I have to say, I think Ross Douthat is on to something here, in a piece from Monday’s New York Times:
The news media have portrayed this rightward outreach largely through the lens of culture-war politics — as an attempt to consolidate, inside the Catholic tent, anyone who joins the Vatican in rejecting female priests and gay marriage.
But in making the opening to Anglicanism, Benedict also may have a deeper conflict in mind — not the parochial Western struggle between conservative and liberal believers, but Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam.
Here Catholicism and Anglicanism share two fronts. In Europe, both are weakened players, caught between a secular majority and an expanding Muslim population. In Africa, increasingly the real heart of the Anglican Communion, both are facing an entrenched Islamic presence across a fault line running from Nigeria to Sudan.
Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam’s compatibility with the Western way of reason — and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.
By contrast, the Church of England’s leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.
There are an awful lot of Anglicans, in England and Africa alike, who would prefer a leader who takes Benedict’s approach to the Islamic challenge. Now they can have one, if they want him.
Read the rest. There’s much to ponder. And, as I said, I think he’s on to something…
posted October 26, 2009 at 1:32 am
I don’t see how this latest move is going to form any meaningful bulwark against Islam in the UK. Whether breakaway Anglicans call themselves Anglican or Catholic, Britain is overwhelmingly secular. Dealing with Islam is going to require some political will and courage to steer a sensible path between racism on the one hand and the extreme nonsense of political correctness on the other. They, and all other European nations for that matter, are going to have to have some serious national dialogues on what their national identities mean.
At a minimum that will have to mean an insistence on learning the language and accepting values of pluralism etc. They will have to give immigrants who want to integrate a real chance and real help, and they will have to grow a backbone when it comes to enforcement and deportation. The pope’s move may well end up consolidating a core of like-minded conservative Christians, but their world view is no more compatible with today’s Western society than that of Islam.
posted October 26, 2009 at 10:12 am
Its a stretch for me to see any significant link between Benedict embracing conservative Anglicans and Islam. Rather I think this is part of the pope’s strategy to close the Church off to the world and to reinforce a conservative, sectarian philosophy by rallying the faithful against a number of perceived enemies.
I am heartened to see Rowan William’s outreach and respect for Muslims, something that Mr. Douthat seems to have a problem with. This is a dramatic contrast to Benedict’s confrontational Regensburg speech. A casual reading of our Old Testament or Church history shows us to be amazingly violent too. This is one of those, “get the log out of your own eye…” moments.
posted October 26, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Equating “conservative” Catholic or Christian positions with respect to the Western secular world with that of radical Islam is ludicrous. If the culture-war angle on this whole thing had any truth to it, then you may as well see Benedict reaching out to open the Church to hard-line Muslims, because, after all, they’re anti-gay and anti-woman, too. And obviously those are the most important aspects of the Catholic faith. C’mon, people.
On NPR’s Morning Edition today was a piece regarding an author about to publish a scholarly book. The topic of the book is the violent reaction across the Muslim world to the infamous Mohammed cartoon in the Danish newspaper a few years back. Guess what? Yale University Press, after a secondary review, insisted that the book not actually contain the cartoon in question, because it might spark more violence. How ridiculous is that?
Did you catch that headline about the bombing of Fox headquarters in retaliation for their poking fun at the Eucharist on “The Simpsons” Halloween episode? Because Pope Benedict issued an apostolic decree that all such infidels were to be mercilessly dealt with when it came to slandering our most cherished beliefs.
As I said, equating these two positions is an insult to anyone’s intelligence. But there is no doubt that people of all faiths have their work cut out for them in trying to address a vacuous secular worldview. I don’t know how interrelated these challenges are (rising fundamentalist Islam and rising secularism), but both have to be addressed.
posted October 27, 2009 at 2:46 am
Like or not we are in a conflict with Islam on a global scale. As stated above, the hot lines run from Nigeria across Africa to Sudan and Kenya. There are spots in the Middle East and then the other major fault line of conflict runs across the southern Philipines. Any way you lok at it the conflict is causing destruction and death. Consider the killings of Christians in all the places mentioned. We in North America may not want to speak the obvious but not saying it does not make this particular 700 pound bull disappear. As much as I would like to live in peace with Islam this is not going to happen in our liftimes. Instead we have to stand firm and not go the route of appeasement as demonstrated by Archbishop of Canterbury, all that gives you is a fresh set of demands.