BENEDICT OUGHT TO READ FRANZ ROSENZWEIG

This is a long article but well worth the read-click on title for full article
Thank you Ralph Zwier

Not what it was, but what it does By Spengler Regarding the cuisine of the southeastern United States, a local adage warns: "More important than what it is, is what it was." That applies to a stew that might include marsupials, but not to religion. Critics of Islam quote the saber-rattling suras of the Koran and recount the history of Muslim violence, while apologists retort with peaceful-sounding suras and cite Christian misbehavior. Pope Benedict XVI's September 12 speech provoked a fruitless debate over the remarks of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor about the

evils that Mohammed had brought to the world. Nothing ever will
be learned, much less proved, by this tedious and sophomoric exercise. Gathering dust half-read on my desk are a number of books recounting the supposed evils of Islam - by Ba'at Yeor, Oriana Fallaci, Serge Trifkovic, and many others. There is not a speck of theological insight in the stack of them.

Western policy toward the Muslim world appears stupid and clumsy because its theological foundations are flawed. It is not what it is, nor what it was, but rather what it does that defines a religion: How does a faith address the paramount concern of human mortality, and what action does it require of its adherents? I addressed these issues under the title Jihad, the Lord's Supper, and eternal life (September 19), explaining that jihad does for Muslims precisely what Communion does for Christians. It is not a doctrine but a sacrament, that is, a holy act that transforms the actor.

Three years ago I reviewed in this space the only recent book on Islam that explained jihad within the religious life of the Muslim faith community, a collection of writings by the Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig, who died in 1929. [1] It is available only in German. Rosenzweig's understanding of Islam, to be sure, can be culled from his English-language writings, but a new English translation of his principal work last year was ignored entirely. [2]

Oddly, the US left and the neo-conservative right agree on method as well as outcome, and produce quite similar drivel. Professor Martha Nussbaum, a classicist, has written a new book on Hindu religious violence, as she wrote, "not only to present a case study in the threat to democracy from religious tension, not only to engage Americans in an informed dialogue about India, but also to defuse the inaccurate and unhelpful assumption that Islam is a global monolith bent on violence". That is a silly premise, for violence by other religious groups does not bear upon the accusation that Islam is inherently violent.

The neo-conservative Max Boot, an enthusiast of imperial small wars, wrote last week, "Religions are not monolithic. They have no fixed, eternal identity. Until the 18th century, Christianity was a militant faith whose adherents did not hesitate to kill 'heathens'. Throughout the Middle Ages, Islamic states usually offered greater tolerance to religious minorities and were more open to secular learning than their Christian neighbors." [3] Really? Is Boot talking about the Almohad Dynasty that conquered Spain in 1148 and offered the Jews conversion or death? Were the Almohads "more open to secular learning" than the contemporary Holy Roman emperor, Frederick II? The fellow deserves a D-minus in a freshman history course.