Of course there is. If Islam is morally closer to Christianity than either communism or modern secular liberalism, that should affect our actions as Christians. We should not be spreading the “disease of democracy” throughout the world. We typically get only two results from that 1) a radical Muslim regime or 2) a decadent liberal regime. Neither is particularly palatable. Better to take common cause with those who are closer to us in terms of morality against those who would impose an anti-Christian moral regime on us of feminism, abortion, promiscuity, destruction of the family, etc.

Islam can be contained and rolled back, but not by a liberal society. Better to join with conservative Catholics, conservative Protestants (at least those that aren’t neo-cons) and with mainstream Muslims to defeat secular liberalism which is the more serious enemy since it destroys us from within. Then we can more easily establish boundaries for Islam and work on conversion.

The problem, as I alluded to above, is that modern Christians, even those who consider themselves fairly conservative, have bought into much of the American political evolution over the last century or so. It seems harsh to actually uphold what Christians did for the first 19 centuries or so. Essentially, they imagine that Christianity is more like modern liberalism than traditional societies. And they are right to the extent that what they call Christianity actually is closer to modern liberalism. It’s just that that’s not traditional Christianity.

That’s the problem.

Look, Michael, all my points are perfectly valid. I never once claimed that their theology is the same. You have refuted nothing whatsoever that I asserted. No doubt you may consider it “insufficient” if you wish to keep digging and finding underlying differences. I could do the same thing.

“‘Much of what Christians criticize in Islam was standard practice in Christianity up until the modern age.’ Modern Islam seems to be characterized by a desire to be enslaved and in its evangelical arm seeks to enslave and kill others. Christianity, even in its worst phases (until it became totally apostate) has always sought freedom in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. I think your view of Islam is romantic and archaic.”

. . . or yours has been poisoned by modern polemics . . .

In Western society women used to cover their heads and guard their modesty. In Western society, when a man and a woman married, they became one person and that person was the man. It was not until the 1880’s the married women had the right to own property. The Bible explicitly states that the wife has a duty of submission to her husband.

The further you go back, setting polygamy aside, the more indistinguishable family life in Christian societies is from Islamic ones.

If you think you get to define what monotheism is, then good luck to you. If you think that most common people throughout Christian and Islamic history were particularly concerned with the deeper theological foundations of the abundance of things the two religions have in common, you’re mistaken.

To summarize: It is simply false that Islam is a religion of vengeance and Christianity is a religioin of love. The stark contrast some wish to find isn’t there. The god of Islam is also a loving god. The God of Christianity also takes vengeance.

I have no romantic view of Islam. Nor do I have a romantic view of Christianity. My original point was that traditional Islam and traditional Christianity have much more in common than Christianity vis a vis communism or Christianity vis a vis modern liberal democracy. That point stands and nothing at all you’ve written detracts from it.

The patriarchal concept of the family is common to both religions. But the understanding of patriarchy is wholly different because the understanding of God and our interrelationship with God is wholly different. Christian patriarchy gives personhood to women and full equality in salvation if different in function. Islam is oppressive to women even in the best case.

Monotheism is common to both religions. Not, really, since their idea of who God is an how He is one is diametrically opposed to the Chrisitan revelation.

Condemnation of theft, adultery, pre-marital sex, homosexual activity, prostitution, drug use, etc., etc., are common to both religions. Again I go back to the why of condemnations and the consequences. They are similar but that alone is insufficient since the anthropology of the condemnations are quite different

Islam has its own version of Lent and Pascha called Ramadan and Eid ul-Adha. Except there is no Incarnation, no death, no Risen Lord and therefore no real saving repentance–yea real close. Maybe we should sue them for copyright infringement?

Morally it is very close to Christianity. Only if you view morality in a legalistic external manner which I am quite conviced you do. The morality of Islam while sharing a certain similacra in some points is not the same as Christianity because their root is not the same. Morals are cosmologically based rather than the other way round. Christianity’s morals are founded upon the sense of the sacred made present and real and at hand. Islam’s at best a forced acquiesence to a capricious divinity that has more in common with the slandered, the slayer and the destroyer than the lover of mankind.

Much closer than the morality that prevails in modern democracies. At least there is some concept of morality based in a transcendent other with Islam. There are no morals except expediency in modern democracies . That’s an objective fact.

Much of what Christians criticize in Islam was standard practice in Christianity up until the modern age. Modern Islam seems to be characterized by a desire to be enslaved and in its evangelical arm seeks to enslave and kill others. Christianity, even in its worst phases (until it became totally apostate) has always sought freedom in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. I think your view of Islam is romantic and archaic

Eliot,

Actually, our God has a vengeful side as well. Moreover, almost every chapter of the Qur’an opens with, “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful”.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of one of the schools of Sunni Islam (upon which Wahhabi Islam is based) was a very strict interpreter of shariah. When he died, his funeral was attended by countless thousands, many of whom were older women, widows, who were grateful that he protected their rights under Islamic law.

Many of the 99 names of Allah describe a loving, caring god. The Lover, the Bestower, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Protector, etc. He is also described as The Slayer and other names we might at first be taken aback by. But it is clear in the New as well as the Old Testament that our God sometimes imposes a stern judgment on His people as well as upon their enemies.

“But the idea that Islam’s moral teachings are closer to Christian ones is and therefore had something to do with the saints is, IMAO, crazy.”

The patriarchal concept of the family is common to both religions. Monotheism is common to both religions. Condemnation of theft, adultery, pre-marital sex, homosexual activity, prostitution, drug use, etc., etc., are common to both religions. Islam has its own version of Lent and Pascha called Ramadan and Eid ul-Adha. Morally it is very close to Christianity. Much closer than the morality that prevails in modern democracies. That’s an objective fact. Much of what Christians criticize in Islam was standard practice in Christianity up until the modern age.

That’s not to say there aren’t differences. Islam allows polygamy, for instance. However, this is only widely practiced in the upper classes. Also, the Jews of the Old Testament were polygamous so we can’t really get too bent out of shape about that. Beyond that, there are un-Islamic things that have emerged as customs in various areas (“female circumcision”, honor killings, etc.). But these are no more Islamic than snake-handling or sacrificing chickens is Christian.

There’s nothing at all crazy about what I wrote, rather it’s actually all objectively verifiable if you choose to look into it.

The real problem is this: We have gotten so used to the ideological claims of modern democracy that we are blinded to our own history as Orthodox, or we try to twist our faith to accomodate the spirit of this age

Michael,

Truly He is Risen!,

My views on Islam are based on considerable research of my own. There is a difference between the relationship between Muslims on the one hand and Jews and Christians on the other since the time of the founding of the State of Israel and, more emphatically, since the Islamic Revival of the late 70’s and forward. It is true that under shariah Christians are second class citizens. However, the real impetus for the current hostility to Christians in Muslim countries is at root political, based on the current political situation that Muslims find themselves in vis a vis Israel and American foreign policy. There were sizeable Christian communities in a number of Muslim countries for centuries which lived in relative peace. Many Christians have been driven out over the last few decades as a result of the rise of “Islamism”, a politicized, radicalized form of Islam.

I have never argued that life for Christians is peachy keen under Islam. No doubt that is not true. I simply think that absent the radicalism that has taken hold in certain quarters of Islam, life for Christians would be better under Islam than under communism. I stand by that firmly.

“The Constitution of the United States as it was written most certainly does not extoll evil as virtue–quite the contrary.”

It is not that the Constitution redefines evil as good. It is that the people, to whom the Constitution gives the final say in terms of moral legislation, have redefined evil as good. The Constitution recognizes no higher god than the considered will of the people. That is its one and only moral reference. Now, it does set certain propositions up as being more difficult to change than others. But in the end, with a supermajority, anything can be established or undone.

Fr. Johannes,

I’m not railing against corruption. I think I made that clear in my earlier response to Michael. It is not corruption that is the problem with democracy, it is that it redefines evil as good on the basis of its only real moral reference – -the will of the people.

It is not that I hate democracy. It is that I do not like the results it produces. I do see good things in democratic societies. However, the bad outweighs the good. That, of course, is a moral evaluation that will differ from person to person. However, it is very hard to argue that the number of abortions and the disappearance of the Christian concept of the family is symptomatic of a decent society. Democracy is remaking Christianity in its own image and unless Christians resist this temptation, their faith will no longer be Christian.

As to Islam, my remarks were geared toward the possibility (which I trust will not materialize, but not absolutely) that liberal democracy could so corrupt the entire Church that it is no longer Christian in its essence (much like the Episcopal Church has become). In that contingency, it would be better to follow some other monotheistic faith than to continue as a mainline style Christian.

In short, as usual, you’re remaking my argument into what you want me to have said so that it’s easier for you to critique.

“And what does this mean?

‘Democracies always lead to institutionalized liscentiousness, moral depravity, etc. It’s an infallible law of nature.’

Don’t you mean to say that the struggle against sin is universal to man?”

No, of course not. What I meant to say is exactly what I did say. What I mean is that although it’s true that corruption is universal and common to all mankind, in a democracy sin is redefined as virtue because the only real moral reference is the voice of the people, or what they are willing to tolerate. In an authoritarian state tied to the Church, the Church is the moral reference upon which moral legislation is based, not the capriciousness of the people and their representatives.

“You seem to be arguing for Cromwell of Calvin’s Geneva. Nothing like enforcing some moral rectitude from the top! That was tried though. It didn’t work out too well.”

Again, another invention on your part that has little to do with what I wrote. The Byzantine Empire lasted over 1000 years. A number of empires have lasted longer that America has to date. And they all enforced morality from the top down.

“But your diagnosis of the problem, while accurate in some ways, allows no real room for critical discernment or even possible solutions, or if it ever comes to it, compromises. I know you hate democracy. But I see nothing prescriptive here at all.”

Actually, the one prescriptive thing that I have said fairly consistently is that the Church leadership should spend some time thinking about devising a better form of government, something for the powers to be to draw upon when the current system becomes unsustainable. I’m not arguing for any overthrow. That would be the only immediate prescriptive consistent with what I’ve written. I don’t believe that that is necessary since I’m quite confident that our present system is so fatally flawed that it will collapse of its own accord.

However, what we definitely should not be doing is defending democracy given its atrocious results in light of Christian standards of morality. “Freedom” and “democracy” in the sense we use them in America are not Christian values. Orthodox tradition would be full with references to individual freedom and participatory democracy were that even remotely true. It’s just a fact that many Orthodox in this country have a hard time facing that democracy is really a foreign concept to the traditional Church.

Michael:

But the idea that Islam’s moral teachings are closer to Christian ones is and therefore had something to do with the saints is, IMAO, crazy.

Scott still has to explain the above. Islam copied a great deal from Christianity but it is uniquely at odds with Christianity in all its major dogmas. The “god of vengeance” of Islam has nothing in common with our God who is a Lover of Mankind. Islam followers are to make an never ending war on non-believers. The Christians are in a constant battle too; it is a never ending battle that we must fight until the return of Christ. We know that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. It is against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Through Jesus Christ, we are the victorious ones. God is not constrained by time and space; He gave us in the book of Revelation in the Bible the prophecy about this world.

I know what Scott is saying, I just don’t agree. One can be a saint under any form of government and in any type of culture.

Modern secularism is nihilist (it has roots in both western Christian humanism and the revolutionary ‘enlightenment philosophe’s). We have saints.
The essentially Platonic ideal of divine monarchy that it replaced is not inherently better and simply used Chrisitanity as a means to power and control of the populace. Saints were produced
Communisim is nihilist. Saints were produced
Islam is worship of what (some say the demonic). Saints were/are produced. But the idea that Islam’s moral teachings are closer to Christian ones is and therefore had something to do with the saints is, IMAO, crazy.

In any case they all seek to destroy humanity’s communion with the Incarnate and Risen Lord, saint’s overcome that by God’s grace. I just don’t see a dime’s worth of difference.

Years ago before the collapse of the overt soviet system, a friend of mine met with some Orthodox believers in Bulgaria. The Bulgarians were amazed that my friend could remain faithful in the west with all of the seduction, etc. My friend marveled at the Bulgarian’s ability to remain faithful under communism.

We are called to be Christian wherever we are. We either respond to that call or we don’t, we either allow the grace of God to overcome the anti-Christian circumstance of our life and our own hearts or we don’t.

Governments are always ‘of the world’ some are also ‘of the devil’. In either case, sooner or later they will come for Christians. Putting any faith in any form of government to pave the way for Christian life is futile.

Our government was founded originally as a republic with roots in the Greek understanding of republic (similar to the monastic republic of Mt. Athos), Iroquois understanding of confederation and ‘enlightenment’ delusion of the goodness of man without God. Democracy was not intended to be a part. Our governement long ago abandoned any of those principals and opted instead for fascistic populism.

Governing, especially self-governing is always a struggle and 99.9% of the time ends in abject failure. I see Scott’s solution as merely an attempt to move the Christian call to true self-governance on a personal and intimate level to external control. It won’t work.

One can be an authentic Christian, even a saint under Islam. We have as an example The Life of Our Father Among the Saints John the Russian

The righteous John was born in a village in southern Russia, of pious Orthodox parents, for the blessed Russians have the same spiritual Mother as the Greeks-the Orthodox Church-and has given birth to many great saints. Saint John was born around 1690, during the reign of Peter the Great. When John was a brave lad he served as a soldier in the war which that daring Tsar was then waging against the Ottoman Empire in the year 1711. In this war, John was taken prisoner by Tartars along with thousands of other Russians. The Tartars sold him to a Muslim cavalry officer who lived in Prokopion in Asia Minor, near Caesarea of Cappadocia, and this Aga carried John to his village. At this time Turkey was filled with a multitude of Muscovite slaves who groaned under the harsh Muslim yoke. Sadly, the majority of these loathsome wretches, to lighten their burden, denied the Faith of Christ and embraced Islam.
John, however, had been nurtured from childhood ” in the instruction and admonition of the Lord,” and he loved God and the religion of his fathers exceedingly. Indeed, he was one of those young men whom the knowledge of God makes wise.
[…]
To the Aga he said, “If you leave me free in my religion, I will be very eager to carry out your commands. But if you try to force me to change my faith, I will first surrender my head. I was born a Christian and a Christian I shall die.”

Seeing John’s faith and hearing his confession, God at length softened the Turk’s hard heart so that at last the Aga relented. From then on John was left in peace without further threats from his Muslim lord who kept him in a stable to care for animals. In one comer of the stable John would lie his tired body down to rest. John thanked God for being deemed worthy to have as a bed a manger like the one in which our Lord Jesus Christ had likewise lain at his birth.

Scott, my info on Islam comes largely from two folks who have studied it in depth: Both are devout Orthodox. One is an American lawyer who has read (in English) not only the Koran but many of the Hadith that underlie Islamic law and the interpretations of the Hadith issued by the top Islamic schools of law. In addition, I have attendend and seen several lectures by a man who grew up in Egypt as first a Jew, then a Coptic Christian high in the Coptic Church. He became Orthodox in England. He knows not only Arabic, but Hebrew, Latin, Greek and a few other languages with great fluency. He has read the Koran in Arabic many times. He is adament that the understanding of Islam that most westerners have is far too soft and kind. He maintains simply that it is demonic. Certainly the ‘freedom’ to practice faith’s other than Islam is not all that it is cracked up to be. It is, at best, slow strangulation.

The Constitution of the United States as it was written most certainly does not extoll evil as virtue–quite the contrary. It, if John Adams is to be believed, was founded on the premisis that citizens would approach their personal and corporate lives constrained by Christian virtue. A vain hope, but not one that extolls evil as virtue.

You may argue that our Constitution allows for too much freedom as did De Toqueville at the time. You may argue that the failure of the Constitution is in accepting slavery (a common arguement); you may argue that the system that was created is flawed in other ways, but your argument that it extolls evil as virtue is far more wrong than you say that I am about Islam.

The shape that the governement has taken since the Civil War is far different than the one intended. With the advent of industrialization, the centralization of the economy, government and labor and nilhist western political philosophies imposed on the Constitution and bred into our political system–you are more correct but they are not inherent in system. We have become, IMAO, fascist economically and politically, have abrogated the Constitution except as a weak idol and will descend even further.

The historical course which our government has followed is quite common and only to be expected. It will end with the dissolution of this country as a discreet political entity or one that is only a rump of what it is even now. That happens to all states and all governments.

What’s next I can’t really say. It will be more blatantly authoritarian–likely to be totalitarian and certainly more brutal to Christians. Biblically that is our lot–persecution. The brief period of civilization where that was not the case I’m thankful for.

It could have lasted longer except that the Gospel was neither taught nor practiced by most.

Islam is no friend to authentic Christian faith any more than communisim or the modern secular state–nor the empires of the past that were titularly Christian. Power is always the most important for governments. To me, I really don’t care what form the government takes, I still am responsible for submitting to Jesus Christ in my life. That is a task at which I fail miserably most of the time. Lord have mercy

Christ is Risen!

The corruption of cultures happens with all types of governments. Remember Rome? Your direct line between liberal democracy and cultural collapse is so absolute that you are unable to see the virtues that still exist — many of which you enjoy by the way and enable you to rail against them with such resolute certainty.

The problem is that in citing all the corruption around us and then claiming that the corruption exists because of democratic values, makes any defense of democracy appear to excuse the corruption. You sound like Alinsky, constantly echoing the refrain of corruption so that any good that appears is only an anomaly and all confidence erodes.

There really is no discussing this with you. Any objection is met with shrill claims (democracy is more murderous than Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot for example) so that no incremental developments can be valued as a positive good (such as abortions decreasing or three states working on no abortions after 24 weeks for example).

For example, you write:

8. If the choice is between living in a liberal democracy where Christianity becomes denatured into the type you see in the mainline churches, or else to become a Muslim, it is better to become a Muslim. Islam is a better system than liberal democracy. It’s moral vision is closer to that of traditional Christianity than that of liberal democracy.

Better to become a Muslim? Really? How about living as a real Christian? Why the false choice? And wouldn’t the liberal values that would allow you to live as a real Christian in relative peace instead of living as a secularist or as a Muslim be worth at least something?

And what does this mean?

Democracies always lead to institutionalized liscentiousness, moral depravity, etc. It’s an infallible law of nature.

Don’t you mean to say that the struggle against sin is universal to man? And why would moral corruption be restricted only to democracies? Seems to me its been a problem from the beginning.

You seem to be arguing for Cromwell of Calvin’s Geneva. Nothing like enforcing some moral rectitude from the top! That was tried though. It didn’t work out too well.

No one is arguing that the West is not in serious trouble. But your diagnosis of the problem, while accurate in some ways, allows no real room for critical discernment or even possible solutions, or if it ever comes to it, compromises. I know you hate democracy. But I see nothing prescriptive here at all.

“. . . which includes beheading one’s enemies, raping women with impunity, beating them”.

Not a word of that is true except the last item – – some Sunni schools of law allow a husband to “beat” his wife is she engages in some major misbehavior. All say it must be light and some say it shouldn’t be done at all. That is no different at all from the morality that prevailed in Christian societies up until about the 1950’s.

Most of what we in the West believe about Islamic law is simply false. Some of it is more aggressive than we imagine. Some of it is more merciful.

“Militant oppression is generally better for the health of Christianity than the soft strangulation of western atheism or Islamic dhimmi.”

That’s just not true at all if the militant oppression you’re referring to is at the hands of militant athiests. The numbers simply prove you wrong. Were it not for the free world, communism would certainly have wiped out Christianity totally. Earlier generations of the Church’s enemies simply did not have the power to exert that kind of meticulous control over broad areas. In this age, that is possible.

“Islam at least gives the chance for a relatively quick martrydom if one practices the Christian faith: preachs the Gospel etc. I wonder what would happen in an Islamic state if someone publically proclaimed Al’massiah Qam?”

Islamic law allows Christians and Jews to practice their faith in relative peace except that it restricts evangelization. The penalty for a Muslim who converts to Christianity is death.

“In any case our only real hope is with God because all government is corrupt (even the government of the Church) and becomes increasingly corrupt over time.”

Michael, you’re sidestepping and ignoring the most glaring difference between Western Liberalism and previous forms of government: Western Liberalism seeks to redefine the good to something directly at odds with Christianity. It is not a matter of corruption at all. You are right that all governments become corrupted over time (if they did not start out that way to begin with). The problem with our government is not corruption. The problem with our government – – or form of government – – is that it extolls evil as virtue, on principle. That is why it is inherently evil, not just another manifestation of the fallen state of man.

Islam is not so bad if you are a wealthy man–otherwise it pretty well sucks for everyone. The externals of some of the Islamic teaching are similar to Christianity because Islam was influenced by Christian heretics. Any of the choices: Militant atheism ala’ the soviets; softer atheism ala’ the western enlightenment; or Islam leaves us with false gods, false anthropology, false cosmology and therefore false morals which includes beheading one’s enemies, raping women with impunity, beating them. I have a woman lawyer friend who can lay out the Islamic law chapter and verse–its pretty devastating.

Islam at least gives the chance for a relatively quick martrydom if one practices the Christian faith: preachs the Gospel etc. I wonder what would happen in an Islamic state if someone publically proclaimed Al’massiah Qam? Probably nothing good for the earthly life of the person making the proclamation. Militant oppression is generally better for the health of Christianity than the soft strangulation of western atheism or Islamic dhimmi. Might not be many Christians left, but evil is much more clear. Either way the path to salvation is essentially the same–a form of monasticism in which humility and forgiveness are the cardinal virtues. The founders of my parish had lived for generations side by side with their Islamic neighbors when all of a sudden they were attacked and driven from their homes. Their faith pretty much withstood that, but whether it has withstood the tempations of American life only time will tell. Maybe Islam is the better forlorn hope.

In any case our only real hope is with God because all government is corrupt (even the government of the Church) and becomes increasingly corrupt over time. I don’t think that there is any way to stop that. Whatever the form of government we are still called to care for those around us to the best of our ability, repent of our sins, forgive one another and in all other ways proclaim the Gospel in word and deed. That is the only Christian morality that matters. Under any form of government that will, sooner or later, get you into trouble—just depends how quickly the trouble comes and how intensely the sword falls.