Is there such a thing as bad religion? In Nostra Aetate, the council fathers wisely confined their discussion of Christian-Muslim relations to Muslims.

Should Christian Leaders Defend Islam?

by WILLIAM KILPATRICK

Is there such a thing as bad religion? Or is religion by its very nature a good thing? Throughout most of history, most people wouldn’t have hesitated to label some religions as bad. The Romans condemned the child-sacrificing religion of the Carthaginians, Christians condemned the Aztec religion for its human sacrifice, and Catholics condemned Arians and Albigensians as heretics.

The contemporary take on this question is altogether different. With the exception of some rabid atheists, most people—even those of no particular faith—have a positive view of religion. And Christians, especially, seem well-disposed to people of other faiths. Serious Christians are much more likely to be worried about the dangers inherent in secularism than the dangers posed by another religion. The current attitude seems to be that in the battle against secularism, people of faith—no matter what their faith—ought to stick together.

One might expect that the return of militant Islam to the world stage would put a damper on this benign view of religion, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Many Christians still take the attitude that if you’re a religion, you’re part of the family and we’ll stick up for you. As an example, recent popes have been adamant in their opposition to secularism, but have been reluctant to criticize Islam. For them, the major conflict of our age is not between religion and religion but between religion and unbelief. Of course, there is plenty of justification for that view. The struggle between atheism and belief which was the chief preoccupation of Pope St. John Paul II was indeed the defining struggle of the twentieth century. He may have been concerned about Islam, but there was little indication that he saw anything inherently wrong with it—as he did with Nazism and communism. He once kissed the Koran, but one cannot imagine that he would ever have done the same with Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto.

As suggested by his Regensburg address, Pope Benedict XVI had a more critical view of Islam than his predecessor, but on the whole he seems to have adopted the position that believers are in one camp and secularists in another. When asked in a lengthy interview with journalist Peter Seewald if the Vatican was following a different policy from earlier popes who “thought it their duty to save Europe from Islamization,” Benedict replied: “Today we are living in a completely different world in which the battle lines are drawn differently. In this world, radical secularism stands on one side, and the question of God, in its various forms, stands on the other.” (Light of the World, p. 100) Elsewhere in the interview, Benedict speaks of Christians and Muslims as being on “the same side of a common battle” to defend “faith in God and obedience to God” (p. 99).

Pope Francis appears to have an even more positive attitude toward Islam. InEvangelii Gaudium, he asserted that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” More recently, in a talk to refugees, he encouraged them to look to the sacred writings of their traditions: “those that are Christian, with the Bible, and those that are Muslim, with the Qur’an. The faith that your parents instilled in you will always help you move on.”

The view that our commonalities with Islam are more important than our differences is widely shared by Christians and is especially strong among Catholics. But what if this view is mistaken? Not to put too fine a point on it, what if Osama bin Laden’s interpretation of Islam is closer to the original than that of moderate Muslims? In his interview with Seewald, Pope Benedict refers on two occasions to the “tradition of tolerant and good coexistence between Islam and Christianity” that prevails in large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. And he sees this as a hopeful sign that rapprochement is possible between the two faiths. The thing is, the Islam practiced in that region tends to be of the folk religion type, and it typically incorporates elements of other faiths. In other words, it’s a far cry from authentic, made-in-Mecca, by-the-book Islam. While folklore Islam may be more compatible with Christianity, it does not have as strong a claim as does the Islam of the Middle East to be following the authentic tradition of the prophet. Islam is very much a by-the-book religion, and all the books—the Koran, the Hadith, the Sira, and the sharia law manuals—provide more textual support to militant Muslims than to moderate ones. As one observer put it, “Moderate Islam is a cultural habit, radical Islam is authentic Islam.”

Which Islam is the more authentic? Some scholars assert that both interpretations—the more peaceful and the more militant—are equally valid. But unless you believe that Islam is like a Rorschach test that can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways, one side or the other has to have the better of the argument. As I’ve indicated elsewhere, I believe the militants have the better case, but rather than go over those arguments again, I prefer to call attention to some of the consequences for Islam’s Catholic defenders if the militant view of things turns out to be the more accurate one. If bin Laden and company have the better side of the argument and if Church leaders continue to stand by Islam as a brother religion, I see several negative consequences for the Church.

The first negative consequence of this stand-by-my-Islam approach is that it creates confusion for many Catholics. The average Catholic who keeps abreast of the news and who is not committed to upholding any particular narrative about Islam will have noticed by now that there is something wrong with Islam. And as more is revealed about Islam and sharia law, it will become more and more difficult for that average Catholic to give credence to the notion that all the many problems with Islam have nothing to do with the real Islam. Continued expressions of “deep respect” for Islam by Church leaders won’t do much to increase respect for Islam, but they might serve to lessen the respect that Catholics have for their own leaders. As the gap between what the bishops say and what the news reveals increases, the credibility of the Church’s teachings will come into question.

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