John Derbyshire has a longish, rambling, irascible, compulsively readable essay about Islam in the modern world, with something in in to irritate just about everybody (which is one reason I find him such a pleasure to read). Derb's an atheist/agnostic who is mighty irritated by much Christian writing against Islam, saying that it's petulant and dishonest. But he's also respectful (therefore very wary) of Islam in our time. Here is a characteristic passage which I find resonant. Keep in mind that Derbyshire is not religious, but neither is he hostile to religion, a la Hitchens:
There is both a male and a female principle in any religion, but usually one or other principle is to some degree more prominent. Judaism is, in (I think) obvious ways, a more “masculine” religion than Christianity or Buddhism; the Old Testament more “masculine” than the New; and within Christianity, Protestantism is more “masculine” than Catholicism. Islam strikes an outside observer as the most “masculine” of all the big faiths. ...In Islam ... every man, however he makes his living, is a soldier of the faith. ... A fighting faith is of course a proud faith, and nothing pumps poison into the bloodstream like pride brought low. Inside every Muslim today there is a voice whispering: “Our faith is so pure and true, our civilizations lasted so long and ruled so many, our God was so potent: yet here we are in the modern world, backward and poor except where accidents of nature have blessed us, our rulers corrupt, our culture mocked or ignored, our people squabbling among themselves, or fleeing the homelands to work as taxi drivers and menials in the great glittering cities of the infidels, those homelands themselves part-stolen by the wretched Jews. It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong! Grrrrr!!!”
That’s the Islam we’re up against. I don’t myself believe we can do much to reform it. Muslims have to do that for themselves. Any helping hand we reach out will be spat upon. While they sort out their problems, though, I do think we should keep Islam at arm’s length, for our own safety. Keep ’em out; fence ’em off; send Muslim visitors home; keep a wary eye on Muslim citizens. Leave them the consolations of their faith, though; stop trying to convince me that there is no good at all in that faith; and, if you’re the praying type, pray that the good will prevail at last.
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"Second was the idea of not allowing Muslims to enter the country. This strikes me as very sound thinking. But of course is an impossibility in a land where there are no absolutes."
Yeah, right. The Saudis have the right idea--no Jews, no practice of Christianity, none of the wrong kind of Muslims. By george, THEY'VE got a sense of absolutes!
As for the purported absence of men in the pews (I have no personal, anecdotal,nor statistical data on this), if it's happening, that probably does have something to do with the increasingly active role of women in even the churches that still deny them ordination. It also has to do with the recurrently popular notion that being male means never having to say you're sorry. Observant Jewish men wear skullcaps or other headgear to remind them that there is One above them. That awareness is sometimes hard to reconcile with traditional masculinity.
Responding to Marian,
Just because the Saudi's do something does not invalidate the idea. They, the Saudi people have a right to build a society as they see fit and to adapt to change as they choose. The Iraelis have the same right, so to for the U.S. and others. One of the flaws of diversity ideology is that it leads in the end to sameness. If cultures morph into similarities as a result of dispersion of all cultures into one then what becomes of choices. For my preference I would rather engage Saudis and all on economic terms and as trading peoples then to war and kill even though there may be times when these are necessary. Let each develop according to its philosophic principle and be open to those of similar beleif. In this way we get real difference and a world of greater interest.
"The Iraelis have the same right, so to for the U.S. and others."
How about the Palestinians? Do they have a right to reclaim their illegally occupied land?
Hey, the Jews were there first!
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