not command them to kill. Their twisted minds do.
This is somewhat similar to the wife beater. Its not that he snaps and beats the hell out of his wife . . . its just that she kept egging him on, egging him on . . . its not his fault. That’s BS. Millions of other people get annoyed without attacking their wives. Billions of people get annoyed without attacking their wives. Its an excuse for something in them PERSONALLY, not in them as a group. Its the same for terrorists. They can claim that it was their religion . . . in case you haven’t noticed, you can find pretty much whatever the heck you want in the major religions, if you’re really motivated and sufficiently creative.
I’ve asked this before, in multiple threads, and I never seem to get a response:
If Islam is a religion that commands its adherents to be violent, and there are over a billion Muslims . . . why aren’t there a billion terrorists? Do the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims not understand their own religion (or rather, do they not understand their own religion better that YOU)?
If that’s not the case (and IMO it seems staggeringly unlikely) . . . then what is the explanation? Why are those billion plus Muslims not attacking the infidels? How are the Muslim terrorists any different than any other crazy outlier group?
I’m bering serious here. Either all Muslims don’t understand their own religion . . . or you are wrong. Is there a third option?
“No mosque at ground zero.”
Given that its not at ground zero, problem solved, right?
Cindyflo // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:15 am
As an agnostic, I agree that Alex Knepper has the right to criticize religion in general – but when that criticism is aimed more vehemently at one religion, it starts to look like something else. Religious fundamentalists of any flavor are, to me, very scary.
It is very surprising to me that conservatives would have any issue with what can be done on privately owned property. I remember vividly how awful I felt on 9/11; I also remember how wonderful it was to see everyone pulling together. It was an attack on US, and we got around our differences for a little while as we all tried to process the horror of what had happened. There was some hate and anger, but it was jumped on pretty quickly as inappropriate. Reading Michael Bloombergs comments on the Mosque reminded me of that positive feeling. If you read the rest of his comments, he said the organizers of the mosque plan reach out and create an interfaith community. To me, this looks like healing…
jakester // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:30 am
Busboy
Perhaps we need a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor too, right next to the USS Arizona.
Shawn Summers // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:34 am
“But my and others points was that even if you equate Islam with evil intent, you still cannot equate every Muslim with evil intent – and that is what I keep hearing.”
I don’t. Though I will admit that I’m more concerned when a Muslim friend gets drawn into religious life with such fervor that she more or less abandons all her friendships with non-Muslims and starts wearing a headscarf when she never did previously than I would be if a Christian friend starting proselytizing, reading Left Behind, and going to Bible study three times a week. Maybe this is genuine Islamophobia (in its original sense of fear) on my part, since I would merely be annoyed if my friend were Christian. It may not be fair, but I should say plainly how I feel, for honesty’s sake.
“The Bible was used for thousands of years in oppression of women – and in many cases still results in spousal abuse for which this country still is trying to deal with . The Bible was used to justify slavery during the Civil War, and now the same “Christians’ are trying desperately to thwart civil marriage for gays . Is this not evil too? To use God’s name to suppress humanity or abuse humanity, to justify their actions?”
Yes. A thousand times yes.
“And yet…you and I and millions of others know that broadbrushing Christianity or Christians is just as wrong as broadbrushing Muslims. We’ve got to be better than that . If we are all not free, even those we dislike, mistrust or even hate, then we live a lie. That is not the America I want to see.”
Nor is it the America I would like to see, or a state of affairs I would tolerate. I believe very strongly in the freedoms protected by the First Amendment, and I believe they apply to everyone. That’s why I’d oppose legislation prohibiting flag-burning or Holocaust denial. That’s why the KKK had the right to march through Skokie, IL. Freedom of odious speech, or odious religion, or odious press, is the only real freedom there is. It’s nothing to be free to say what everyone already agrees with. That doesn’t mean anyone has to like it or not speak out in opposition. Freedom to speak is not a compulsion to listen.
To be honest, broadbrushing Muslims or Islam doesn’t sit well with me either as I write. I’m being necessarily general because we’re having a short-form, high-level discussion. To be clear, though, my critique is of Islam – an ideology with a codified scripture which is widely practiced in particularly vile ways – and not of Muslims, who are on the whole good and decent people like anyone else. I also understand that you’re not speaking exclusively to me but also to other posters on this topic who have been more blunt in their denunciations.
“Wasn’t Communism the scourge of 50s and 60s America? The world? Did not 58,000 young men and women sacrifice their lives to stop the advance of communism in southeast Asia? Communism is still antithetical to our values, but we fear them less. Perhaps someday we will temper our rightful anger against individuals who do evil in the name of nations or religions, but learn to have tolerance for those that do not, even if we do not accept all their tenets.”
Yes. And despite (or because of, but I think that’s a hard case to make) our two misbegotten Asian adventures during that period, the strategy of containment articulated by Kennan in the late 1940s was ultimately vindicated, and global communism collapsed under its own rotten weight. What foreign-policy lessons can be learned from that process constitutes an entirely different discussion. The point, though, is that we in the 21st century don’t fear communism because it simply isn’t a threat any longer. I can’t stand Ann Coulter, as a rule, but she was right on when she said that “communists” today are about as scary and dangerous as “monarchists.” Violent political Islam, however, is a threat. Not, in my opinion, a grave or existential threat like Nazism or Soviet Communism, but a serious one nonetheless, one that strikes to the very core of the ideals we hold dear, and one against which we should be as vigilant as we can without sacrificing the very values we’re trying to uphold.
I’ve very much enjoyed our conversation, and I wanted to let you know that I’m going to bed now. I know I’ve looked forward to your responses, and I don’t want you to be fruitlessly revisiting the page for a reply that won’t come until tomorrow. Goodnight and thanks again.
balconesfault // Aug 5, 2010 at 12:50 am
http://pluralism.org/news/view/14389
Early Japanese immigrants built a shrine near the present site 100 years ago, bringing to Hawaii the Shinto religion, an indigenous faith that dates back more than 2,000 years. It teaches that gods, or ‘kami,’ are found in all living things and emphasizes the need to be in harmony with all nature… The greatest thing the members, some descendants of the founders, will celebrate is the shrine’s survival. Like other aspects of Japanese culture, it was shut down by the federal government after the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor. The late Bishop Shigemaru Miyao and most of the church officers were confined in mainland relocation camps during World War II. The property was ‘given’ to the City and County of Honolulu, and part of the wooden shrine was stored out of sight. In 1952, members gathered 10,000 signatures on a petition to get the property restored. It took nine years, legislative intervention and a state court judgment to restore ownership of Izumo Taisha to the Shinto congregation. In a land exchange, the shrine was moved from the current site of Kukui Gardens to the location beside Nuuanu Stream.
busboy33 // Aug 5, 2010 at 1:34 am
@jakester:
1) I’m sure you realize this, but you completely avoided the question
2) How does a Muslim Community Center a few blocks from Ground Zero help, supprot, endorse or condone terrorists?
3) If they built the exact same building in New Jersey, would it still be a insult to America?
4) If they built a Buddhist Community Center at the same NYC location, would it be acceptable?
I mean, we get it — you’re really offended. But I’m trying to figure out why, aside from hating an entire religion.
Me? I’d rather focus on hating the bastards that actually harmed us . . . but that’s just me. If you want to waste time hating people that DIDN’T hurt us, that’s your call. If Bob Smith hurts me, I’m not so concerned with Betty Smith, Fred Smith, Andy Smith, Bob Jones, etc. — I focus on getting Bob Smith. You hate the relatives all you want.
Alex Knepper // Aug 5, 2010 at 4:17 am
I basically agree with Shawn at 10:52, and what he said of my beliefs is basically correct (I would go further and say that Islam as directed in the Qur’an, hadith, and sunna are antithetical to liberal democracy, though — not just as it’s practiced in today’s Islamic countries).
And your dismissal of this idiotic it’s-society’s-fault nonsense is perfect: if you followed this logic to its proper conclusion, we couldn’t hold anyone accountable for anything, since they were “predisposed,” whatever that means. We either accept the doctrine of free will or we throw away civilization.
Alex Knepper // Aug 5, 2010 at 4:19 am
“As an agnostic, I agree that Alex Knepper has the right to criticize religion in general – but when that criticism is aimed more vehemently at one religion, it starts to look like something else.”
300 years ago I’d have been most vehement about going after Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular; today, Islam is the key religious cancer upon civilization. Time to root it out!
Xclamation // Aug 5, 2010 at 9:10 am
Despite being an atheist myself, I actually have a problem with general criticisms of religion (such as, “Islam is the key religious cancer upon civilization”), whether it be Christianity, Islam, Scientology or whatever.
Mostly, it’s a numbers game. There’s roughly 78 million Americans who claim to be Evangelical Christians. Maybe it’s only been my experience, but I’m willing to bet that the number of Americans who actually live like they’re evangelical Christians is much, much smaller. I see no reason to believe that this phenomenon is abnormal or in any way specific only to Evangelical American Christians.
What I’m getting at here is that while the ideology being spewed out by prominent Islamic militants in the Middle East may be anti-democratic and anti-Western (and it certainly is) I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that even a small minority of people who claim to be Muslim buy into the rhetoric.
The way I think about it, for every nut-job punk out there who straps a bomb to their chest or starts taking aim at abortion providers there’s got to be at least 1,000 people who’s faith leads them to provide aid and comfort to others, an additional 10,000 who’s faith solely enriches their own lives and 100,000 who’s faith is little more than lip service. When I take all that into consideration, it seems morally wrong and more than a little petty to start taking pot-shots at religion.
balconesfault // Aug 5, 2010 at 10:21 am
Alex: 300 years ago I’d have been most vehement about going after Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular; today, Islam is the key religious cancer upon civilization. Time to root it out!
So is your contention that the world would be a better place today had the Catholic Church been “rooted out”?
Cindyflo // Aug 5, 2010 at 10:44 am
Xclamation – exactly! A small percentage of Muslims, like a small percentage of Christians, go violently off the deep end. This does not mean either group is evil. The Muslims might be percieved as more evil because so many died on 9/11, but it was really a small group that did it – they just managed to come up with a really efficient way to kill a lot of people. And I believe some fundamentalist Christian leaders chimed in to say it was what we deserved, because we were such an immoral society.
Alex Knepper // Aug 5, 2010 at 11:25 am
@balcones — Well, I was referring to the fanaticism; I merely want Islam tamed, like the Catholic Church was tamed. But yes, I do think that the world would be better off without the Catholic Church.
WillyP // Aug 5, 2010 at 1:42 pm
yeah, what a way to win over people on the conservative fence about this issue… quoting mike bloomberg. (not that i’m on the fence about this… if i had to bet, i think rudy giuliani would have told this audacious group of religious activists to buzz off the land around ground zero. there is no place, no justification, and the damn building is going to serve as incredible propaganda for the terrorists.)
isn’t he the same guy who banned smoking? trans fats? who overruled a popular law that limited mayoral terms? who came out, before anything was known, suggesting that the times square bomber was an angry white male?
this mayor is a disgrace on all fronts, period. i hope he runs for president just so he can see how terribly unpopular he is with most people. he’d get whooped.
WillyP // Aug 5, 2010 at 1:56 pm
pet peeve: when people seem to have a compulsion to criticize other religions when they criticize islam.
you know, it is STILL legal to criticize islam independently, without saying how awful the Catholic Church “used to be.” (a preposterous statement, considering the role it has played in cultivating, broadening, and defending Western civilization, and the debt that we all owe the Church for preserving ancient texts and ideas that otherwise would have been used as fuel for fires…)
besides, Christianity, and especially not the Vatican, is not fueling a world-wide hate movement directed at modernity and Jews. yes, of course there are responsible, tolerant muslims. i’d wager they are the vast majority. but it only takes a relatively small percentage of a BILLION to constitute a large threat.
balconesfault // Aug 5, 2010 at 4:07 pm
besides, Christianity, and especially not the Vatican, is not fueling a world-wide hate movement directed at modernity and Jews
But it was certainly a Europe-wide hate movement directed at modernity and Jews only 500 years ago.
WillyP // Aug 5, 2010 at 5:33 pm
balcones,
yes, in all those lib books you’ve polluted your head with, Christianity was a worldwide hate movement. If that was indeed the case, the evidence suggests that worldwide hate movements are quite beneficial to progress and civilization.
Geez. And people criticize me for bizarre beliefs, however substantiated.
Joe In NH // Aug 5, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Those who argue that this mosque will be disrespectful to the memory of those who were murdered on 9-11 should be required to go to each family of the Muslims who worked and died in the Towers and explain to them how the mosque disrespects the memory of their missing family member.