Cardinal Chaput and the truth about Islam

In a column (Aug. 16, 2006) in the Denver Catholic Register, Archbishop Charles Chaput acknowledges that, yes, Christians have committed sins and crimes against Muslims over the centuries. But, he insists, that shouldn't obscure the truth about the long and difficult relationship between Christianity and Islam:

Catholics who do know history may remember the following:

Islam has embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300 years. No “theology of Crusade” existed in Western Christian thought until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade — as a defensive response to generations of armed jihad.

Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination, violence, slavery and outright persecution — not always and not everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim domination.

Read the entire piece.

Comments

[Mark Brumley]

Speaking the truth in love. It's that simple.

[Plato's Stepchild]

From the Claremont Institute Blog:

http://www.claremont.org/weblog/005160.html

As we ponder the newly adopted U.N resolution and what it means for Israel (if anything), we should keep in mind a few words of the late Father Ernest Fortin in an essay he wrote on St. Augustine in The History of Political Philosophy:

"The New Testament does not order soldiers to surrender their arms but rather commends them for their righteousness and virtue. The injunction to requite evil with good concerns not so much external actions as the inward disposition with which these actions are to be performed. It seeks to insure that war, if it must be waged, will be carried out with a benevolent design and without undue harsheness."

Most importantly of all, however, we must remember that "The wicked wage war on the just because they want to, and the just wage war on the wicked because they have to...The best that can be hoped for in practice is that the just cause will trimph over the unjust one; for nothing is more injurious to everyone, including evildoers themselves, than that the latter should prosper and use their prosperity to oppress the good."

[MenTaLguY]

I am not sure how I feel about the use of the quote by the author of the Claremont post. If he is reminding us that (contra the UN) there is just cause for Israel to fight (the conduct of Hezbollah is indisuputably wicked), and that under such circumstances war can be justly undertaken, that is well and good. However, there is also a certain tendency among neoconservatives to inappropriately romanticise Israel's specific actions...

So far as the Israel-Hezbollah conflict goes, I would hope we can look at the actions of each side honestly without romanticizing one or the other (but also without drawing any false moral equivalences).

[Les]

In the context of the larger Islamic radical movement we have to face certain questions.
Is it an aberration from the norm of the faith? or is it one possible way of living Islam?
Are the so-called "moderate" Muslims, ie. those who advocate a peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world, numerous enough to be considered the mainstream or is there some sort of equivalence of force between the two paths evident in the Koran, the path of peace and the path of war?
What is the long-term goal or anticipated end for the world in the minds of the Muslims who promote war and the destruction of Israel and U.S.A.?
Will the peaceful Muslims resist the jihadists, or passively accept what ever the result is of their Holy War?
How serious do we think those Islamic Terrorists are about their stated aims?

The answer to these and many more related questions will determine what the West does from here.

It is also worth meditating on the fact that a Christian becomes more peaceful as he more closely follows the teaching of Jesus Christ.
However, it is not a given that the follower of Mohammed will be peaceful as his devotion to Islam increases. And the common western misconception is that Islamic terrorists have twisted Islam, but Islam's history tells us that the warring, conquering, oppressing Islam is just one possible side of it.

[MenTaLguY]

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that the ultimate answer to Islam is going to have to be Christianity, not military force or democracy (I think warning against the latter error was part of Fr. Schall's point regarding the unsuitability of the term "Islamo-Fascism").

If current trends continue, Islam will inherit Europe by default. The collapse of the non-Muslim populations in Europe is not some insidious Islamic plot -- post-Christian Europeans are doing it to themselves.

Meanwhile, in Africa, where Christianity is vibrant, Islam is actually on the retreat in places. I remember reading a transcript of an interview with an Islamic leader, where he expresssed his extreme distress over the rate of conversions from Islam to Christianity there.

So far as "moderate" Muslims go, I don't think it's prudent to simply throw up our hands and say, "oh, see, Islam is like that." It may be worth reminding them that whereever militant Islam prevails, it turns inwards, and "moderates" are invariably next on the menu. Many seem to be living in deep denial about Islam, and that may help them see it for what it is. Said with love, it may also help them consider Christianity.

[RegularRon]

It's nice to see an American Cardinal come out and say these things. He also sounds like he took a page from Cardinal Pell from Sydney as well. I think it's great, that a church leader is taking the lead on showing the world what this vile "religion" has done for the past 1400 years.

MenT..On your Africa thought, yes Christianity is on the rise, but take a look at what happened in the Sudan. All Christians there have either, died, converted to islam, or fled. Lybia, Egpyt, and the rest of the Islamic countrys have no tolerance for us there. So the laws allow them to kill anyone who converts to Christianity, or is even caught with a bible in their presence. It's not a good scene at all in Afirca for us. Any given day over at the wonderful website Jihadwatch.com, you can find stories on whats going on in Afirca concering Christians.

Again, it's wonderful that a leading Cardinal has come out and said these things. Let's hope more follow in his place.

Hail Mary

[Kip Watson]

Really really weak argument.

The word Jihad is an *exact* match for *crusade*. And before you bristle, neither side need apologise for their holy wars. The Muslims freed their world from the tyranny of the Pagans, and it was righteous war. Our fallen natures put us in conflict with each other, nothing more.

The Ottomans didn't practice Holy War, they were an expansionist military state even before they adopted Islam. The Ottoman Empire no more represents the spirit of Islam than the absolute monarchs of Europe who put millions to the sword represent the spirit of Catholicism. If anything, the Muslims come off better, Islam mellowed the Turk (much as Christianity did the barbarians of Europe), what excuse did the Catholo-fascists of the 17th Century have?

This rubbish about Islam being constantly at war -- what piffle. They fought almost exactly as much as the Europeans did, less if anything. They also enjoyed long periods of peace -- hundreds of years at a time, which is pretty unusual in any period of human history.

Ironically, the Muslim is if anything more peaceful than the Christian. They have a fatalistic streak. We fought the Mongols off, they were conquered by them. We ended up colonising them with a few little armies. No one ever could have done that to us!

Mate, they couldn't even defeat the Jews, how unwarlike is that?

And how about the Islamofascism? A few short years of fascist propaganda had little Germany taking on the entire world and nearly winning, Over 7 decades worth of the same propaganda on a quarter of the world's population, and all they have to show for it is a few thousand crazies. Oh, they have their occasional baying mobs, but they never follow through. They're such a docile lot.

Make peace with the Mohammedan, brothers. And you can make peace with your own Church's history at the same time.

[Michael]

Cardinal Chaput???

http://evangelical-catholicism.blogspot.com

[RegularRon]

Kip...Make peace with our Mohammedan brothers? Riiiight and I'm the next Pope. Tell that to our Catholic brothers who live in Saudi Aradia, Egypt, Lybia, Iran, and all the rest of the "Tolerant Islamic" countrys. No doubt, they'd like to have a few words with you on the subject.

And on the Ottoman Empire, nice try on trying to deminsh our Catholic brothers and sisters, who were killed left and right, in the name of Islam. What history book are you reading??

Hail Mary

[Kip Watson]

Ron,

The Turks are not Arabs, they're Mongols. You've heard of Ghengis Khan? Tamberlaine? The Golden Horde?

Now, *they* were a warlike people.

[MenTaLguY]

RegularRon: I'm certainly aware of the situation in Somalia and other regions, which is why I qualified my statement with "in places". Still, I think there is hope of a Christian Africa or a Christian Europe ultimately prevailing against Islam. There is no hope of a secular Europe doing the same.

Kip: De Nile isn't just a river in Egypt... insist on carrying a Christian Bible into Saudi Arabia and marvel at the "peaceful" response. Neither did the Middle East become predominantly Muslim because the most ancient Christian communities peacefully decided, en masse, that, "Hey, this Islam thing sounds like a really good idea!"

[Deacon John M. Bresnahan]

Does anyone remember the Armenian Christians? The first attempted genocide in modern times was by Moslem Turks trying to exterminate the Armenians as a people primarily because they were Christian. Every Christian interested in history and relations with Islam should read: "The Burning Tigris" by Peter Balakian about the Armenian Genocide and the two books by Bat Ye'or: "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam," and "The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam."
Every American news reporter should be forced to read these books for it is sickening how in their ignorance they constantly regurgitate the Islamic "spin" --contortion, actually--on World History.
As so many who know their history have been commenting on--it was not the Christians who stole--with fire, sword, and persecution--the Middle East from Moslems, but the reverse. And besides the Crusades were 6-700 years ago--the Armenian slaughters were in the 20th Century.

[Kip Watson]

The Mohammedans have a complex history, but you view it all as a single 'Jihad' narrative. That type of grossly politicised, inaccurate, caricatured historical analysis is *exactly* the same as what the Marxists apply to the history of Christendom.

It's crude, simplistic to the point of cartoonish and completely unenlightening.

And worse, by playing that game, you're *making a rod for our own backs*.

'The truth will set you free' said the Lord. Crude propaganda belongs to father of lies, not the followers of Jesus.

[RegularRon]

Complex history?? How is going off to lands and conquring complex?? Please explain that. Because the way all I look at it, it's not complex at all. Convert, Submit, or be killed is not complex.

Again, what history books are you reading? I suggest picking up a Koran (a comic book in my eyes) and thumbing through it just to see how it all works. Or anything by Robert Spencer, Bernard Lewis and a whole host of others who understand the history of Moooslims. Not Arabs, Moslims.

I always giggle, when someone trys to use the "it's to complex for you to understand" argument. When it's all in plain view.

Hail Mary

[Khadim]

It is difficult to understand the thinking of these peaceful christian who are quick to judge other faiths. If one looks at the histroy of the world religions one can read about voilence and war for survival parctised in those religon and in those same religon there are groups which hijacked those practise for their personal gain and power to rule over illetrate and uneducated followers. I want to know what is the cardinal chaputs views on the Irish republican armys fight in Ireland againts the people who started crusades to take back holy lands.