(First Publshed in the Graceline Newsletter of Staunton Grace Covenant Church)
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching (I Tim. 4:13 NIV).
In many hi-tech church services today, clips from popular movies are used to get the congregation’s attention and point to spiritual lessons. In an effort to win a hearing with unbelievers contemporary art is used as a “hook” and many times more than a hook. Film clips and other art forms sometimes become the basis of a pastor’s message. I have seen film excerpts used very effectively, and on occasion I have used a film clip or the words of a popular song to make a point. While this is sometimes valid, I’m afraid that by neglecting the centrality of Scripture the real meat of a church service is omitted. One thing is clear, throughout its history the church has made the public reading of Scripture a central pillar of its worship services. The fact that this strikes some as novel, too formal, or even boring, demonstrates how far the contemporary church has strayed from historic and Biblical practice.
Some groups are thoughtlessly drifting toward making a message from contemporary art the actual focus of their worship services. While this may be entertaining, it cannot be a good thing in the final analysis. A couple of years ago on a trip to Croatia, I bought a nice imitation silk rug. Nice and cheap, that is. If you’ve ever seen a genuine hand-crafted oriental silk rug, you know they are beautiful, durable, and exquisitely made, not to mention expensive. The genuine article just grows more attractive with age. The imitation in my office grows more ragged and wrinkled with age. I’m afraid those churches and pastors who are depending on Stephen Speilburg and Tom Cruise for their primary message are going to find their investment in people’s lives devalued in the end. We can go for something cheaper and more entertaining, but those who cherish the Scriptures will see their value increase continually over time. It’s like a sign hanging in a local jewelry shop, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
C. S. Lewis, writing about the fourth century bishop Athanasius and the lasting value of sound teaching, put it this way,
He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine ‘whole and undefiled,’ when it looked like all the civilised world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius – into one of those ‘sensible’ synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away. (C.S. Lewis, Introduction to St. Athanasius the Incarnation, MacMillan, 1946, xvii-xviii).
Scripture is the very voice of God speaking to the church. Public reading of Scripture has as much or more validity in the church’s historic practice than any other form of public worship. Singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, inspired utterance, testimony, fervent prayer, and sermons are to accompany the simple reading of Scripture, not replace it. As stated in the book of Hebrews, The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb. 4:12). God’s word written is the primary means by which the Holy Spirit speaks to our souls today. That’s why we should make the reading of the Bible a personal habit, a family practice, and a corporate discipline. When an elder, the pastor, or a member of the congregation reads from the Bible in a service, we should be especially attentive for the voice of God to each of us. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path (Ps. 119:105 KJV).
We are fortunate to have many good Bible translations today. Some translations, known as paraphrases, may help us to understand the message of Scripture. Among these are The Living Bible, and The Message. While these may be helpful to us, they should not be our primary source for Bible reading. I recommend the New International Version (not the new Revised NIV which bends the gender of Biblical language), The English Standard Version, the New American Standard, or New King James as your best sources for regular Bible reading.
The apostle Peter put it this way, And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts (II Peter 1:19).
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Affinity Fraud
(This is an abbreviated version of an article published on January 6, 2009)
Wall Street maven Bernard Madoff’s 50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, the largest in history (excluding the social security system), has generated a spate of sensational headlines. “Scope of Alleged Fraud Still Being Assessed,” “Madoff Ran Vast Options Game,” “Spielburg and Katzenburg Get Hit,” “Impact on Jewish Charities is Catastraphic.”
A Ponzi scheme, named for Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who established a scheme involving thousands of investors and millions of dollars which collapsed in 1920, is a deceptive investment scam which promises exceptional returns on the dollar. The only problem is it is not earned dividends or capital gains which fuel the return but other investors’ principal. The scheme only works as long as new investors can be persuaded (conned) into buying or re-investing into the plan. Eventually the great pyramid must collapse.
One of the more famous recent schemes entangled leading members of the new government of Albania in the 1990’s. Fueled by an unrealistic view of the potential of the free enterprise system thousands of Albanians were caught up in the hysteria. The scheme involved hundreds of millions of dollars. It collapsed in 1997 provoking serious social unrest in Albania costing up to 2,000 lives by some reports.
One headline in this recent scam that especially caught my attention was an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Madoff Exploited the Jews” by Ronald Cass, dean emeritus of Boston University School of Law(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122956340954216799.html).
Dean Cass describes the phenomenon known as affinity fraud – the tendency for groups defined by religious, ethnic, social, or ideological affinity to become targets of insider confidence games. In the Madoff case it was both the social affinity of membership in the same posh country club as well as the religious/ethnic tie of being Jewish, hence the large number of well-known Jewish contributors and Jewish charities affected by the scam. “The sense of common heritage, of community, also makes it less seemly to ask hard questions. Pressing a fellow parishioner or club member for hard information is like demanding receipts from your aunt -- it just doesn't feel right. Hucksters know that, they play on it, and they count on our trust to make their confidence games work.”
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
Affinity fraud refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are - or pretend to be - members of the group. They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile. Many times, those leaders become unwitting victims of the fraudster's ruse.
These scams exploit the trust and friendship that exist in groups of people who have something in common. Because of the tight-knit structure of many groups, it can be difficult for regulators or law enforcement officials to detect an affinity scam. Victims often fail to notify authorities or pursue their legal remedies, and instead try to work things out within the group. This is particularly true where the fraudsters have used respected community or religious leaders to convince others to join the investment. (See more at http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/affinity.htm )
Affinity fraud is actually rather common. Some recent major frauds include that of Greater Ministries International. 18,000 investors, mostly believers, lost $448 million dollars in a scheme which collapsed in 1998. In 1995 the New Era scam bilked 1,100 investors and 180 evangelical organizations out of $135 million. Affinity fraud crosses all ideological and ethnic lines. The Wall Street Journal recently reported a $100 million Ponzi scheme which entangled members of B’nai Israel Congregation in Norfolk, VA through a trusted member of the community. Similar frauds are reported by the SEC involving African, Armenian, and Korean Americans.
All in all, I think Solomon had it right, A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20). Essentially he is saying to avoid get rich quick schemes. That’s why I find that the confusing entanglements such schemes tend to create are better left at the sanctuary door.
Wall Street maven Bernard Madoff’s 50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, the largest in history (excluding the social security system), has generated a spate of sensational headlines. “Scope of Alleged Fraud Still Being Assessed,” “Madoff Ran Vast Options Game,” “Spielburg and Katzenburg Get Hit,” “Impact on Jewish Charities is Catastraphic.”
A Ponzi scheme, named for Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who established a scheme involving thousands of investors and millions of dollars which collapsed in 1920, is a deceptive investment scam which promises exceptional returns on the dollar. The only problem is it is not earned dividends or capital gains which fuel the return but other investors’ principal. The scheme only works as long as new investors can be persuaded (conned) into buying or re-investing into the plan. Eventually the great pyramid must collapse.
One of the more famous recent schemes entangled leading members of the new government of Albania in the 1990’s. Fueled by an unrealistic view of the potential of the free enterprise system thousands of Albanians were caught up in the hysteria. The scheme involved hundreds of millions of dollars. It collapsed in 1997 provoking serious social unrest in Albania costing up to 2,000 lives by some reports.
One headline in this recent scam that especially caught my attention was an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Madoff Exploited the Jews” by Ronald Cass, dean emeritus of Boston University School of Law(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122956340954216799.html).
Dean Cass describes the phenomenon known as affinity fraud – the tendency for groups defined by religious, ethnic, social, or ideological affinity to become targets of insider confidence games. In the Madoff case it was both the social affinity of membership in the same posh country club as well as the religious/ethnic tie of being Jewish, hence the large number of well-known Jewish contributors and Jewish charities affected by the scam. “The sense of common heritage, of community, also makes it less seemly to ask hard questions. Pressing a fellow parishioner or club member for hard information is like demanding receipts from your aunt -- it just doesn't feel right. Hucksters know that, they play on it, and they count on our trust to make their confidence games work.”
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
Affinity fraud refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are - or pretend to be - members of the group. They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile. Many times, those leaders become unwitting victims of the fraudster's ruse.
These scams exploit the trust and friendship that exist in groups of people who have something in common. Because of the tight-knit structure of many groups, it can be difficult for regulators or law enforcement officials to detect an affinity scam. Victims often fail to notify authorities or pursue their legal remedies, and instead try to work things out within the group. This is particularly true where the fraudsters have used respected community or religious leaders to convince others to join the investment. (See more at http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/affinity.htm )
Affinity fraud is actually rather common. Some recent major frauds include that of Greater Ministries International. 18,000 investors, mostly believers, lost $448 million dollars in a scheme which collapsed in 1998. In 1995 the New Era scam bilked 1,100 investors and 180 evangelical organizations out of $135 million. Affinity fraud crosses all ideological and ethnic lines. The Wall Street Journal recently reported a $100 million Ponzi scheme which entangled members of B’nai Israel Congregation in Norfolk, VA through a trusted member of the community. Similar frauds are reported by the SEC involving African, Armenian, and Korean Americans.
All in all, I think Solomon had it right, A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20). Essentially he is saying to avoid get rich quick schemes. That’s why I find that the confusing entanglements such schemes tend to create are better left at the sanctuary door.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Freedom of Speech Not Restricted to Secularists
This election cycle has brought its share of religion-based squabbling, charge, and counter-charge. Religious speech has always played a role in the public debates of American society. This includes the sometimes volatile political theater of election campaigns and presidential politics.
In the first twelve Presidential inaugural addresses, religious or biblical themes are mentioned over eighteen times. I got tired of counting after the first twelve but the practice continues throughout the subsequent inaugural speeches. Sometimes passages of scripture are cited, or there are lengthy pleas for God’s favor on the nation.
Lincoln’s second inaugural, one of the most significant in our history, contains an extended theological reflection on the causes and meaning of the civil war. It makes the bold – even startling -- assertion that the practice of slavery brought the judgment of God upon the nation. “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondmen’s 250 years of unrequited toil be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.”
That address is chiseled in stone on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial. Neither the speech, nor its inclusion in a national monument would have passed muster with the ACLU if they’d have had a say. I sometimes wonder when this watchdog of liberty is going to launch a court case to have the monument, or at least the wall containing the address, demolished.
When John Kennedy’s fitness for office was questioned because of his Roman Catholic faith during the 1960 presidential campaign, he gave a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He needed to make the case that his religious affiliation would not dictate his policy decisions. There was particular concern that his allegiance to the bishop of Rome and the Catholic hierarchy would trump his allegiance to the constitution. The speech advocated a strict separation of church and state. It came just short of requiring public servants to check their faith-convictions at the door in order to hold public office. I disagree with many of the assertions in Kennedy’s speech, but the fact is his willingness to address questions pertaining to his personal faith was a turning point in his campaign, and relieved the misgivings of many Protestants toward voting for him.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in the heat of the intense struggle for civil rights wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. Along with his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, it is one of the most significant documents of the movement. In the letter he states the moral basis for his refusal to obey Jim Crow laws. It’s addressed to a group of ministers in Birmingham who opposed his protests. The heart of his argument is taken from natural law theory, “I would agree with Saint Augustine that ’An unjust law is no law at all’ . . . An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.”
In the most significant public policy struggle of the 20th century, King recognized and drew from a heritage rooted deeply in the theological traditions of the Christian Church.
Thomas Jefferson with support from James Madison crafted the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1786. It is the forerunner of the free exercise and non-establishment clauses of the First Amendment. In the Virginia statute, these eminent founders rejected the idea of a state-church supported by tax revenues, or state-mandated church attendance. The statute clearly rejects the idea of depriving persons of the right to hold public office because of their religious opinion as a matter of state policy. I find it difficult to believe their intent was to apply a gag order to public political discussion or to restrict the right of voters to support members of their own faith communities based on common values and worldview.
What they advocated in place of an established church was a veritable free-marketplace of spiritual discourse whereby “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.” It appears, at least to this legal layman, that the intent of the statute is to promote religious discourse not restrict it, and by the means of free, open, and un-coerced religious discussion to maintain a vibrant faith life for the commonwealth, and later, the country.
Fast forward to today. We often find that the public discourse and campaign speeches of politicians are laced with biblical, faith-based, or spiritual references, and draw on various aspects of these traditions. Many times the debate is discordant and religious discourse is used unwisely or even destructively. But it is without question a part of our heritage, both noble and ignoble. A true understanding of the first amendment should have it no other way.
That is why I am very surprised to read a first amendment scholar such as Charles Haynes calling candidates to “dial back the God talk” in a recent column (“Using Religion to Win Votes Subverts Constitution” Sept. 29, 2008, firstamendmentcenter.org ). The premise seems to be that we should restrict free speech in order to protect the non-establishment clause. Surely the first amendment freedoms compete at times, but chiding candidates for reaching out to religiously motivated voters misses the mark. This assertion runs counter to our popular political traditions and seems to contradict first amendment principles.
No doubt, this freedom can be, and is, abused. There is no question we need to return a civil tone to public debate in our country. And no doubt, exposing falsehoods, and refuting slanderous and false accusations about one’s faith are critical to the proper use of this freedom. But enlarging, not restricting free speech, including religious speech in the public square, is in the true sprit of the constitution.
In the first twelve Presidential inaugural addresses, religious or biblical themes are mentioned over eighteen times. I got tired of counting after the first twelve but the practice continues throughout the subsequent inaugural speeches. Sometimes passages of scripture are cited, or there are lengthy pleas for God’s favor on the nation.
Lincoln’s second inaugural, one of the most significant in our history, contains an extended theological reflection on the causes and meaning of the civil war. It makes the bold – even startling -- assertion that the practice of slavery brought the judgment of God upon the nation. “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondmen’s 250 years of unrequited toil be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.”
That address is chiseled in stone on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial. Neither the speech, nor its inclusion in a national monument would have passed muster with the ACLU if they’d have had a say. I sometimes wonder when this watchdog of liberty is going to launch a court case to have the monument, or at least the wall containing the address, demolished.
When John Kennedy’s fitness for office was questioned because of his Roman Catholic faith during the 1960 presidential campaign, he gave a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He needed to make the case that his religious affiliation would not dictate his policy decisions. There was particular concern that his allegiance to the bishop of Rome and the Catholic hierarchy would trump his allegiance to the constitution. The speech advocated a strict separation of church and state. It came just short of requiring public servants to check their faith-convictions at the door in order to hold public office. I disagree with many of the assertions in Kennedy’s speech, but the fact is his willingness to address questions pertaining to his personal faith was a turning point in his campaign, and relieved the misgivings of many Protestants toward voting for him.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in the heat of the intense struggle for civil rights wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. Along with his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, it is one of the most significant documents of the movement. In the letter he states the moral basis for his refusal to obey Jim Crow laws. It’s addressed to a group of ministers in Birmingham who opposed his protests. The heart of his argument is taken from natural law theory, “I would agree with Saint Augustine that ’An unjust law is no law at all’ . . . An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.”
In the most significant public policy struggle of the 20th century, King recognized and drew from a heritage rooted deeply in the theological traditions of the Christian Church.
Thomas Jefferson with support from James Madison crafted the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1786. It is the forerunner of the free exercise and non-establishment clauses of the First Amendment. In the Virginia statute, these eminent founders rejected the idea of a state-church supported by tax revenues, or state-mandated church attendance. The statute clearly rejects the idea of depriving persons of the right to hold public office because of their religious opinion as a matter of state policy. I find it difficult to believe their intent was to apply a gag order to public political discussion or to restrict the right of voters to support members of their own faith communities based on common values and worldview.
What they advocated in place of an established church was a veritable free-marketplace of spiritual discourse whereby “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.” It appears, at least to this legal layman, that the intent of the statute is to promote religious discourse not restrict it, and by the means of free, open, and un-coerced religious discussion to maintain a vibrant faith life for the commonwealth, and later, the country.
Fast forward to today. We often find that the public discourse and campaign speeches of politicians are laced with biblical, faith-based, or spiritual references, and draw on various aspects of these traditions. Many times the debate is discordant and religious discourse is used unwisely or even destructively. But it is without question a part of our heritage, both noble and ignoble. A true understanding of the first amendment should have it no other way.
That is why I am very surprised to read a first amendment scholar such as Charles Haynes calling candidates to “dial back the God talk” in a recent column (“Using Religion to Win Votes Subverts Constitution” Sept. 29, 2008, firstamendmentcenter.org ). The premise seems to be that we should restrict free speech in order to protect the non-establishment clause. Surely the first amendment freedoms compete at times, but chiding candidates for reaching out to religiously motivated voters misses the mark. This assertion runs counter to our popular political traditions and seems to contradict first amendment principles.
No doubt, this freedom can be, and is, abused. There is no question we need to return a civil tone to public debate in our country. And no doubt, exposing falsehoods, and refuting slanderous and false accusations about one’s faith are critical to the proper use of this freedom. But enlarging, not restricting free speech, including religious speech in the public square, is in the true sprit of the constitution.
Friday, October 10, 2008
What is Sharia and Why Does It Matter?
Back in February of this year (2008), Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, stirred great controversy through an interview on BBC. He stated that in view of England’s growing Muslim population it would become necessary to accept some principles of Islamic sharia* law into the British system of jurisprudence. The statement provoked strong criticism throughout Britain.
But criticism was by no means universal. Harvard Law Professor and Islamic scholar Noah Feldman wrote a lengthy defense of sharia’s place in the modern world which was published in The New York Times Magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16Shariah-t.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin ). He asks, “How is it that what so many Westerners see as the most unappealing and pre-modern aspect of Islam is, to many Muslims, the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival?“
Professor Wael B. Hallaq of McGill University in Montreal states in The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005), “One of the fundamental features of the so-called modern Islamic resurgence is the call to restore the sharia, the religious law of Islam. During the past two and a half decades, this call has grown ever more forceful, generating religious movements, a vast amount of literature, and affecting world politics.”
To complicate the discussion it was revealed by The Sunday Times of London (http://143.252.148.161/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece ) that as of September alternative sharia courts have been established in five locations in England with more on the way. The courts are run by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal under the Arbitration Act of 1996. They are considered a form of alternative dispute resolution. The courts issue rulings on matters ranging from domestic violence to divorce, inheritance rights, and nuisance suits against neighbors. According to The Times these courts have the full backing of British civil courts and are enforced by the British legal system. This, only six months after Archbishop Williams first broached the subject to great public opposition.
Muslim-born Anglican priest Patrick Sookdheo’s response to Williams’s original proposal is instructive, “The process of setting up a system of sharia courts recognized by the state and its civil law will help those Muslims in Britain who appear to be working to develop a network of loosely-knit Islamic autonomous regions, a de facto non-territorial Islamic state.”
So the question is: What is sharia and why does it matter? I think this is the single greatest cultural question confronting western democracies as we enter the first half of the 21st century.
Sharia, or the sacred law, is the legal tradition of Islamic culture and societies. It embodies the guiding principles for the legal systems embraced by Islamic republics. It has a long history of development and carefully established traditions. The keeping of sharia is a central feature of the Islamic faith, which is a system with both religious and political traditions at its core. The sources of sharia are the Quran, the sunnah and hadith (traditions and sayings of Mohammed and his companions), ijma (established consensus of Islamic legal scholars), and qiyas (argument through analogy in matters not already addressed by the established legal tradition). In short, sharia is the guiding principle of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). And fiqh is to Islamic societies what the common law and case law are to the British and American systems of jurisprudence.
This provokes another question: Are the two traditions compatible? Can one system be assimilated into the other, or are they two mutually exclusive competing systems which cannot occupy the same space at the same time? This is a question western societies must examine and answer sooner rather than later. Here’s why.
In his book Who Speaks for Islam? John L. Esposito, director of the Georgetown University Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding asserts that a majority of Muslims worldwide desire to see sharia as a source of law, and in some cases as the source of law for Muslims. This is one of the clearest implications of his research in which he used data from the Gallup World Poll of Muslims along with co-author Dalia Mogahed.
As Harvard Law Professor Feldman stated above, for Muslims, sharia is clearly “the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival.” Both Esposito and Feldman indicate that popular impressions of sharia are a caricatures of a noble tradition.
It is on precisely this point that the water becomes muddied. Non-Muslims tend to portray the call to establish sharia as an extremist or radical position. But it appears that mainstream Muslims in places like Britain want to establish sharia as a source of law. If this is in fact so, is this really a moderate position? I don’t think so. Yet it appears to be a majority position within the community of practicing Muslims worldwide.
Excluding caricatures, no matter how noble some aspects of the tradition of sharia may have been in Islamic societies in antiquity, is this a tradition whose influence should be fostered and accepted uncritically in the name of tolerance? Or do we insist that the establishment of a parallel system of jurisprudence endorsed by the state is at odds with the principles of our constitution? It appears that Great Britain is unwilling to say so. This question is quickly becoming critically important.
*The word sharia, like many words transliterated into Latin letters from another alphabet (in this case Arabic) does not have a precise spelling in English. It is sometimes spelled shari’a, shari’ah, or shariah. I have standardized the spelling as sharia even in quoted passages.
But criticism was by no means universal. Harvard Law Professor and Islamic scholar Noah Feldman wrote a lengthy defense of sharia’s place in the modern world which was published in The New York Times Magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16Shariah-t.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin ). He asks, “How is it that what so many Westerners see as the most unappealing and pre-modern aspect of Islam is, to many Muslims, the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival?“
Professor Wael B. Hallaq of McGill University in Montreal states in The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005), “One of the fundamental features of the so-called modern Islamic resurgence is the call to restore the sharia, the religious law of Islam. During the past two and a half decades, this call has grown ever more forceful, generating religious movements, a vast amount of literature, and affecting world politics.”
To complicate the discussion it was revealed by The Sunday Times of London (http://143.252.148.161/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece ) that as of September alternative sharia courts have been established in five locations in England with more on the way. The courts are run by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal under the Arbitration Act of 1996. They are considered a form of alternative dispute resolution. The courts issue rulings on matters ranging from domestic violence to divorce, inheritance rights, and nuisance suits against neighbors. According to The Times these courts have the full backing of British civil courts and are enforced by the British legal system. This, only six months after Archbishop Williams first broached the subject to great public opposition.
Muslim-born Anglican priest Patrick Sookdheo’s response to Williams’s original proposal is instructive, “The process of setting up a system of sharia courts recognized by the state and its civil law will help those Muslims in Britain who appear to be working to develop a network of loosely-knit Islamic autonomous regions, a de facto non-territorial Islamic state.”
So the question is: What is sharia and why does it matter? I think this is the single greatest cultural question confronting western democracies as we enter the first half of the 21st century.
Sharia, or the sacred law, is the legal tradition of Islamic culture and societies. It embodies the guiding principles for the legal systems embraced by Islamic republics. It has a long history of development and carefully established traditions. The keeping of sharia is a central feature of the Islamic faith, which is a system with both religious and political traditions at its core. The sources of sharia are the Quran, the sunnah and hadith (traditions and sayings of Mohammed and his companions), ijma (established consensus of Islamic legal scholars), and qiyas (argument through analogy in matters not already addressed by the established legal tradition). In short, sharia is the guiding principle of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). And fiqh is to Islamic societies what the common law and case law are to the British and American systems of jurisprudence.
This provokes another question: Are the two traditions compatible? Can one system be assimilated into the other, or are they two mutually exclusive competing systems which cannot occupy the same space at the same time? This is a question western societies must examine and answer sooner rather than later. Here’s why.
In his book Who Speaks for Islam? John L. Esposito, director of the Georgetown University Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding asserts that a majority of Muslims worldwide desire to see sharia as a source of law, and in some cases as the source of law for Muslims. This is one of the clearest implications of his research in which he used data from the Gallup World Poll of Muslims along with co-author Dalia Mogahed.
As Harvard Law Professor Feldman stated above, for Muslims, sharia is clearly “the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival.” Both Esposito and Feldman indicate that popular impressions of sharia are a caricatures of a noble tradition.
It is on precisely this point that the water becomes muddied. Non-Muslims tend to portray the call to establish sharia as an extremist or radical position. But it appears that mainstream Muslims in places like Britain want to establish sharia as a source of law. If this is in fact so, is this really a moderate position? I don’t think so. Yet it appears to be a majority position within the community of practicing Muslims worldwide.
Excluding caricatures, no matter how noble some aspects of the tradition of sharia may have been in Islamic societies in antiquity, is this a tradition whose influence should be fostered and accepted uncritically in the name of tolerance? Or do we insist that the establishment of a parallel system of jurisprudence endorsed by the state is at odds with the principles of our constitution? It appears that Great Britain is unwilling to say so. This question is quickly becoming critically important.
*The word sharia, like many words transliterated into Latin letters from another alphabet (in this case Arabic) does not have a precise spelling in English. It is sometimes spelled shari’a, shari’ah, or shariah. I have standardized the spelling as sharia even in quoted passages.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Will the Real Anglicans Please Stand Up?
Who speaks for historic Anglicanism?
As a child I used to watch the television game show called “To Tell the Truth.” Three individuals would appear before a panel claiming to have had an unusual experience or to be a member of some profession or trade. They would answer the panel’s questions about their work or other relevant matters. In the end the panel would try to guess which of the three was the real astronaut or holder of the record for deep-sea diving. At the moment of truth the real candidate would reveal his or her identity by standing while the other two remained seated.
The Worldwide Anglican Communion is engaged in such a contest just now. The recent ceremony joining two male priests in the diocese of London featured language directly reflecting the marriage rite of the Church of England as reported in The Telegraph in June. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury responded in a joint statement with Archbishop of York John Sentamu, “Those clergy who disagree with the Church's teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the Church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it." As one observer wrote of this tepid response, this sends the message, ”Keep trying, we’ll eventually change our minds.”
In the face of deep divisions facing the Communion many are asking, ”Who are the true Anglicans?” Is it those who support ongoing dialogue in the face of deep disagreement? This stance is a hallmark of the Anglican Church historically. Or are the true Anglicans those who say the time for dialogue is past, faithfulness to Christ and the Biblical revelation requires action not words. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams presiding at this decade’s Lambeth conference states that the Worldwide Anglican Communion is facing one of the most “severe challenges … in its history.” The kettle of controversy ignited earlier this decade continues to boil over.
The catalyst for Archbishop Williams’ statement is the effort by African and Asian bishops to call the church back to biblical and evangelical roots. The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) met in Jerusalem from June 22-29. They issued a statement of historic significance. The GAFCON statement expresses three distinct concerns about the Worldwide Anglican Communion, and comes to some startling conclusions. As a student of church history, I would say the significance of this document cannot be overstated.
The three concerns of the statement are: 1) “the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ which is contrary to the apostolic gospel;” 2) the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are “out of communion with the bishops and churches that promote this false gospel,” resulting in a realignment of parishes in Western churches with other provinces of the global Anglican Church; and 3) “the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Communion of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle,” with impunity.
The document acknowledges the historic significance of the see of Canterbury but denies that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury is necessary for Anglican identity. In light of the inaction of the Anglican Communion leadership in failing to address the concerns expressed by the bishops of the Global South they write: “We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global communion with a colonial structure.’”
The GAFCON statement can be viewed at:
http://www.gafcon.org/
Archbishop Williams, responded in part by saying, “By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?“ He also urges the bishops to keep waiting. The bishops of the Global South seem to be asking, Waiting for what, the universal apostasy of the Communion?
You can view his entire response at:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org:80/
Here in the U.S. the division within Anglicanism is highlighted by the schism between conservative evangelicals who are seceding from The Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC) and the liberal wing of the church. The lightning rod for the division is two-fold: first, the 2003 ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson of the diocese of New Hampshire supported by the liberal wing, and secondly, the removal of many parishes, and at least one diocese from communion with TEC. The point of conflict is lawsuits over property rights filed against the seceding parishes, including 11 here in Virginia.
For now, at least, Virginia courts are deciding in favor of the conservative groups who have affiliated with the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). A recent decision of the Fairfax County Circuit Court upheld the right of the parishes to split from the TEC based on an 1867 Virginia law designed to accommodate church property disputes in the post-civil war era.
Predictably, the two groups have responded very differently.
Statements on the websites of the ADV and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia make an identical claim from differing perspectives. In their own mind at least, each is carrying the banner of the “true Episcopal Church.” These claims are summed up in two succinct statements from each group:
The ADV site states “While we disagree with their (TEC’s) decision to walk apart from the worldwide Anglican Communion, we acknowledge their right to do so. We would hope that they would acknowledge our right to remain faithful to the tenets of faith that have given comfort to our forbearers who built the churches TEC and the Diocese are now trying so hard to take.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia site says that “The Diocese remains steadfast in its commitment to current and future generations of loyal Episcopalians and will continue to pursue every legal option available to ensure that they will be able to worship in the churches their Episcopal ancestors built.”
Well put, but claims to represent ancestors are hard to prove. There is a subtle but important difference between remaining true to inherited faith-tenets and remaining ensconced on property in the name of the “Old Guard.” Is the diocese of Virginia prepared to say that true Episcopalians are those who carry a particular bloodline as opposed to fealty to a particular doctrine?
The question of fidelity to the historic faith is central to communions which rely on apostolic succession for validity such as Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or the Anglican Church. They see themselves as stewards of a trust passed down from previous generations by the apostolic authority of the bishops of the church. It was a dispute over the nature of episcopal authority that caused Sir Thomas More to lose his head (literally) when defending the doctrine of the primacy of the bishop of Rome during the Protestant Reformation in England in 1535, depicted so well in the 1966 movie “A Man for All Seasons.”
The purpose of the doctrine of apostolic succession in the patristic (early post-apostolic) church was two-fold: to preserve doctrinal purity and ecclesiastical unity. At least in theory, the Anglican communion opted to make doctrinal purity primary when these two purposes came into conflict during the Reformation in 1535. Charitably, let us say, the Anglican church severed unity with the Roman church in order to preserve apostolic truth rather than the more crass motive of political independence from the intrusive authority of the Roman bishop and his representatives known as legates. Otherwise, the entire house of cards collapses since neither ecclesiastical unity nor doctrinal purity would have been at issue.
Those who feel conscience-bound to remain in the tradition of succession, do well to commit themselves to the primary purpose of succession – the doctrinal purity of the church.
Will the real Anglican Communion in the United States please stand up? As an observer with no personal claim or association with either party, I cast my vote unwaveringly for the ADV, CANA,GAFCON and their commitment to the historic doctrines of their faith. Let’s hope the courts continue to do so as well.
As a child I used to watch the television game show called “To Tell the Truth.” Three individuals would appear before a panel claiming to have had an unusual experience or to be a member of some profession or trade. They would answer the panel’s questions about their work or other relevant matters. In the end the panel would try to guess which of the three was the real astronaut or holder of the record for deep-sea diving. At the moment of truth the real candidate would reveal his or her identity by standing while the other two remained seated.
The Worldwide Anglican Communion is engaged in such a contest just now. The recent ceremony joining two male priests in the diocese of London featured language directly reflecting the marriage rite of the Church of England as reported in The Telegraph in June. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury responded in a joint statement with Archbishop of York John Sentamu, “Those clergy who disagree with the Church's teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the Church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it." As one observer wrote of this tepid response, this sends the message, ”Keep trying, we’ll eventually change our minds.”
In the face of deep divisions facing the Communion many are asking, ”Who are the true Anglicans?” Is it those who support ongoing dialogue in the face of deep disagreement? This stance is a hallmark of the Anglican Church historically. Or are the true Anglicans those who say the time for dialogue is past, faithfulness to Christ and the Biblical revelation requires action not words. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams presiding at this decade’s Lambeth conference states that the Worldwide Anglican Communion is facing one of the most “severe challenges … in its history.” The kettle of controversy ignited earlier this decade continues to boil over.
The catalyst for Archbishop Williams’ statement is the effort by African and Asian bishops to call the church back to biblical and evangelical roots. The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) met in Jerusalem from June 22-29. They issued a statement of historic significance. The GAFCON statement expresses three distinct concerns about the Worldwide Anglican Communion, and comes to some startling conclusions. As a student of church history, I would say the significance of this document cannot be overstated.
The three concerns of the statement are: 1) “the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ which is contrary to the apostolic gospel;” 2) the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are “out of communion with the bishops and churches that promote this false gospel,” resulting in a realignment of parishes in Western churches with other provinces of the global Anglican Church; and 3) “the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Communion of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle,” with impunity.
The document acknowledges the historic significance of the see of Canterbury but denies that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury is necessary for Anglican identity. In light of the inaction of the Anglican Communion leadership in failing to address the concerns expressed by the bishops of the Global South they write: “We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global communion with a colonial structure.’”
The GAFCON statement can be viewed at:
http://www.gafcon.org/
Archbishop Williams, responded in part by saying, “By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?“ He also urges the bishops to keep waiting. The bishops of the Global South seem to be asking, Waiting for what, the universal apostasy of the Communion?
You can view his entire response at:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org:80/
Here in the U.S. the division within Anglicanism is highlighted by the schism between conservative evangelicals who are seceding from The Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC) and the liberal wing of the church. The lightning rod for the division is two-fold: first, the 2003 ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson of the diocese of New Hampshire supported by the liberal wing, and secondly, the removal of many parishes, and at least one diocese from communion with TEC. The point of conflict is lawsuits over property rights filed against the seceding parishes, including 11 here in Virginia.
For now, at least, Virginia courts are deciding in favor of the conservative groups who have affiliated with the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). A recent decision of the Fairfax County Circuit Court upheld the right of the parishes to split from the TEC based on an 1867 Virginia law designed to accommodate church property disputes in the post-civil war era.
Predictably, the two groups have responded very differently.
Statements on the websites of the ADV and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia make an identical claim from differing perspectives. In their own mind at least, each is carrying the banner of the “true Episcopal Church.” These claims are summed up in two succinct statements from each group:
The ADV site states “While we disagree with their (TEC’s) decision to walk apart from the worldwide Anglican Communion, we acknowledge their right to do so. We would hope that they would acknowledge our right to remain faithful to the tenets of faith that have given comfort to our forbearers who built the churches TEC and the Diocese are now trying so hard to take.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia site says that “The Diocese remains steadfast in its commitment to current and future generations of loyal Episcopalians and will continue to pursue every legal option available to ensure that they will be able to worship in the churches their Episcopal ancestors built.”
Well put, but claims to represent ancestors are hard to prove. There is a subtle but important difference between remaining true to inherited faith-tenets and remaining ensconced on property in the name of the “Old Guard.” Is the diocese of Virginia prepared to say that true Episcopalians are those who carry a particular bloodline as opposed to fealty to a particular doctrine?
The question of fidelity to the historic faith is central to communions which rely on apostolic succession for validity such as Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or the Anglican Church. They see themselves as stewards of a trust passed down from previous generations by the apostolic authority of the bishops of the church. It was a dispute over the nature of episcopal authority that caused Sir Thomas More to lose his head (literally) when defending the doctrine of the primacy of the bishop of Rome during the Protestant Reformation in England in 1535, depicted so well in the 1966 movie “A Man for All Seasons.”
The purpose of the doctrine of apostolic succession in the patristic (early post-apostolic) church was two-fold: to preserve doctrinal purity and ecclesiastical unity. At least in theory, the Anglican communion opted to make doctrinal purity primary when these two purposes came into conflict during the Reformation in 1535. Charitably, let us say, the Anglican church severed unity with the Roman church in order to preserve apostolic truth rather than the more crass motive of political independence from the intrusive authority of the Roman bishop and his representatives known as legates. Otherwise, the entire house of cards collapses since neither ecclesiastical unity nor doctrinal purity would have been at issue.
Those who feel conscience-bound to remain in the tradition of succession, do well to commit themselves to the primary purpose of succession – the doctrinal purity of the church.
Will the real Anglican Communion in the United States please stand up? As an observer with no personal claim or association with either party, I cast my vote unwaveringly for the ADV, CANA,GAFCON and their commitment to the historic doctrines of their faith. Let’s hope the courts continue to do so as well.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Jimmy Carter's Shrinking Legacy
In early 1976 I participated in the mass meeting of the Democratic Party in the Mt. Vernon precinct of Northern Virginia. I voted for a little known candidate from the South named Jimmy Carter. After he won his party's nomination I voted for him again in the November election. At the age of 23 I served as an election official at the polls that year as a Democratic; any other party affiliation was considered something akin to treason in my home growing up. It was satisfying to work a big election like that one. I was especially attracted to Carter, as were many evangelicals, because he boldly identified himself as a born-again Christian and made a point of emphasizing the role of piety in fulfilling the duties of public life.
For most, Carter was a disappointment as president. He was considered naïve and failed to inspire the confidence even of his own party. In the next election Ted Kennedy launched an unusual challenge to the incumbent president for his party’s nomination. Carter’s approval rating bottomed-out at 21% just prior to the 1980 convention, the lowest ever for any sitting president. (This is still true despite recent statements by AOL claiming the honor for George W. Bush). He won only 35% of the popular vote in the general election that year.
He seemed unskilled in his handling of SALT II talks (scrapping rather than building on previous negotiations), the energy crisis (after declaring an energy war he prescribed driving 55 and wearing long-johns, only resulting in gas lines -- again), inflation (double-digits), the self-punishing 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott and Russian grain embargo, and the infamous “malaise” speech which shifted blame for these problems onto a demoralized society. And this is the short list.
Developments in Iran were especially misread. In Teheran in December, 1977, he offered a toast praising the despised Shah resulting in riots. The intelligence on the emerging Islamic Revolution was either non-existent or badly managed. The later ill-fated decision to allow the deposed Shah to enter the U.S. from his exile for medical treatments resulted in the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, and Carter’s passive “Rose Garden” strategy for solving that crisis caused many to question his competence. These missteps affect us to this day.
He did achieve a dramatic breakthrough agreement with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin at Camp David in 1978. Sadat subsequently lost his life to Islamic radicals who considered his actions traitorous.
Evangelicals were especially disappointed with his support of the Equal Rights Amendment and the 1978 White House Conference on Families. Though Carter denied it, many felt that the ERA would sound the death-knell to efforts to restrict abortion practices in this country. Many evangelicals saw the conference on families as an effort to re-define the family in terms of nearly any group-living arrangement under the same roof. Both are issues that continue to concern social conservatives today. Many evangelicals, not previously party-conscious, fled Carter’s party to embrace the Reagan candidacy in 1980. Most never looked back.
In a telling excerpt from his presidential memoirs Keeping Faith, he reports on a 1978 cabinet level conversation about allowing the deposed Shah of Iran into the country: “[Secretary of State] Cy [Vance] made it clear that he was prepared to admit the Shah for medical reasons. I [Carter] was now the lone holdout. I asked my advisors what course they would recommend to me if the Americans in Iran were seized or killed.”
Jimmy Carter knew that allowing the Shah into the U.S. would expose American personnel to danger and told his advisors so. He proceeded with it anyway. In the eyes of Iranians and the wider Islamic world the resulting hostage crisis and humiliation of the United States government validated the new Khomeini government – a triumph for the Islamic Revolution.
The work of the Carter Center in Atlanta with international election commissions, his efforts with Habitat for Humanity, along with his many publications since leaving the presidency make him one of our more successful ex-presidents. In 2002 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for international efforts to resolve conflict, promote human rights, and improve living standards in the two-thirds world. But even these achievements deserve closer scrutiny. Financial and political shenanigans connected to his endeavors bring the ex-president’s judgment and even his integrity into question.
Carter has been showing up in some interesting places since his loss in that 1980 election. His financial connections with principals of the Pakistani-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and their involvement with the politics of the Muslim world have never been adequately explored by the mainstream press. The bank had close connections with Carter confidant and chief lender Bert Lance’s National Bank of Georgia. After the worst international banking scandal in history, BCCI was shut down in 1991, but not before marring legendary presidential advisor Clark Clifford’s otherwise stellar career. Carter, who reportedly accepted millions from the bank’s co-founder for various projects, managed to walk away unscathed and was awarded the Nobel Prize for the work of the Carter Center a decade later.
Reports in two books The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI (1993) by then Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynn and False Profits (1992) by then Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Truell and reporter Larry Gurwin reveal a very troubling relationship with the bank’s founder Agha Hasan Abedi.
According to False Profits:
In the spring of 1987, Abedi took Carter and his wife on a world tour, with stops in London, Hong Kong, Tibet, Peking, and Moscow. It was ‘almost a social trip,’ with big dinners scheduled at every stop, said Bill Kovach, a former editor of the Atlanta Constitution, who went on part of the trip. He later told a reporter that Carter and Abedi were not only friends but that the former president talked about the Pakistani Banker ‘almost like a religious figure.’
I include the last line simply to show that the former president’s ability to make character judgments seems fatally flawed, as indicated by the following observations. While Abedi drew deep draughts of prestige from Carter’s friendship and presence on numerous excursions into the Third World, Carter’s philanthropic projects benefited from millions in BCCI’s largesse. In The Outlaw Bank the authors state,
Though the sums he received were huge by any standard of measure, Carter claims to have had no idea either that he was being exploited by Abedi, or that his benefactor was deeply corrupt. Still Carter went ahead and took at least 1.5 million from BCCI after the bank was indicted and convicted in Florida. Later, as press criticisms mounted, his foundations stopped taking money from BCCI and began to get similar contributions from Sheikh Zayed, who by then controlled BCCI . . . Carter’s judgment was similarly flawed when his foundations accepted more than $11 million from a Japanese gambling magnate named Ryoichi Sasakawa, who had once spent three years in jail awaiting trial as a war criminal and was later convicted in a vote buying scheme. Carter denies he personally profited in any way from such transactions.
Most troubling to me is that the mainstream press is aware of these relationships but generally gives him a pass on all of it.
In 1995 former Carter undersecretary of state Richard Holbrooke, chief U.S. negotiator in Bosnia, had to force his ex-boss out of the process according to Holbrooke’s memoir To End A War (1998). Carter’s intrusive efforts and willingness to appease Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic threatened the progress of the negotiations. Thanks to Holbrooke’s efforts under the Clinton administration the region is making progress toward recovery as a result of the Dayton Accords. But again the episode reveals Jimmy Carter’s lack of judgment in his dealings with criminal figures.
Carter or his surrogates make several appearances in To End A War. This one is telling:
In an effort to head off a resumption of the bombing Radovan Karadzic had reached out again to Carter . . . It was a difficult situation for Strobe [Talbott], one of the most polite people in Washington, and always respectful of the former president, whose administration he had covered as a journalist. But, determined to protect the negotiations he told Carter that the Karadzic channel had to be shut down at least until our efforts were given a fair test. The Administration, Strobe told Carter, would not accept any offer from Karadzic, no matter what it was. Carter was not happy, a CNN camera crew was already standing by outside his office, and he had hoped to announce that he had reached an agreement with Karadzic. After several difficult talks with Strobe, he agreed to hold off.
As stated above, the great achievement of Carter’s presidency was the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. Recent activities seem to place even that legacy under a cloud. His call for continued U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority despite the victory of the militant Hamas party in the 2006 parliamentary election again caused many to question his judgment. The publication of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid brought charges of anti-Semitism. According to press reports, a long-time center director and 14 members of the 200 person advisory board resigned from the Carter Center.
Carter’s latest quixotic episode involves his self-appointment as negotiator with the terrorist-led government of the Hamas party. At least The Washington Post in an April 17 editorial has recognized the nature of Carter’s efforts at appeasement.
Mr. Carter justifies his meetings with familiar arguments about the value of dialogue with enemies . . .But it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder, or the extinction of another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed terrorist such as Khaled Meshal – or Mahmoud al-Zahar.
The ex-president seems to have an affinity for such actors on the world stage.
So, why should I be concerned with these developments on a blog called The Pastor’s Desk? Quite simply, Jimmy Carter also styles himself as a representative of evangelical Christianity and liberally (pardon the pun) mixes his religion with politics – or vise versa. According to Christianity Today (April 2008) Carter is a leader of the New Baptist Covenant. Their January meeting attracted 15,000 participants and its leadership met at the Carter Center. He, along with Democratic Party operative Jim Wallis (see his interview in CT, dated May 2008) among others are the new breed of highly visible politically liberal “evangelicals.” Expect to see them more and more in the coming months.
One of Carter’s recent books is a New York Times best-seller entitled Our Endangered Values (2006). A central premise of the book is found in the Introduction: Increasing influence of fundamentalists in American religion and government has resulted in profound departures from traditional American values. The former president raises some valid concerns about U.S. policy in the post 9/11 world, but the tone and premise of this book are troubling.
In Our Endangered Values Jimmy Carter’s attempt to lump politically conservative evangelicals with Islamic fundamentalists has popular appeal but is misguided. Also troubling are his repeated accusations of demagoguery against evangelicals who hold different policy views from himself; views which are, like his, often inspired by religious faith. Carter’s repeated use of the “d” word in the book is itself an exercise in demagoguery.
As I wrote nearly a year and a half ago (a local editor twice rejected my op-ed review of Carter and Our Endangered Values), “It’s hard to say where all this might go in the long-run, but in the immediate future I expect to see more of the same. In the next election cycle I think we’ll see a number of candidates scape-goating religious conservatives out of one side of the mouth, while giving us a lot of God and values talk out of the other. It gets votes.”
By the way, I did learn one thing from that 1976 election: a mere profession of faith is never sufficient reason to support anyone with your vote.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Under the Radar
In the midst of the election excitement here in the U.S, two events of great import are passing under the radar for most Americans. On the cultural level I think they carry as much significance as the election outcomes themselves.
The first is the exchange of open letters between 138 Muslim clerics and mostly western Christian leaders. The international group associated with the Royal Aal-Bayt Institue for Islamic Thought in Jordan published the document “A Common Word Between Us and You” in October 2007. In the document, they state that “The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians. The basis for this peace already exists. It is part of the foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbor.”
In November a response was spearheaded by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture entitled “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to ‘A Common Word Between Us and You.”
Among the authors of the document are Harold Attridge, dean of the Yale Divinity School, and Miroslav Volf, founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Miroslav is a native of Croatia. I first met him in 1992. He has served for years as a visiting professor on the faculty of the Evandjeoski Teoloshki Fakultet (Evangelical Theological Seminary) in Croatia where I served as dean for several years in the mid-90’s, and continue as a lecturer annually. His books Exclusion and Embrace and The End of Memory have gained international acclaim.
The Yale document has garnered the support of many well-known evangelical and traditional church leaders, including some of my colleagues from the seminary in Croatia. The hope is that the effort will produce the fruit of peaceful dialogue and increased understanding between the Christian and Muslim worlds. To be frank, I am more than guarded in my optimism.
The Yale document has generated not only support, but strong criticism as well. One of the more insightful responses comes from the Barnabas Fund which is led by Anglican priest, Canon Patrick Sookhdeo, a converted Muslim who understands the issues at hand better than most. A very brief summary of the objections are as follows:
1) The Yale document fails to recognize that “A Common Word” appears to be in the da-wa tradition of Islam. That is, a call to conversion to Islam. 2) The eagerness to respond has blinded the authors to the negative implications of the Muslim letter. 3) The apologetic tone of the response plays into the historic Muslim insistence on a dominate-subordinate relation between Islam and other religions. In essence, the response is an appeasement. 4) The many signatories in support of the Yale statement signed it without an adequate understanding of Islam’s approach to other religions. 5) The Yale statement surrenders theological ground regarding the deity of Christ in light of the Muslim insistence that God is one and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, which is quoted in the Muslim letter. 6) While the role of Muhammad and the Muslim understanding of the unity of God are recognized there is no reciprocal statement confirming the Christian view of Christ and the Gospel. 7) The Yale authors take responsibility and apologize for both the Crusades and the “excesses of the war on terror,” thus reinforcing Muslim belief in collective guilt (and thus the justice of collective retribution), and that the war on terror is an extension of the Crusades pitting Christendom against Islam. 8) Muslims have welcomed the apology and published the admission of guilt by Christians without conceding any historical wrongdoing on the part of Muslims, moderate, radical or otherwise, including the persecution of believers and suppression of religious freedom within Muslim dominant countries.
The Barnabas Fund analysis recognizes the value of dialogue, but they see the Yale Statement as “giving everything away without receiving anything in return,” i.e. it is an act of appeasement. There can be no dialogue where the human rights of Christians in predominately Muslim countries are not given equal hearing with Muslim concerns
I think these criticisms are valid, and reveal a serious flaw in the approach of the Yale Center. The question is, is this a kind of cultural Munich Declaration (“Peace in our time”) or the opening of a genuine dialogue? Only time will tell. Meanwhile Miroslav Volf has posted a letter on the Yale site acknowledging similar criticisms and committing to deal with them honestly. My concern in all of this is that the project’s detractors will be written off as intolerant and reactionary. As stated in the Barnabas Fund analysis, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical or even alarmed.
You can view both original documents, the Barnabas Fund analysis, and Miroslav Volf’s letter on the following links:
http://www.acommonword.com/
http://www.yale.edu/faith/
http://www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/
The second event is Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ statement of February 7 on BBC that some accommodation to Muslim shari’a law is inevitable in Britain. While little noticed in the States, the statement generated headlines throughout Britain. The public outcry and some high level calls for his resignation reportedly shocked the Archbishop. So why the strong reaction? Simply put, many Brits feel vulnerable, not only to terrorist threats, but to cultural threats, as well --- a more genteel version of the clash of civilizations.
Again, Canon Sookhdeo’s response to this controversy: “The process of setting up a system of shari’a courts recognized by the state and its civil law will help those Muslims in Britain who appear to be working to develop a network of loosely-knit Islamic autonomous regions, a de facto non-territorial Islamic state.” (More, http://www.barnabasfund.org/ , Barnabas Fund’s Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury).
It is too easy for the intellectually smug to write off such criticisms as alarmist hysteria or Islamophobia. I’m not so sure. I’ve never considered name-calling to be a very impressive argument. Such concerns need to be taken seriously.
Canada also faces conflict over shari’a. In 2005 Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty abruptly announced his intention to end all faith-based arbitration in his province. This was in order to fend off efforts to establish shari’a courts in addition to the existing Catholic and Jewish arbitration relating to family law which had been recognized since 1991. But now there are efforts afoot to introduce shari’a compliant no-interest mortgage instruments such as are currently popular in Britain for Muslim banking clients.
In a book entitled The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press, Professor of Islamic Law, Wael B. Hallaq of McGill University in Montreal writes the following:
“One of the fundamental features of the so-called modern Islamic resurgence is the call to restore the Shari’a, the religious law of Islam. During the past two and a half decades, this call has grown ever more forceful, generating religious movements, a vast amount of literature, and affecting world politics.” He also writes that Muhammad established Islam as “a new religion with a political order at its center” (emphasis mine).
For students of Islam, there is nothing controversial about either of these statements. What amazes me is how few Americans are familiar with these facts, and have never spent an iota of energy considering their implications. I say Americans, not westerners. Europeans are well aware of them by now and as the Rowan Williams controversy shows, are busy wrestling with the implications.
The concerns many are raising about the implications of Islamic law in western society are sincere. These questions are arrived at honestly. They deserve honest answers. They should not be summarily dismissed. Perhaps that is the kind of dialogue some signatories of the Yale statement are hoping for.
As time goes on, the implications of the role of shari’a law will only increase in importance both in Europe and in North America. While most Americans are wasting their time with the American Idol, a seismic shift is taking place directly under their feet. The Yale Center’s call for dialogue is certainly in order, but I’m not sure how many in the west are capable of asking a single intelligent question about the issues. The average American has no idea what the political tenets of Islam are, or how they might be expressed in the public square. Maybe we should start thinking about it.
http://www.yale.edu/faith/
http://www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/
The second event is Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ statement of February 7 on BBC that some accommodation to Muslim shari’a law is inevitable in Britain. While little noticed in the States, the statement generated headlines throughout Britain. The public outcry and some high level calls for his resignation reportedly shocked the Archbishop. So why the strong reaction? Simply put, many Brits feel vulnerable, not only to terrorist threats, but to cultural threats, as well --- a more genteel version of the clash of civilizations.
Again, Canon Sookhdeo’s response to this controversy: “The process of setting up a system of shari’a courts recognized by the state and its civil law will help those Muslims in Britain who appear to be working to develop a network of loosely-knit Islamic autonomous regions, a de facto non-territorial Islamic state.” (More, http://www.barnabasfund.org/ , Barnabas Fund’s Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury).
It is too easy for the intellectually smug to write off such criticisms as alarmist hysteria or Islamophobia. I’m not so sure. I’ve never considered name-calling to be a very impressive argument. Such concerns need to be taken seriously.
Canada also faces conflict over shari’a. In 2005 Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty abruptly announced his intention to end all faith-based arbitration in his province. This was in order to fend off efforts to establish shari’a courts in addition to the existing Catholic and Jewish arbitration relating to family law which had been recognized since 1991. But now there are efforts afoot to introduce shari’a compliant no-interest mortgage instruments such as are currently popular in Britain for Muslim banking clients.
In a book entitled The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press, Professor of Islamic Law, Wael B. Hallaq of McGill University in Montreal writes the following:
“One of the fundamental features of the so-called modern Islamic resurgence is the call to restore the Shari’a, the religious law of Islam. During the past two and a half decades, this call has grown ever more forceful, generating religious movements, a vast amount of literature, and affecting world politics.” He also writes that Muhammad established Islam as “a new religion with a political order at its center” (emphasis mine).
For students of Islam, there is nothing controversial about either of these statements. What amazes me is how few Americans are familiar with these facts, and have never spent an iota of energy considering their implications. I say Americans, not westerners. Europeans are well aware of them by now and as the Rowan Williams controversy shows, are busy wrestling with the implications.
The concerns many are raising about the implications of Islamic law in western society are sincere. These questions are arrived at honestly. They deserve honest answers. They should not be summarily dismissed. Perhaps that is the kind of dialogue some signatories of the Yale statement are hoping for.
As time goes on, the implications of the role of shari’a law will only increase in importance both in Europe and in North America. While most Americans are wasting their time with the American Idol, a seismic shift is taking place directly under their feet. The Yale Center’s call for dialogue is certainly in order, but I’m not sure how many in the west are capable of asking a single intelligent question about the issues. The average American has no idea what the political tenets of Islam are, or how they might be expressed in the public square. Maybe we should start thinking about it.
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