Thoughts on the nature of offense (in two posts)

[dzheremi]

It has been suggested here several times that we are all too quick to offend each other. Some Muslim posters have suggested that we ought to think of how we might feel if someone were to insult Jesus Christ before we think of insulting Muhammad. After all, Muslims hold Muhammad’s person as sacrosanct, even if his place in Islam is not really comparable to that of Jesus in Christianity (something the people making this point on either side apparently fail to realize).

This is a good point, in a way. Christians are indeed deeply hurt by insults to Our Lord and our faith. We can empathize, in some ways, with Muslims on this point, as we live in a world that does not respect our beliefs and even mocks and degrades them on a regular basis (public desecration of the Host on the internet by atheist “men of science”, anti-Catholic art, literature, etc).

However, the dynamics and demographics of this board are not really representative of the societies in which we live. Many of the Christians here are natives of Western countries, which are secular in their law and at best filled with a practicing non-religious citizenry, one and all. In other words, outside of this messageboard, you would be unlikely to find so many among a group of 100,000 self-identified Christians in the West who would even risk offending anyone for the sake of standing up for their faith, because they do not practice it but by their own definitions of Christianity which respect no sacred tradition. So whether or not offensive statements can even be attributed to the “Christian West” as an entity (if such an entity even exists) is not very helpful when considering the central issues that cause this offense in the first place. Offensiveness is not part and parcel of conversation with Christians, even though it must seem that way sometime.

To this end, I must now ask for forgiveness from any Muslim here who would be kind enough to forgive me. I have not always been a good model (or even an adequate model) of the principles of the Faith and the Church, and I am sorry for any offense I have caused. After thinking about it for the past few days, I tried to relate my behavior to my religious growth. Growing up as a Protestant, falling away, and then entering the Catholic Church is a very scary experience in some ways, but my new certainty in truth of the Church is not predicated on a complete denial of everything I grew up learning. I bear no ill will at all towards my previous church and the people I grew up with in it. Since this is the case, how can I then purposefully insult Muslims or invite others to do the same? What is the difference between my own Protestant mother (may God rest her soul) and Swariffin’s hajj grandfather? What is the difference between the transcendence of the Mass and that of the Hajj? I am not saying that there are not differences, but I am wondering what they are. I will never go on Hajj, so I will never know what that is like, but I do go to Mass, and receive the Eucharist, so I do know what that is like. They are vastly different as activities, with vastly different motivations and expressions, but for their participants they are the most sacred and necessary of travels.

 

[dzheremi]

None of this is to say that there are not real differences in our theologies which are insurmountable. There are. We discuss these over and over, every day. And I have made my decision and reaffirm it every day, and Muslims also do the same. I personally do not believe that recognizing these differences and articulating them is any manner of offense, though some of the ways that they articulated can be very offensive, depending on who is doing the articulating and who is reading these articulations.

There are some things, for instance, that Christians will not budge on ever:

• We believe that Jesus Christ is as He is portrayed in the Bible, not in the Qur’an.
• We believe in the Trinity, which is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in that order. These are not three separate Gods.
• We believe that Jesus Christ was crucified, died, and resurrected, in confirmation of the only scripture we consider to be the true word of God, the Bible.

This is a bare minimum, of sorts, and already it violates so much of what Islam claims to be true that it is inevitable that there is something offensive in it for Muslims. Similarly, Muslims cannot help but offend us when they claim that Jesus Christ is a prophet of God (not God Himself), that Jesus Christ was a Muslim, that He was not crucified, etc. Also that the Qur’an is God’s final revelation to mankind, complete and holy in God’s own words, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God via this final revelation. All of these beliefs are anathema to us. You cannot disclaim them and remain Muslims any more than we can deny Christ as we know Him and remain Christians.

There is a sort of poverty of language in our discussions. Muslims calling us polytheists are not only keeping to their tradition, but also using the only definition of “polytheism” that they know. Since their tradition tells them that the Trinity is indicative of polytheism, what other word could they use to describe the problem they have with our faith? Similarly, when Christians accuse Muhammad of being a pedophile because of his sexual relationship with 9-year-old Aisha when he was much older than she, we are using the term that we know for someone who engages in that behavior. It is not slander, in that sense; We literally do not have a better way to say “old man who has sex with a little child”. The word for this person in English is “pedophile”, and of course since we do not see Muhammad as a messenger of God, there is no logical disconnect for us to claim that Muhammad is a pedophile. It is certainly not nice, but we are not interested in upholding the idea of Muhammad as an example to humanity. To us, he is just a man, and not in the same way that Muslims claim Jesus Christ was just a man. Because of his distortion (from our point of view) of the true message that is Christianity with his Qur’an, we are disinclined to believe that Muhammad’s message came from God or that Muhammad was acting in service of God, though I personally am willing to believe that he may have been convinced that this is what he was doing.

No doubt Muslims can say similar objections about the deification of Jesus that they claim the Christians are guilty of. This is how some Muslims here can talk about “Your Jesus” (meaning the depiction of Jesus in Christianity) while at the same time recognizing that Isa of the Qur’an refers to the same person as Yesua/Jesus/Iyesus in the Bible. We can talk about the same Jesus and come to vastly different conclusions as to His person or “meaning”. We can likewise talk about the same Muhammad, the same Bible, the same Qur’an, the same GOD (The tetragrammaton/God the Father/Allah) and come to very different conclusions.

Is any of this true offense? I don’t know. I just know I am tired. No discussions here ever go anywhere. Everyone can find offense in basically everything. How much of our hurt feelings are due to the fact that others disagree, rather than the manner in which they disagree? How many of us realize that the manner of our disagreement often takes the shape it does because of the nature of our very beliefs, and the limits of the language we use to talk about them?

I don’t want to insult Islam, Judaism, Protestantism, Baha’i, etc. I know that the people who believe in those religions do so with as much passion and conviction as I believe in my own. So I wonder: What is offense? How do we commit it? How do we deal with having committed it? How do we deal with those whose beliefs are anathema to us? I don’t think anyone here is operating on a common understanding of these basics.

 

[Sister_Amy]

To this end, I must now ask for forgiveness from any Muslim here who would be kind enough to forgive me.

I forgive you.

 

[ralphinal]

I don’t want to insult Islam, Judaism, Protestantism, Baha’i, etc. I know that the people who believe in those religions do so with as much passion and conviction as I believe in my own. So I wonder: What is offense? How do we commit it? How do we deal with having committed it? How do we deal with those whose beliefs are anathema to us? I don’t think anyone here is operating on a common understanding of these basics.

This is about the forth time that I have read this thread. What a wonderful post, dzheremi. Very thought provoking.

I am not sure that we can have these conversations without some level of offense. At some point, one side or the other must say that they feel that the other’s views are wrong and possibly dangerous.

I would say that we can all do better to be more sensative in the way that we say things. However, I am not sure how to critique other faiths without being too critical. For example, there is no way that both the Qur’an’s story of Jesus and the Bible’s Jesus can be accepted together. Personally, I find it insulting when Muslims claim that they respect Jesus then say that the he lied about being Crucified and rising again. Same with his mother and those who knew him. So where does that leave us in the discussion? I am less bothered about them denying his divinity than that. So where does that leave us? I am sure that Muslims are equally offended by our claims of the sins of Muhammed. However, based on our understanding of what a sin is, and of what Muhammed did during his life, Christians can only come to that conclusion. So, where does that leave us? Is it possible to have a set of vocabulary that we can all agree on when discussing things? If so, would that reduce the ways we offend each other?

 

[Reuben_J]

I must commend you, dzheremi, for coming out with such thoughtful posts. It shows that you are concerned for the well-being of the discussions in this forum.

I agree that inter-religous discussion can never be easy. There is no knowing that it will end up nicely or otherwise. Dialoging with Muslims as it is with Protestants can be quite daunting. People come here with reasons best known to themselves and some of these, especially proselytizing or trolling, can be very glaring and they are such put off. Thus one’s motive in coming here more or less set the tone on how discussion will proceed.

As in all things, I think the best way is to follow the rules of the game. I think the forum’s rule is quite comprehensive in stiffling any uncivility if being adhered to faithfully.

On the other hand, posters who come in with the holier-than-thou attitude are no help either because they only inflamed others whom they are preaching to.

Some of the forum’s rules that’s relevant here:

• Always abide by the forum rules.
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Praise

• When you agree with a part of what someone said. Tell them. It doesn’t hurt your position to agree with some part of an opposing argument. In fact, it lets others know that you are listening

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