As I stated above, it would depend on how an objective, universal standard judges ‘X’.
But if the “objective, universal standard” also condemns Christianity, then where does that leave the Christian? This is relevant to any argument between a Christian and a Muslim. Which leads us into the next point:
Well, suppose a man said he was against adultery but was found to have committed it himself. Does that nullify his objection to adultery? Maybe, but maybe he is honestly convinced that adultery is wrong and just gave in to temptation.
Exactly. I don’t think that such a person’s objections to adultery would be nullified at all. But you are missing the point of the analogy here. What is analogous to adultery in the case we are discussing is not violence but Christianity itself. We are not talking about Christians committing violence while admitting that they shouldn’t. Of course that can be seen as simply an example of sinfulness (though even there, if Christians or Muslims seem to do this more often than other people, one can ask whether there is some flaw in these religions which at the very least leaves them unable to restrain the violence of sinful humanity effectively). We are talking about violence which is either commanded or approved in the Bible, or which has been engaged in by Christians historically in the firm belief that they were doing something righteous.
That being the case, the parallel with adultery is not “violence” but “a religion that encourages violence.” And if both Christianity and Islam are religions of this kind, then a Christian using the “violence” argument against Islam could be taken seriously only if he said something like: “I am a Christian out of weakness but I know it is false.” That would be possible, I suppose, but it would seem rather odd.
I agree with most of this, but don’t know what you mean by “the violent potential of our own tradition.”
Perhaps my language was too wishy-washy, given the horrific amount and degree of *actual *violence in our own tradition.
The first Christians, whom we derive much of our tradition,
But they are not the whole story.
accepted violent martyrdom at the hands of their Roman persecutors in lieu of turning violent against them.
They frequently spoke of the eternal torment to which these persecutors were destined, and Lactantius wrote gloatingly of the horrible deaths the persecutors died. So if a person were making an ungenerous argument against Christianity along the lines of the arguments you and others make against Islam, it could easily be argued that the early Christians refrained from violence because they were not in a position to engage in it, just as you argue with regard to Muhammad at Mecca. It could be argued that the only real difference is that (for reasons beyond the control of Christians and hence not in any way to their credit) the “Meccan period” of Christians lasted for 300 years. But once Christians were in a position to engage in violence against their enemies–and against each other–they did so.
This would be ungenerous and even unfair, because it would ignore the Christian teachings about love of enemies as
one factor governing Christian response to persecution. But there is no getting around the fact that Christians, like Muslims, began to engage in violence as soon as they got access to political power.
I would defend the “violent Islam” argument more this way:While there are undoubtedly plenty of Christians who broke Jesus’ commandment to love one another, their actions should not be confused with Christ’s message, which is valid. Because of Mohammed’s actions, this confusion is a lot harder to avoid when examining Islam and Mohammed.
This is a point that could be made perhaps by Anabaptists, who really do more or less reduce Christianity to the teaching and example of Jesus. Even there you have the passages about eternal punishment, which would give a conservative Anabaptist some difficulties. Of course it may be that the historical Jesus never said these things. But that raises the bigger issue–orthodox Christianity is committed to a lot more than just what the historical Jesus said and did (especially since we have no access to the historical Jesus except through canonical Scripture). We are committed to the canon of Scripture as a whole, and in varying ways and degrees also to Christian tradition (this is obviously a bigger “problem” for Catholic Christians than for Protestants, but all who claim the mantle of orthodoxy face it to some degree).
It is disingenuous, again, to pretend to follow a “simple religion of Jesus” when in fact orthodox Christianity is much more than that. Yes, you are right that the example of Jesus does give us resources that Muslims don’t have. But one cannot simply distinguish between the “valid message of Jesus” and other aspects of Christian Scripture and tradition unless one is willing to throw orthodox Christianity out the window altogether and pin one’s faith on some subjective reconstruction of what hte historical Jesus said and did, or at the very least to restrict oneself to the New Testament and do some hermeneutical footwork with regard to things like eternal punishment and apocalyptic bloodbaths.
Edwin
