Wow, this blog must be getting influential. The Thinking Housewife quotes the following from the successor of Saint Peter:
Dear friends, on the basis of what I have outlined here, it seems to me that there can be fruitful collaboration between Christians and Muslims. In the process, we help to build a society that differs in many respects from what we brought with us from the past. As believers, setting out from our respective convictions, we can offer an important witness in many key areas of life in society. I am thinking, for example, of the protection of the family based on marriage, respect for life in every phase of its natural course or the promotion of greater social justice. I got this idea from the magnificent blogger “Bonald” at “Throne and Altar”.
Okay, I made up that last sentence. Still, you’ll recall how we tossed around this very idea on this blog a while ago. You’ll also recall that Bonifacius called me a heretic for even considering the idea. My interlocutors eventually convinced me that the strategy probably wouldn’t work, not because it’s a bad idea for either party, but because the Muslims almost certainly wouldn’t go for it.
Laura Wood and Larry Auster are outraged. They think the idea is not only impractical, but wicked and cowardly. They seem to embrace the idea, which I’ve combatted here and here, that Muslims worship a false god, rather than worshipping the true God falsely. Mrs. Wood takes it farther, denying any common ground between Catholics and Muslims, saying that the marriage covanant, fetal rights, and social justice defended by Muslims has nothing to do with that defended by Catholics.
Readers will know how greatly I admire both Mrs. Wood and Mr. Auster. Indeed, I look on them as leaders of our movement, and I’ve benefitted greatly from both of them. Here, though, my must defend Pope Benedict–not because he is my spiritual father, although that would be reason enough–but because these attacks are more extreme than reason will allow. They say that we may never ally ourselves with Muslims against a common, and vastly more dangerous, liberal foe, because the Mohammadans deny the divinity of Christ. It is true, to the great sorrow of the world and especially to the souls of Muslims, that they do deny this truth. But so do the liberals and so do the Jews. Elsewhere, Mrs. Wood has stated that she would rather the western world commit suicide by multiculturalism than that we cease to be accomodating to the Jews. Now, I agree that that the Jews are an admirable people, and it would impoverish us if we could not appreciate their many admirable traits. I also would not want to see the Jews expelled from the West–despite their long history of hostility to Christendom and the certainty of their continued hostility–because a Jew who’s lived in the West his whole life has as much right to his home as I have. I have no doubt that those few Jews who do believe in God believe in and worship the one true God. However, we must conclude then that denying the divinity of Christ doesn’t automatically set one beyond the pale for any of us. Indeed, while Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, many of the Jews think Him a false prophet now boiling in excrement in Hell. The Jews do not support any kind of heteronormative marriage or any restrictions on abortion, and they and their pet organizations have done far more to secularize America than the Muslims have. To be consistent, we must admit that a Muslim who’s lived in the West his whole life has rights we must respect. Muslim civilization, too, is brilliant in many ways, and we should give it its due. Of course, though we should admire the Muslims and the Jews, we should remember that they do not reciprocate our esteem. They mean harm to our culture (although they don’t see it as harm; they sincerely believe that marginalizing our faith is for our own good), and we must respond to that prudently but proportionately.
A Christian-Muslim alliance against liberalism would be much less corrupting than a Christian-liberal alliance against Islam. If the former marginalizes belief in the Incarnation, the latter marginalizes belief in God Himself. I no longer recommend either coalition: the latter because it is too monstrous to contemplate, the former because it wouldn’t work. The fact of the matter is that we have a Muslim-liberal coalition, and it’s pretty stable. Both sides see Christianity as the greatest evil, and both sides are contented enough that they’re gaining from their alliance. It seems almost impossible to peel away either to our side.
How does one win a two-front war? Generally speaking, one doesn’t. It looks, though, like that’s what we’re stuck fighting. Pope Benedict is right to be looking for ways to postpone hostilities with our less-dangerous enemy. If it doesn’t work (and I expect it won’t), we’re none the worse off for trying. Even if he doesn’t succeed in building an Adam Webb-style virtuocratic alliance, if he can at least create some friction between our two enemies, if he can put the thought into their heads that their interests might not be identical, this could really pay off.
Filed under: Islam, Judaism, Wedge Minorities, What's to be done? | 14 Comments »