Sam Harris’ The End of Faith was the first and, to my mind, most important of the “New Atheist” books. Important, because after the September 11th attacks, the crazy in the liberal half of American thinking about religion came out and it seemed like everyone was saying that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam, and in fact Islam is an inherently peaceful religion. Harris said this was a load of nonsense this was, and I think he was right.
In spite of thinking this, I’ve recently started to wonder about Harris’ dismissal of religious moderates on the Muslim side, partly because of the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” organized by alleged moderate imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and also because of encountering criticisms of another alleged moderate Muslaim, Tariq Ramadan.
My doubts here stem from thinking about what makes a “moderate Muslim”–and what makes a “moderate Christian.” In the present-day US, the varieties of Christianity that manage to get any attention at all range from stereotypical fundamentalism (young earth creationist, sexually repressive, and convinced everyone else is going to hell) to uber-liberal Christianity (often atheism in all but name, as in the case of John Shelby Spong). The moderate label doesn’t get used much, though I suppose you could apply it to the sorts of religious academics who try to save as many beliefs of their conservative brethren as possible, while admitting the Bible may not be quite inerrant.
But put things in the context of Christianity’s 2000-year history, and it begins to look like even most of the “fundamentalists” deserve the name “moderates.” Most “conservative” Calvinists are moderate relative to the historical Calvin, insofar as they don’t support burning Unitarians at the stake. True, there are exceptions in the U.S., and the situation in the U.S. is not the global situation even today (see: killing gays in Uganda). But the fact that these strains of Chrsitianity exist today does not make them live options for most believers in the US.
In this environment, it is hard to see that the “moderate” strains of Christianity do much good. What many US Christians need isn’t someone to stop them from becoming Christian Reconstructionists. They just need someone to point out to them that they hardly believe any of the things they think they’re supposed to believe. Someone to tell them not to fear giving up their Christian identity.
With Islam, though, from what I’ve seen “moderate” Muslims tend to correspond to the US’s “conservative” Christians, or at best the more-nearly-liberal Evangelicals. Even Irshad Manji, in her book The Trouble With Islam Today, wasn’t quite willing to give up on Koranic inerrancy. This makes her closer to the Evangelicals who try to show the Bible never condemns homosexuality than to the uber-liberals of US Christianity.
When we talk about Muslim “extremists,” we’re talking about something whose Christian analog ceased to be a force in Europe and North America during the Enlightenment. But Muslim extremism remains a force in Islam’s traditional strongholds. There have been plenty of people in the Muslim world who’ve thought the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was just, or who’ve idolized Osama bin Laden. Muslims in the US tend to be of the “moderate” sort described above, but I understand that the “extremist” variety of Islam is having some success in Europe. (This is probably a symptom of Europe’s overall problems assimilating immigrants.) And importantly, US Muslims are still likely to be in contact with parts of the Muslim world where extremism is a force, creating an avenue for the promotion of Muslim extremism here.
In this context, it doesn’t seem crazy to think that moderate Muslims leaders are doing important work giving US Muslims an alternative to the extremists, and generally helping them assimilate into US society. This could be true even if there’s much to dislike about the so-called moderates. There’s much I dislike about Rick Warren, but I recognize that he’s preferable to Torquemada. Similarly it could be true that Rauf is, in Ilya Somin’s summary the charge against him:
seems to praise much of the ideology of Iran’s repressive theocratic regime, refuses to admit that Hamas is a terrorist group… claims that the US was ‘an accessory’ to the 9/11 attacks, and sometimes draws a kind of moral equivalency between US foreign policy and Al Qaeda
and at the same time true that he’s no bin Laden. The difference is just that we don’t need Rick Warren in order to convince people that the Inquisition was a bad idea, but it might help to have Rauf to convince people Al Qaeda is a bad idea.
Sometimes, a “moderate” Muslim leader will be suggested as a candidate for “Islam’s Martin Luther,” an unfortunate comparison given Luther’s ideas on what we should do to Jews. A more enlightening comparison might be to John Locke. Locke’s “Letter on Toleration” leaves much to be desired. It never made clear whether he thought anyone but Protestants deserved religious freedom, and appeared to endorse the idea that believing the wrong things would damn you–the very dogma which had provided the original need to suppress heresy at all costs. At the same time, the value of Locke’s letter is undeniable.
On the other hand, recognizing that the relatively moderate may do some good is no reason to refrain from criticizing them. The fact that Locke advanced the cause of liberty does not mean that Spinoza and Thomas Paine hurt it by attacking many of the traditional dogmas Locke held dear. So, in spite of what I’ve just said, we probably shouldn’t be afraid to criticize “moderate” Muslims.
Instead of thinking about it—why dont you find out?….It is Ramadhan time–(it will be ending soon by sep 10) —during this time many Mosques have an open house where people can come in for dinner (Iftar)—go there and talk to Muslims……
Seems to me that the issue is more about religions whose trading currency is divine dogma. The three Abrahamic faiths have a similar authoritarian structure: their respective holy scriptures plus the traditions and wisdom of an historical cadre of priests/rabbis/imams. In Christianity, where the Roman Catholics have the Papal and priestly tradition, Protestant Evangelicalism since Luther sets up scripture plus the individual’s spirit-led interpretation thereof as dogmatic. Such hermeneutical individualism has of course allowed a plethora of christianities, each with its own effective traditions. In Judaism and Islam it’s easier to see the original model, though I surmise the widespread preference for moderation in Judaism has a lot to do with political opportunity. Only the relatively recent existence of an Israeli state has made Zionism a more realistic option for zealous Jews. Centuries of ‘statelessness’ had favored esoterism over extremism.
Thus, the labels ‘extremist’, ‘moderate’, ‘liberal’ merely define the believer’s response to such dogma. A moderate Evangelical Christian, for example, might truly believe that his neighbor is going to hell, but his response to such doctrine will be more laissez-faire than the tub-thumping or door-knocking evangelist. Similarly, a moderate Muslim might regard fatwas against people like Rushdie as sound theological concepts, but if they found themselves across a restaurant from the guy, they likely wouldn’t grab the cutlery and slit his throat. In other words, I think that they hold their supernatural beliefs in tension with a sort of civic common sense, a common sense that is derived from an essentially Western secular viewpoint. And, further East, where such secular values have less hold, more extremist versions of the faith may flourish.
The ‘global evangelization’ of tolerant, pluralist, secular values requires diplomacy and care. Jingoistic, flag-waving Christian patriots dutifully sending in troops of young men and women to enact ‘regime change’ and ‘democratize’ cultures that would rather have a caliphate, ultimately won’t work. In some senses then, moderate believers can help demonstrate to more extreme members of their faith that a measure of compromise between worldviews is possible.
However, religions whose lifeblood is dogma already have strong resistance to compromisers (apostates) relying on the immune strategy of expelling any heresy before it becomes virulently contagious.