Weak Islam critic No. 379

Sage McLaughlin writes:

I’ve been following NRO’s interview series with Rene Girard, with whom I’m not very familiar. Today’s discussion focuses on the fact that humanity is “failing the test of history” by abandoning the truth of Christianity. Then the subject turned to Islam. What is his view?

First he says that the rejection of violence and religious sacrifice that exists and in part defines Christianity is simply not present in Islam. He then says that Islamic terrorism is something new and totally foreign to classical Islam. Huh. So then he’s asked where this terrorism comes from and how we should think about it. He literally says he has no idea.

So he knows enough about Islam to say that the current wave of jihad is totally foreign to it, but he has no idea how to put this wave of jihad in the context of historic Islam? That’s simply impossible. If he has no idea where it comes from, theologically or spiritually, and no idea how to think about it in relation to Islam generally, then he has no basis for claiming to know that it has nothing to do with “classical” Islam, especially when he admits that the rejection of violence is peculiar to Christianity and is not present in Islam. I grow weary of this two step, and even more weary of pointing it out constantly.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 10, 2009 10:56 AM | Send