Um jesuíta corrige outro que é Papa: Islam and Christianity. Where Dialogue Stumbles - by Sandro Magister

In Chiesaespresso 

In "Evangelii Gaudium," Pope Francis dictates the rules for the relationship with Muslims. The Jesuit Islamologist Samir Khalil Samir examines them one by one. And he criticizes their limitations

ROME, December 30, 2013 – In the Christmas message "urbi et orbi," Pope Francis lifted up this prayer:

"Lord of life, protect all who are persecuted for your name."

And at the Angelus for the feast of Saint Stephen, the first of the martyrs, he again prayed “for the Christians who undergo discrimination because of witness rendered to Christ and to the Gospel.”

Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio has repeatedly manifested his sorrow for the fate of Christians in Syria, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in other places of the world, wherever they are persecuted and killed, not rarely "in hatred for the faith" and at the hands of Muslims.

To all of this the pope responds by incessantly invoking "dialogue as a contribution to peace."

In the apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium" of September 24, the most important of the documents he has published so far, Francis dedicated to dialogue with Muslims the following two paragraphs:

252. Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they “profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day”. The sacred writings of Islam have retained some Christian teachings; Jesus and Mary receive profound veneration and it is admirable to see how Muslims both young and old, men and women, make time for daily prayer and faithfully take part in religious services. Many of them also have a deep conviction that their life, in its entirety, is from God and for God. They also acknowledge the need to respond to God with an ethical commitment and with mercy towards those most in need.

253. In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.

The commentaries on "Evangelii Gaudium" have paid scarce attention to these two paragraphs.

Few, for example, have noted the unusual vigor with which Pope Francis demands in Muslim countries as well that freedom of worship which the faithful of Islam enjoy in Western countries.

Those who have highlighted this "courage" of the pope - like the Egyptian Jesuit and Islamologist Samir Khalil Samir - have also emphasized, however, that he has limited himself to asking only for freedom of worship, remaining silent about the denial of freedom of conversion from one religion to another that is the real sore spot of the Muslim world.

Fr. Samir teaches in Beirut, Rome, and Paris. He is the author of books and essays on Islam and on its relationship with Christianity and with the West, the latest published this year by EMI with the title: "Those tenacious Arab springs." During the pontificate of Benedict XVI he was one of the experts most closely listened to by the Vatican authorities and by the pope himself.

Last December 19, he published on the important agency "Asia News" of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions an extensive commentary on the passages of "Evangelii Gaudium" dedicated to Islam.

A commentary with two faces. In the first part, Fr. Samir brings to light the "many positive things" said by the pope on this issue.

But in the second part, he surveys their limitations. With rare frankness.

The following is the second part of his commentary.

__________



POINTS OF "EVANGELII GAUDIUM" THAT REQUIRE CLARIFICATION

by Samir Khalil Samir


1. Muslims "together with us adore the One, merciful God" (No. 252)

I would advise caution here. It is true Muslims worship one and merciful God. However, this sentence suggests that the two conceptions of God are equal. Yet in Christianity God is the Trinity in its essence, plurality united by love: He is a bit more than just clemency and mercy. We have two quite different conceptions of the Divine One. Muslims characterize God as inaccessible. The Christian vision of the Oneness of the Trinity emphasizes that God is Love which is communicated: Father-Son-Spirit, or Lover-Beloved-Love, as St. Augustine suggested.

Moreover, what does the mercy of the God of Islam mean? He has mercy for whom he wants and not on those whom displease him. "Allah might admit to His mercy whom He willed" (Koran 48:25). These expressions are, almost literally, in the Old Testament (Exodus 33:19). But never arrive at saying that "God is love" (1 John 4:16), like St John.

Mercy in the case of Islam is that of the rich man who stoops over the poor and gives him something. But the Christian God is the one who lowers Himself to the level of the poor man in order to raise him up; He does not show his wealth to be respected (or feared) by the poor: he gives Himself in order the poor should live.


2. "The sacred writings of Islam have retained some Christian teachings" (No. 252)

This is true in a sense, but it is somewhat ambiguous. It is true that Muslims retain words or facts from the canonical gospels, such as the story of the Annunciation which is found almost literally in chapters 3 (The Family of Imr?n) and 19 (Mariam).

But more frequently the Koran is inspired by the pious tales of the apocryphal Gospels, and do not draw from them the theological sense they contain, and do not give these facts or words the meaning that they actually have, not out of malice, but because they do not contain the overall vision of the Christian message.


3. The figure of Christ in the Koran and the Gospel (No. 252)

The Koran refers to "Jesus and Mary [who] are the object of profound veneration". To tell the truth, Jesus is not an object of veneration in the Muslim tradition. Instead, Mary is venerated, especially by Muslim women, who willingly go to the places of pilgrimage.

The lack of veneration for Jesus Christ is probably explained by the fact that, in the Koran, Jesus is a great prophet, famous for his miracles on behalf of a poor and sick humanity, but he is not the equal of Muhammad. Only mystics have a certain devotion to him, as the sol-called "Spirit of God".

In fact, all that is said of Jesus in the Koran is the exact opposite of Christian teachings. He is not the Son of God, but a prophet and that's it. He is not even the last of the prophets, because instead the "seal of the prophets" is Muhammad (Koran 33:40). Christian revelation is only seen as a step towards the ultimate revelation brought by Muhammad, i.e. Islam.


4. The Koran is opposed to all the fundamental Christian dogmas

The figure of Christ as the second person of the Trinity is condemned. In the Koran it says explicitly to Christians: " O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not 'Three' - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One God. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that "(Koran 4:171). These verses against the Trinity are very clear and need no interpretation.

The Koran denies the divinity of Christ: "O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, 'Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?'” (Koran 5:116). And Jesus denies it!

Finally, the Koran negates Redemption. It even says that Jesus Christ did not die on the Cross, but it was a look-alike: "And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them" (Koran 4:157). In this way God saved Jesus from the wickedness of the Jews. But then Christ did not save the world!

In short, the Koran and Muslims deny the essential dogmas of Christianity: the Trinity, the Incarnation and Redemption. It should be added that this is their most absolute right! But you can not then say that "The sacred writings of Islam retain part of Christian teachings". You simply must speak of the "Jesus of the Koran" which has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Gospels.

The Koran mentions Jesus because it aims to complete the revelation of Christ to exalt Muhammad. Besides, seeing what Jesus and Mary do in the Koran, we notice that it is no more than apply the prayers and fasting according to the Koran. Mary is certainly the most beautiful figure among all those presented in the Koran: she is the Virgin Mother, whom no man has ever touched. But she can not be the Theotokos; instead she is a good Muslim.


MORE DELICATE POINTS


1. Ethics in Islam and in Christianity (252)?

The last sentence of this point of "Evangelii gaudium" states with regard to Muslims: "They also acknowledge the need to respond to God with an ethical commitment and with mercy towards those most in need". This is true and compassion toward the poor is a requirement of Islam.

There is, in my opinion however, a double difference between the Muslim and Christian ethics.

The first is that the Muslim ethic is not always universal. It is often a question of solidarity within the Islamic community, while according to Christian tradition, solidarity is universal. We note, for example, when natural disaster strikes a given region of the world, countries of Christian tradition help regardless of the religious convictions of those who are in need of help, while rich Muslim countries (those of the Arabian Peninsula, for example) do not.

The second is that Islam links ethics to legality. Those who do not fast during the month of Ramadan are guilty of having committed a crime and go to jail (in many countries). If you observe the fast, from dawn to dusk, you are perfect, even if you eat from sunset until dawn the next day, more and better than usual: "the best things to eat and plenty of it," as some Egyptian Muslim friends told me. The Ramandan fast seems to lose all meaning if it becomes the period in which Muslims eat more, and eat the most delicious things. The next day, given that no-one has sept because they were up all night eating, no-one works. However, from the formal point of view, all have fasted for several hours. It is a legalistic ethics: if you do this, you are right. It is an exterior ethics.

Instead Christian fasting is something that aims to bring us closer to Christ's sacrifice, in solidarity with the poor and does not allow for a period during the day or night when we can make up for the food we have not eaten.

As long as believers observe Islamic law, everything is in order. The believer never seeks to go beyond the law. Justice is required by law, but it is not exceeded. This is also why there is no obligation to forgive in the Koran, whereas, in the Gospel, Jesus asks us to forgive an infinite number of times (seventy times seven; cf. Mt 18, 21-22). In the Koran mercy never reaches the point of being love.

The same goes for polygamy: you can have up to four wives. If I want to have a fifth wife, then all I have to do is repudiate one of those that I have already, maybe the oldest, and take a younger bride. And thus because I only ever have four wives at any one given time, everything is perfectly legal.

There is also the opposite effect, for example for homosexuality. All religions consider it a sin. But for Muslims, it is also a crime that should be punished with death. In Christianity it is a sin but not a crime. The reason is obvious: Islam is a religion, culture, social and political system, it is an integral reality. And it clearly states as much in the Koran. The Gospel instead clearly distinguishes the spiritual and ethical dimension of socio-cultural and political life.

The same applies to purity, as Christ clearly explains to the Pharisees: "What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them" (Mt 15, 11).


2. "The fundamentalists on both sides" (no. 250 and 253)

Finally, there are two points that I would like to criticize. The first is where the Pope groups together all fundamentalisms. In No. 250 he says: "An attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides".

The other is the conclusion of the section on relations with Islam that ends with this sentence: "Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence"(n. 253).

Personally, I would not put the two fundamentalisms on the same level: Christian fundamentalists do not carry weapons; Islamic fundamentalism is criticized, first of all by Muslims themselves precisely because this armed fundamentalism seeks to replicate the Mohammedan model. In his life, Muhammad waged more than 60 wars, and now if Muhammad is the super model (as the Koran claims 33:21), it is not surprising that some Muslims also use their violence in imitation of the founder of Islam.


3. Violence in the Koran and the life of Muhammad (No. 253)

Finally, the Pope mentions the violence in Islam. In No. 253 he writes: "True Islam and the proper interpretation of the Koran oppose all violence".

This phrase is beautiful and expresses a very benevolent attitude on the Pope's part towards Islam. However, in my humble opinion, it expresses more a wish than a reality. The fact that the majority of Muslims are opposed to violence, may well be true. But to say that " the true Islam is against any violence," does not seem true: there is violence in the Koran. To say then that "for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence" needs a lot of explaining. It is enough to cite Chapters 2, 9 of the Koran.

What the Pope says about Islam needing a "proper interpretation" is true. Some scholars have chosen this path but not enough to counter the power of the majority. This minority of scholars is trying to reinterpret Koranic texts that speak of violence, showing that they are related to the context of Arabia at the time and were in the context of the political-religious vision of Muhammad.

If Islam wants to remain within this vision still linked to the time of Muhammad, then there will always be violence. But if Islam - and there are quite a few mystics who have done it - wants to find a deep spirituality, then violence is not acceptable.

Islam is at a crossroads: either religion is a way towards politics and towards a politically organized society, or religion is an inspiration to live and love more fully.

Those who criticize Islam with regard to the violence are not making an unjust and odious generalization: as evidenced by the present bloody and ongoing issues in the Muslim world.

Here in the East we understand very well that Islamic terrorism is religiously motivated, with quotes, prayers and fatwas from imams who encourage violence. The fact is that there is no central authority to counter this manipulation in Islam. This means that every imam is considered a mufti, a national authority, who can make judgments inspired by the Koran and even give orders to kill.


CONCLUSION: A " PROPER READING OF THE KORAN"


Finally, the really important point is "a proper reading." In the Muslim world, the most heated debate - indeed most forbidden - is precisely about the interpretation of the holy book. Muslims believe that the Koran descended upon Muhammad, complete, in the form we know. There is the concept of inspiration of the sacred text, which leaves room for interpretation of the human element present in the word of God.

Let's take an example. At the time of Muhammad, with tribes that lived in the desert, the punishment for a thief was the cutting off of hands. What purpose did this serve? To stop the thief from stealing again. So we must ask: how can we preserve this purpose today, that the thief will no longer steal? Can we use other methods instead of cutting off the hand?

Today all religions have this problem: how to re-interpret the sacred texts, which have an eternal value, but goes back centuries or even millennia.

When meeting Muslim friends, I always point out that today we must ask what "purpose" (maqased), the indications in the Koran had. The Muslim jurists and theologians say that you should search for the "purposes of the law of God" (maq?sid al-shar?'a). This expression corresponds to what the Gospel calls "the spirit " of the text, as opposed to the "letter". We must seek the intent of the sacred text of Islam.

Several Muslim scholars talk about the importance of discovering "the purpose" of Koranic texts to adjust the Koranic text to the modern world. And this, it seems to me, is very close to what the Holy Father meant to suggest when he writes of "a proper reading of the Koran."

A pioneer of gay liberation has made it clear that the real goal of gay marriage is an assault on religion - by Alistair Nicholas

In MercatorNet

Some months ago I somewhat reluctantly wrote on the subject of gay marriage. I argued at the time that the agenda of the gay lobby was not simply marriage equality but that the lobby (not individual gays) was preparing for an assault on religion. My concern has been borne out by an article by Dennis Altman, an internationally renowned academic and gay activist. In "Queer push for marriage", which appeared recently in the Australian Financial Review, Altman makes it clear that the real target for the gay lobby is religion.

The battle lines are drawn early in Altman's piece. He states unequivocally that the obstacle to marriage equality in Australia is the large number of Catholics in both of Australia's major Liberal and Labor political parties, who might stop legislation in favour of it even on a free (or conscience) vote in the Federal and State parliaments. Altman says: "In Australia, the combination of National Party MPs and the Catholic strength in both major parties might prevent legislation passing, even if the Liberals have a free vote."

Perhaps New South Wales' Premier Barry O'Farrell is being Machiavellian in allowing a conscience vote for his Liberal Party on the issue, knowing that it has little chance of passing through both houses of the State Parliament; and then, even if it did, that it would become subject to a High Court battle given the Federal Marriage Act which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. You've got to watch those Irish Catholics!

Sadly, I have to say that even as a Catholic I do not share Altman's faith in my co-religionist members of the Liberal and Labor parties. Like most modern day politicians they will lead from behind and do what the polls, and not necessarily the Pope, tell them to do.

But let's get back to Altman's piece. He interestingly starts out with an attack on the institution of marriage itself as a major reason to allow gay marriage. Altman says: 

"But this debate is only possible because of huge shifts that have taken place in the larger meaning of marriage over the past few decades. It has moved from being regarded as a lifetime commitment, sanctified by God, with the purpose of producing children, to a more relaxed commitment based on mutual love and respect, with the recognition that something like 40 per cent of marriages will end in divorce."

The argument means that if marriage is not what it used to be about, if traditional marriage is failing, let's open it up for gays as well. If this argument holds any water it should, by logical extension, also open up a debate on polygamy and even group marriage as legitimate forms of marriage that should be recognised by law. Indeed, given the high numbers of Muslims in contemporary Australian society, why not legalise polygyny? The argument is of course patently absurd: "traditional marriage is fractured so lets smash it and remake it as something else".

Wouldn't it be more logical to ask why 40 percent of marriages fail and to then look for solutions to the problems that exist. Otherwise we are likely to end up with all kinds of arrangements being allowed to pass as marriage because the concept of marriage has become meaningless.

But I digress. Back to Altman.

Altman then moves to an attack on the argument that gays having children are against the natural order because improvements in IVF technology and surrogacy have made it possible for them to do so. He even says that given the scrutiny a gay couple has to go through to have children and the financial burden they take on in doing that means they are likely to be better parents than heterosexual couples who may have not planned a pregnancy.

No evidence of the claim is presented. This is sophistry at its best. The natural order has been defeated by science so the natural order should stand aside? Take this to its logical conclusion and science will always trump nature and all ethical and moral considerations could be set aside. "Science is right" becomes the modern day "might is right" maxim. A flood-gate for abortion, euthanasia, eugenics and who knows what else could be opened because science makes them possible; indeed the horse has already bolted on abortion. Euthanasia is not far behind.

But Altman's real attack on religion comes when he says the case for gay marriage is "largely symbolic" because gay couples in Australia (and many other Western nations - the exception being the United States) already have full equal rights with heterosexual married couples. That is to say, gay couples in Australia have full access to all the social benefits that are provided to married and de facto heterosexual couples. That means there is no material need for marriage equality. There is no case on the grounds of material discrimination.

Strangely, Altman even argues against the need for gay marriage, saying "[t]here is sometimes an unpleasant self-indulgence to the glorification of marriage" and that he is "concerned by talk of monogamy from young men in love" when, he says, "available research" tells us they are unlikely to be monogamous.

Altman is actually not an advocate for gay marriage - or indeed any marriage. This old activist of the 1960s is actually against the institution of marriage itself. Indeed, Altman argues that "emotional fidelity is not the same as sexual fidelity" and claims that marriage discriminates against those who choose to live outside its bonds.

This has passed beyond mere sophistry; Altman has entered the realm of the truly absurd. If genius really is the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory points of view, Altman should undoubtedly be initiated to the ranks of the Mensa Society.

But I suspect he is just another high-IQ moron. Nonetheless, his (and the gay lobby's) true agenda is exposed.

The real agenda for Altman is not marriage equality but rather what he sees as religious "bigotry". The gay lobby's marriage equality campaign is a campaign to force religions to fall silent on the issue of homosexuality. Altman says in no uncertain terms that "The exemptions from anti-discrimination laws given to churches to preach bigotry – and the existence of the school chaplaincy programs, which are sometimes run by fundamentalist churches – seem to me of greater concern [than marriage equality]."

No doubt individual gays hoping for a big wedding not part of the conspiracy. But that doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy.

Let's not mince words: this is an affront on the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - which see homosexuality as a sin. Ultimately the gay lobby would like them to be forced to stop promoting this view and to allow those actively engaging in homosexuality to be allowed into their places of worship. Next will be to force the three monotheistic religions to allow gays to marry in their churches, synagogues and mosques.

Altman's argument is wrapped up in concerns about school bullying and the high rate of suicide amongst young homosexuals. But this doesn't mean we need laws to force religions to fall silent on matters of critical importance to their faiths. Yes, bullying is wrong and no life should ever be lost because of it. Pass laws against bullying to protect individuals and their right to make moral choices, and enforce those laws more strictly to ensure bullying ceases. But we need also to protect the fundamental right of religions and the individuals who adhere to them to believe in the precepts of their faiths and to be able to preach those beliefs openly.

The real risk of course, the paradox of modern society, is that the argument for tolerance on a wide range of minority issues, such as homosexuality (yes, it is still only practiced by a minority), is leading to greater intolerance towards the majority. By shutting down the rights of religions and their followers we would actually become a less tolerant society. Religions and individuals who oppose certain beliefs and practices will become the persecuted - ironically, their right to freedom of speech would be sacrificed on the altar of tolerance.

(All this reminds me of an episode of the popular television comedy series 30 Rock in which the characters form a group called "National Association for Zero Intolerance" or "NAZI" to stop a range of perceived intolerances.)

When religious organisations and individuals are told to remain silent on certain aspects of their beliefs we will be living under a new form of totalitarianism. That ultimately is where the debate for gay marriage is headed.

If gay marriage is an inevitability, as I suspect it is, but only because it will be foisted upon us by the vociferous gay lobby and the acceptance of an apathetic majority, it is imperative that the rights of religions to promote their beliefs continue to be protected. Otherwise we are inching our way towards a world in which certain thoughts could be defined as crimes.

Some months ago I somewhat reluctantly wrote on the subject of gay marriage. I argued at the time that the agenda of the gay lobby was not simply marriage equality but that the lobby (not individual gays) was preparing for an assault on religion. My concern has been borne out by an article by Dennis Altman, an internationally renowned academic and gay activist. In "Queer push for marriage", which appeared recently in the Australian Financial Review, Altman makes it clear that the real target for the gay lobby is religion.
The battle lines are drawn early in Altman's piece. He states unequivocally that the obstacle to marriage equality in Australia is the large number of Catholics in both of Australia's major Liberal and Labor political parties, who might stop legislation in favour of it even on a free (or conscience) vote in the Federal and State parliaments. Altman says: "In Australia, the combination of National Party MPs and the Catholic strength in both major parties might prevent legislation passing, even if the Liberals have a free vote."
Perhaps New South Wales' Premier Barry O'Farrell is being Machiavellian in allowing a conscience vote for his Liberal Party on the issue, knowing that it has little chance of passing through both houses of the State Parliament; and then, even if it did, that it would become subject to a High Court battle given the Federal Marriage Act which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. You've got to watch those Irish Catholics!
Sadly, I have to say that even as a Catholic I do not share Altman's faith in my co-religionist members of the Liberal and Labor parties. Like most modern day politicians they will lead from behind and do what the polls, and not necessarily the Pope, tell them to do.
But let's get back to Altman's piece. He interestingly starts out with an attack on the institution of marriage itself as a major reason to allow gay marriage. Altman says:
"But this debate is only possible because of huge shifts that have taken place in the larger meaning of marriage over the past few decades. It has moved from being regarded as a lifetime commitment, sanctified by God, with the purpose of producing children, to a more relaxed commitment based on mutual love and respect, with the recognition that something like 40 per cent of marriages will end in divorce."
The argument means that if marriage is not what it used to be about, if traditional marriage is failing, let's open it up for gays as well. If this argument holds any water it should, by logical extension, also open up a debate on polygamy and even group marriage as legitimate forms of marriage that should be recognised by law. Indeed, given the high numbers of Muslims in contemporary Australian society, why not legalise polygyny? The argument is of course patently absurd: "traditional marriage is fractured so lets smash it and remake it as something else".
Wouldn't it be more logical to ask why 40 percent of marriages fail and to then look for solutions to the problems that exist. Otherwise we are likely to end up with all kinds of arrangements being allowed to pass as marriage because the concept of marriage has become meaningless.
But I digress. Back to Altman.
Altman then moves to an attack on the argument that gays having children are against the natural order because improvements in IVF technology and surrogacy have made it possible for them to do so. He even says that given the scrutiny a gay couple has to go through to have children and the financial burden they take on in doing that means they are likely to be better parents than heterosexual couples who may have not planned a pregnancy.
No evidence of the claim is presented. This is sophistry at its best. The natural order has been defeated by science so the natural order should stand aside? Take this to its logical conclusion and science will always trump nature and all ethical and moral considerations could be set aside. "Science is right" becomes the modern day "might is right" maxim. A flood-gate for abortion, euthanasia, eugenics and who knows what else could be opened because science makes them possible; indeed the horse has already bolted on abortion. Euthanasia is not far behind.
But Altman's real attack on religion comes when he says the case for gay marriage is "largely symbolic" because gay couples in Australia (and many other Western nations - the exception being the United States) already have full equal rights with heterosexual married couples. That is to say, gay couples in Australia have full access to all the social benefits that are provided to married and de facto heterosexual couples. That means there is no material need for marriage equality. There is no case on the grounds of material discrimination.
Strangely, Altman even argues against the need for gay marriage, saying "[t]here is sometimes an unpleasant self-indulgence to the glorification of marriage" and that he is "concerned by talk of monogamy from young men in love" when, he says, "available research" tells us they are unlikely to be monogamous.
Altman is actually not an advocate for gay marriage - or indeed any marriage. This old activist of the 1960s is actually against the institution of marriage itself. Indeed, Altman argues that "emotional fidelity is not the same as sexual fidelity" and claims that marriage discriminates against those who choose to live outside its bonds.
This has passed beyond mere sophistry; Altman has entered the realm of the truly absurd. If genius really is the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory points of view, Altman should undoubtedly be initiated to the ranks of the Mensa Society.
But I suspect he is just another high-IQ moron. Nonetheless, his (and the gay lobby's) true agenda is exposed.
The real agenda for Altman is not marriage equality but rather what he sees as religious "bigotry". The gay lobby's marriage equality campaign is a campaign to force religions to fall silent on the issue of homosexuality. Altman says in no uncertain terms that "The exemptions from anti-discrimination laws given to churches to preach bigotry – and the existence of the school chaplaincy programs, which are sometimes run by fundamentalist churches – seem to me of greater concern [than marriage equality]."
No doubt individual gays hoping for a big wedding not part of the conspiracy. But that doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy.
Let's not mince words: this is an affront on the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - which see homosexuality as a sin. Ultimately the gay lobby would like them to be forced to stop promoting this view and to allow those actively engaging in homosexuality to be allowed into their places of worship. Next will be to force the three monotheistic religions to allow gays to marry in their churches, synagogues and mosques.
Altman's argument is wrapped up in concerns about school bullying and the high rate of suicide amongst young homosexuals. But this doesn't mean we need laws to force religions to fall silent on matters of critical importance to their faiths. Yes, bullying is wrong and no life should ever be lost because of it. Pass laws against bullying to protect individuals and their right to make moral choices, and enforce those laws more strictly to ensure bullying ceases. But we need also to protect the fundamental right of religions and the individuals who adhere to them to believe in the precepts of their faiths and to be able to preach those beliefs openly.
The real risk of course, the paradox of modern society, is that the argument for tolerance on a wide range of minority issues, such as homosexuality (yes, it is still only practiced by a minority), is leading to greater intolerance towards the majority. By shutting down the rights of religions and their followers we would actually become a less tolerant society. Religions and individuals who oppose certain beliefs and practices will become the persecuted - ironically, their right to freedom of speech would be sacrificed on the altar of tolerance.
(All this reminds me of an episode of the popular television comedy series 30 Rock in which the characters form a group called "National Association for Zero Intolerance" or "NAZI" to stop a range of perceived intolerances.)
When religious organisations and individuals are told to remain silent on certain aspects of their beliefs we will be living under a new form of totalitarianism. That ultimately is where the debate for gay marriage is headed.
If gay marriage is an inevitability, as I suspect it is, but only because it will be foisted upon us by the vociferous gay lobby and the acceptance of an apathetic majority, it is imperative that the rights of religions to promote their beliefs continue to be protected. Otherwise we are inching our way towards a world in which certain thoughts could be defined as crimes.
- See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/how_redefining_marriage_threatens_freedom_of_speech#sthash.wdUqwABO.dpuf

In Lampedusa, Europe Is Also Emigrating. To the South - by Sandro Magister

In Chiesa

Algeria now has the same birth rate as Norway. Tunisia that of France. Demographics is reversing the scenario of an Islamized Europe. Philip Jenkins explains how and why

ROME, July 8, 2013 - Just as Saint Francis began his mission by going to kiss the lepers, so also the first pope to bear his name is pushing himself to the limits of the human, at the beginning of his mandate.

As the destination of his first voyage, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has chosen the tiny island of Lampedusa, in the hinterlands between Italy and Tunisia. And he has wanted it this way - he has explained - because he was "deeply touched by the recent sinking of a ship that was transporting migrants from Africa, the latest in a series of similar tragedies,” with the intention of “praying for those who have lost their lives at sea, visiting the survivors and refugees, encouraging the inhabitants of the island and appealing to the responsibility of all so that care may be taken of these brothers and sisters in extreme need.”

Lampedusa is the symbol of a dramatic geographical and civilizational boundary. Many of the migrants and refugees who land there are Muslims. And they are part of that migratory wave which some fear will soon transform Europe into a sort of Islamized “Eurabia.”

In reality, not only has this alarmist scenario been hazy for quite some time, but it also appears more and more disproven by the facts.

There are even some who maintain that the opposite will prove true. Not an ever more Islamized Europe, but a Maghreb and a Middle East ever more "European."

The key to this interpretation is demographics, above and beyond politics and religion.

One of its supporters is a scholar highly experienced in the analysis of great global transformations, the American Philip Jenkins, a member of the Anglican Communion, professor of humanities at Pennsylvania State University, in an article in the latest issue of “Vita e Pensiero," the magazine of the Catholic University of Milan.

The article is reproduced below. And in the same issue of “Vita e Pensiero" it is accompanied by the concurring evaluations of two other specialists: Khaled Fouad Allam, Muslim, professor of sociology of the Muslim world at the University of Trieste, and Giuseppe Caffulli, Catholic, director of the publications of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

In applying Jenkins's theses to the Christians who live in northern Africa and in the Middle East, Caffulli demonstrates how the plunge in birth rates that is increasingly bringing these regions closer to Europe is also impacting the Christian populations living there, which "could become a minority on the way to extinction" if it were not for the increasing arrival in those same lands of Christian immigrants from the Far East, above all from the Philippines and southern India.

***

THE MUSLIM WORLD'S COMING EUROPEAN REVOLUTION
by Philip Jenkins


A revolution is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. No, not the one you've been hearing about in the media -- all the protests against dictatorship and oppression, in Egypt and Tunisia, and most violently, in Libya. The revolution I'm referring to certainly affects all those countries, profoundly, but its effects promise to outlast any change of regime, or even any new constitutions. Barely noticed by the West, many Muslim societies are experiencing a demographic transformation that is going to make them look far more European: more stable, more open to women's rights and above all, more secular. That change underlies all the current political upsurges.

The magic number in this story is 2.1, which is the fertility rate a society needs if its population is to remain constant. If the typical woman has significantly more than 2.1 children during her life, then that society's population will expand, and it will be a youthful community. If the rate falls below 2.1, then populations will stagnate and decline, and the average age will rise.

According to a familiar stereotype, Europeans have lost the long term vision that would make them want to have large families, and religion no longer provides such an incentive: the closer a woman lives to Rome, the fewer children she has. When commentators look at modern Europe, they worry about the long term prospects for low fertility nations like Italy (1.39), Germany (1.41) and Spain (1.47). Pundits are all the more concerned when they compare these European rates with the notoriously high-fertility Third World demographic profiles that long prevailed across the Middle East. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which those mainly Muslim Middle Easterners outbreed and overwhelm the staid Europeans, creating an Islamicized Eurabia.

But here's the problem. In just the last thirty years or so, those very Middle Eastern countries that used to teem with children and adolescents have gone through a startling demographic transformation. Since the mid-1970s, Algeria's fertility rate has collapsed from over 7 to 1.75, Tunisia's from 6 to 2.03, Morocco's from 6.5 to 2.21, Libya's from 7.5 to 2.96. Today, Algeria's rate is roughly equivalent to that of Denmark or Norway; Tunisia's is comparable to France. Counter-intuitively, that remark about "the closer to Rome" also holds good on the southern, Muslim, side of the Mediterranean.

Just what is happening here? Everything depends on the changing attitudes and expectation of the women in these once highly-traditional societies. Across the region, women have become increasingly involved in higher education, and have moreover moved into full-time employment. That sea-change simply makes it unthinkable for women to manage a rampaging tribe of seven or eight children. Often, too, images of women's proper role in life have been upended by extended contacts with Europe. Migrants to France or Italy return home with changed attitudes, while families who stay at home find it hard to avoid the media portrayals of Western lives they see via cable and satellite dish. Maybe Europe and the Middle East are merging into one common Eurabia - but it's far from clear which side is doing a better job of imposing its opinions on the other. Presently, it looks as if the Maghreb is becoming European.

Such a wrenching change cannot fail to have political implications. In a country with a Third World fertility rate, it is very unlikely that women will seek or be granted education: their designated career path as mothers is starkly clear. Meanwhile, adolescents and young men proliferate, and provide ample cannon fodder for armies or militias, to whom life is cheap. (Yemen's fertility rate is still over 5.0, Somalia's is 6.4).

But then imagine a newer, more European society, in which men and women are intensely concerned about their nuclear families, and have invested their love and attention into just one or two offspring. As citizens become more educated, they are not prepared to accept the demagoguery and systematic corruption that has long passed for government in those regions. They see themselves as responsible members of a civil society, with aspirations that demand to be met: they feel they deserve full democratic participation. Of course the recent turmoil began in Tunisia, with its very low fertility rate and its intimate ties to France.

Sudden demographic change also seems to be closely linked to secularization, a point of potentially great significance in the Middle East. Smaller family sizes can result from a decline in religious ideologies, but falling fertility can itself drive such a decline, as has happened in modern Christian Europe. When children abounded, as they did in the 1950s, strong pressures kept families close to religious institutions, as they sought common religious training and religious rituals. parents attended churches to ensure their children received the familiar cultural heritage. Church prestige rode high when priests were shepherding hundreds of local children through annual confirmation classes. But as the children became scarce from the 1970s onwards, so the churches emptied. At the same time, couples highly concerned with their own personal and emotional fulfillment became increasingly impatient about clerical attempts to enforce morality laws. Women, especially, became highly disaffected from the mainstream churches.

If the European precedent is anything to go by, that could well provide a model for religious developments in the Maghreb over the next decade or two. A society so dependent on women in the school and the workplace simply cannot support the kind of intransigent orthodoxies offered by the familiar Islamists. Extremists may not vanish overnight, but they will have to adapt substantially to present their message in a civil society with a powerful taste for democratic values and gender equality.

Demography is not, of course, the whole story. But it has to play a full part in any attempt to understand the current political revolutions in the Middle East.

Ignoring the mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world - by Raymond Ibrahim

In Human Events 

A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway.  Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world—much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian—came into being.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.”  In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion.  Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million.  Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.

Now as the U.S. supports the jihad on secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away.

In October 2012 the last Christian in the city of Homs—which had a Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis came—was murdered.  One teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians….  Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”

In Egypt, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their homeland soon after the “Arab Spring.”  In September 2012, the Sinai’s small Christian community was attacked and evicted by al-Qaeda linked Muslims, Reuters reported.

But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented the “repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes, whether by force or threat. Displacements began in Ameriya [62 Christian families evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120 Christian families evicted], and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Sinai.”

Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are the Arab world.  But even in “black” African and “white” European nations with Muslim majorities, Christians are fleeing.

In Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as 200,000 Christians fled.  According to reports, “the church in Mali faces being eradicated,” especially in the north “where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out… there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.” At least one pastor was beheaded.

Even in European Bosnia, Christians are leaving en mass “amid mounting discrimination and Islamization.”  Only 440,000 Catholics remain in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure.  Problems cited are typical:  “while dozens of mosques were built in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, no building permissions were given for Christian churches.”

“Time is running out as there is a worrisome rise in radicalism,” said one authority, who further added that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were “persecuted for centuries” after European powers “failed to support them in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire.”

And so history repeats itself.

One can go on and on:

• In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes when “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”
• In the Ivory Coast—where Christians have been crucified—Islamic rebels “massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands” of Christians.
• In Libya, Islamic rebels forced several Christian nun orders serving the sick and needy since 1921 to flee.
• In Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where nary a Sunday passes without a church bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one region has been emptied of 95% of its Christian population.
• In Pakistan, after a Christian child was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran and Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage, an entire Christian village—men, women, and children—was forced to flee into the nearby woods, where they built a church, permanently resided there.
• In Somali, where Christianity is completely outlawed, Muslim converts to Christianity are fleeing to neighboring nations, including Kenya and Ethiopia, sometimes to be tracked down and executed.
• In Sudan, over half a million people, mostly Christian, have been stripped of citizenship in response to the South’s secession, and forced to relocate.

To anyone following the plight of Christians under Islam, none of this is surprising.  As I document in my new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, all around the Islamic world—in nations that do not share the same race, language, culture, or economics, in nations that share only Islam—Christians are being persecuted into extinction.   Such is the true face of the global Islamic resurgence.

Often forgotten is that, in the 7^th century, half of the world’s entire Christian population was spread across what is now nonchalantly called the “Muslim world.”  Then, Islam, born in the deserts of Arabia, burst out in a series of world-altering jihads, conquering and slowly transforming these once Christian nations into Islamic nations.

In order to evade sporadic persecution and constant discrimination, over the centuries most Christians converted, while others fled.  A few opted to remain Christian and live as barely tolerated third-class subjects, or dhimmis, according to Sharia law.

They eventually experienced something of a renaissance during the colonial and post-colonial era, when many Muslims were Westward-looking.

But today, with the international resurgence of Muhammad’s religion, these remaining Christians are reaching extinction, as Islam’s 1400 year mission of supremacy and global hegemony continues unabated—even as the West looks the other way, that is, when it’s not actually supporting it in the context of the so-called “Arab Spring.”

Europe as we know it is dying - by Steven Mosher

In PRI 

It’s happened before.

Writing a century and a half before the birth of Christ, the Greek historian Polybius observed “nowadays all over Greece such a diminution in natality and in general manner such depopulation that the towns are deserted and the fields lie fallow. Although this country has not been ravaged by wars or epidemics, the cause of the harm is evident: by avarice or cowardice the people, if they marry, will not bring up the children they ought to have. At most they bring up one or two. It is in this way that the scourge before it is noticed is rapidly developed.”

He concluded by urging his fellow Greeks to return to their historic love of family and children. “The remedy is in ourselves,” he wrote. “We have but to change our morals.” His advice, unfortunately, went largely unheeded.

The demographic winter of the Greek city-states led to economic stagnation and military weakness, which in turn invited invasion and conquest. After a century of increasing dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean, Rome finally annexed the Greek city-states in 146 B.C.

Will a Europe in the grip of a similar demographic winter come to a similar unhappy end? Certainly Europeans of today, like the Greeks of old, are barely having children. The birthrate across the entire continent is far below the replacement level of 2.1 children per couple. Italy, Spain, Austria, and Germany have total fertility rates, or TFRs, of only 1.4 or so, while Poland and Russia languish at 1.32 and 1.2 respectively. The more or less generous child allowances these countries pay the prolific has scarcely caused these numbers to budge. The birth dearth continues to widen.

Meanwhile, adherents of pro-family sects such as Islam are moving in, having children, and repopulating historic Christendom. Is this process likely to continue? And to what end?

Most Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East have fertility rates two or three times as high as Europe. Afghanistan and Somalia, whose fertility rates are above 6 children (6.62 and 6.4 respectively), may be outliers. But other Middle Eastern countries with above-replacement TFRs include Iraq at 4.86, Pakistan at 3.65, and Saudi Arabia at 3.03. Even immigrants from the most Westernized Muslim countries such as Turkey and Tunisia average nearly twice as many children as the extant populations of most European countries.

While falling fertility may be humanity’s general fate, it is this differential fertility that will determine Europe’s destiny. Although the birthrates of Muslim immigrants to Europe are far lower than they were just a generation ago, they are still far more open to life than highly secularized Europeans. Moreover, these immigrants, once in place in Germany, Italy, Spain, etc., tend to maintain their relatively high fertility for a generation.

As a result of this potent mix of immigration and procreation, the number of Muslims will continue to grow. Europe as a whole, some demographers suggest, will have a majority Muslim population by 2100.

What a strange twist of history! Over the centuries, various Muslim armies have repeatedly attempted to conquer Europe. Time and time again, at Tours, Vienna, at Lepanto, at Malta, they were thrown back. Yet now what their forebears were unable to accomplish by force, their distant descendants will achieve by peacefully winning the Battle of the Cradle.

Whether they will be radicalized or secularized Muslims is the central question. If they are radicalized, then we can expect efforts to impose Sharia law in country after country, along with the growing persecution of the Christian minority. Catholics in Germany, for example, may come to be treated in largely the same way that Coptic Christians in Egypt have been for the last few centuries, that is to say, as second-class citizens, to be maligned, taxed and beaten almost at will.

If, on the other hand, the second- and third-generation Muslims are largely secularized, then the Christian minority will be, presumably, treated somewhat better, though still subject to some level of discrimination. As everyone knows by now, the Secular Left preaches a tolerance that it generally does not practice.

Either way, believers in once-Christian Europe will probably find themselves living in what might be called a pre-Constantine moment. In others words, they will be living under regimes that punish, even persecute, them for their beliefs.

At the present moment, Europeans still control their own destiny. As Polybius, were he alive today, would surely remind them: “The remedy is in yourselves. You have but to change your morals.”