What is a moderate Muslim?
The newly appointed head of the Vatican office that specializes in relations with Muslims pledged Wednesday to back the moderate forces within Islam to improve dialogue and help defeat extremist groups that encourage terrorism.
"We must help our Muslim friends rediscover the roots of their religion and therefore favor these moderate Muslims achieve a dialogue that will bring a civil and harmonious cohabitation," Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran said.
I would think though that it is the Islamists that have discovered the roots of their religion and are imitating Mohamed in his use of violence and political deceit to gain power. If only members of a Mohamed Seminar could live long enough to do the same sort of damage to Islamists that the Jesus Seminar did to the faith of many Christians. Instead of a priori assumption that there are no miracles they could have one that Mohamed did no violence and thus disentangle the moderate Mohamed of faith from the historical Mohamed.
"This Islam is the most extremist one, which encourages terrorism, and which, to say the truth, is not the real Islam," he said.
No the real Islam did not use terrorism as we know it today. Mohamed was involved in some 27 raids and battles so I guess to get back to the real Islam they must become involved in direct warfare against cities they want to take over.
Question: What is the definition of a moderate Muslim?
Answer: One that is not trying to kill you.
Now of course that is totally simplistic, but isn't that how we seem to be defining what a moderate Muslim is? I of course think it is a very good idea to maintain interreligious dialogue with those elements of Islam that are truly amenable to that, but for us to say they must return to their roots is misguided.
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It used to be about conversion. Now all we hear from the Vatican is interreligious dialogue and ecumenism. Why would we want to help the Muslims get back to their religious roots? We should work on converting the heathens, not participating in their heresy.
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya...
they could have one that Mohamed did no violence
I might be splitting some pretty thick hairs, but I've heard more than once from contemporary Muslims that Islam, and Mohammed in particular, are/always were peaceful.
Either the occasional violent person was never truly Islamic or temporarily abdicated his affiliation during the commission of whatever violent act it was, or it was violence perpetrated against unbelievers and so ex definio exists outside the Muslim sphere. This strikes me as a sophist's parody of "The Church is spotless/the Church is full of sinners," but I suspect there's a more lucid rationale than I can find in the circles I run in.
Not sure how those 27 raids fail to reach the "violence" threshold, though, even by the seventh century's standards.
Why Muslims are so confused is something you realise if you consider the Koran as a holy book. If you consider it as the history of a very human person using human means to attain a human end, it's so much simpler.
And interreligious diaglogue, in a way, accepts that the Koran can be a holy book. Why, even good Christians ask me what I would do if I discovered that Mohd. did not really fall into the Pit.
Interfaith dialogue and ecumenism are stellar goals, but I am convinced through experience and witness that all of this open-minded, open-hearted listening to persons of every religion without FIRM instruction and frequent reminders of our own faith and the Truth in it.
Sure there's that old "throw 'em in the ocean and they'll learn to swim" method, but what happens then is that when by the grace of God a Catholic recovers from all the rot they've ingested, they react, afterwards, to the language of liberalism, New Age, and traditional non-Christian religions with a gag reflex that's tough to hide! Thus, they are not more, but less, open to dialogue with people of other faiths or no faith! Like a body that has been poisoned by bad food, a soul learns from the poison it has already vomited!
"What is a moderate Muslim?"
The answer is simple: He is a bad Muslim.
"Interfaith dialogue and ecumenism are stellar goals"
What ARE the goals please? Do you even know?WARNING...you're 99% certain to contradict Paul VI.
"Question: What is the definition of a moderate Muslim?
Answer: One that is not trying to kill you."
I can buy this -- it's only the first wave of the Sultan's invading hordes that are "radical" Muslims. And really, even they might be moderate, because they're not really trying to kill you, just defeat conquer you -- if a few thousand people wind up dead, it was just an accident. And all their friends who come in their wake burning, raping, razing churches, confiscating land, and kidnapping and enslaving children are just stellar guys. Really!
The bait and switch here is that Islam only proscribes violence against other Muslims. Waging war on Christians is always legitimate.
How about the Church fix its own catechesis problems before trying to teach non-Catholics their own faith?
Shouldn't the Church focus more on making disciples of all nations? That is still the Church's mission, right?
I think the roots to which Cardinal Tauran was referring have to do with Judaism and Chrstianity.
As I recall, the thinking is that Mohammed was familiar with the basic tenets of Judaism and Christianity and developed his own religion that incorporated elements of both with local beliefs (such as pilgrimage to the Kabaa on the Hajj) that was simpler.
This is what I would say Cardinal Tauran meant by helping them get back to their roots.