Innocent People, Malignant Theology

Tomorrow’s election is sucking up all the oxygen in the room full of the chattering classes, but it will be over soon enough, and no matter what the results, there is absolutely no way it will represent the end of tea party activism and its broader movement to restore the America of the founding. The American people know this is a war and it isn’t won yet. But we’re on the right path.

Sooner or later, the winning of the war in all its dimensions will include coming to grips with the core incompatibility of American ideals with Islam. This subject needs more discussion, not less; more education, not less; more fortitude to confront unpleasant truths, not run from them or deny them. We’ve written of it before, here and here and here, and we will continue to write about it. It is one of the great callings of this era for serious, deep and mature thinking—followed by courageous action. Skimming the surface of this problem is a recipe for disaster for all mankind.

Perhaps the biggest challenge—but also the best avenue for hope—involves setting up the right starting point: there is a huge difference between people and theology. Most every criticism of Islam is conflated with criticism of Muslims; most every strong denouncement of Islam is twisted into hatred of Muslims.

Americans instinctively give the individual the benefit of the doubt. It’s their inherent Judeo-Christian adaptation of the golden rule: I’ll do you right, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you’ll do me right when given a chance--and if you do, I don’t much care where you worship. This aspect of the American character is the foundation for the very real affection that is sometimes felt and articulated by Americans of all stripes toward individual Muslims that they may know and even occasionally socialize with.

But there is an immature sloppiness about this starting point which leads to a blind and ignorant defense of Islam. “I know a Muslim, and s/he’s ok, so I don’t see any big deal about Islam…there are good people and bad people in every religion…so there’s no reason to single out Islam any more than Mormons or Catholics or Baptists or anyone else…besides, I remember my sixth grade civics class said something about freedom of religion in our Constitution…end of discussion.”

Not end of discussion.

We’d be afraid to guess at what percentage of Americans under-30 have the vaguest idea of Judeo-Christian teachings and their core influence on the founding of America. And however small that percentage is, the percentage that also has a core understanding of Islamic teachings and their core influence on the societies in which they are dominant is infinitesimal. Add the Americans under-50 and the first percentage goes up, but the second doesn’t budge much; add those under-100 and the first goes way up, but the second still doesn’t change much. This can’t continue.

As we’ve noted from the beginning of this website:

”What people believe God to be, and what they believe themselves to be in relation to God, determines their concept of freedom, virtue, justice and the purpose of life. The ‘war on terror’ may be discussed in terms of economic conditions, number of angry males under age 30, territories, skin color, or oil, but the core conflict is based on radically different views of what God is—and what a man (and woman) created by that God is. The good news is that truth exists and is not in conflict with itself, and eventually all humanity will be blessed as it wakes up to this fact.”

Americans are going to have to dig in and find out exactly what the Islamic religion defines as “Allah”. They should read the Koran themselves, and not read the non-Muslim apologists for Islam or the anti-Muslim bigots. But there is no escaping what Americans will find. Allah is violent, vengeful, arbitrary, oppressive, dark and deceiving. Allah bears no relationship to the New Testament’s proclamation that “God is love.” The differences are stark, and they lead humanity in opposite directions. One is up—toward a human environment of ‘on earth peace, good will toward men’; the other is down, where violence and oppression are perfectly captured by the doctrine that murder and mayhem brings a reward of 72 virgins in heaven.

The angry atheist—someone like George Soros, for example—may take from all this that the only right conclusion is “a pox on both their houses, and let’s make the world conform to a religion-free, morals-free ‘ 'open society'". This is a prescription for utter anarchy and chaos and cataclysmic destruction on a world-wide scale. A world without God is not paradise; it is hell.

But it is also true that there is no point of convergence between theologies that lead in directly opposite directions; there is only a choice: one or the other.

“The Christian image of humanity”, to use German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phrase, needs to be explored and grasped in its broadest dimensions. Within it is the principled capacity to see humanity as innocent and free of theological imposition—which is a complicated way of saying that the problem can be seen as not Muslims but Islam. That will get the discussion on the right starting point. Where it goes in terms of policy specifics is a subject for future essays (and one old one) and is dependent on the pace at which Americans come up the learning curve on this core issue.

We’re optimistic that Americans are awake and moving up this curve very rapidly. In all aspects of this war, Americans are on the right path.

Paul Gable

November 1, 2010