(September 2006, Unpublished)
Many Moslems are angry with Pope Benedict. They say he insulted Islam in an address at Regensburg in Germany on Tuesday, 12th September. I read the address and find that, even with the benefit of hindsight, I cannot see anything offensive in it. I believe that a Muslim who reads the text would not be offended.
In reading, context matters. For example, in the bible, it twice states, ‘There is no God’. (Psalm 14.1 and 53.1) So is the bible atheistic? The introduction to those two statements reads, ‘Fools say in their hearts…’ The introduction – the context – matters.
In last month’s fighting in south Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel was criticized for bombing civilian areas. Some Jews – fortunately only a minority – reacted against that, accusing Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism. Such a reaction trivializes anti-Semitism, which is far from trivial to anyone who knows about the Holocaust. It also does those Jews’ credibility no good; they are like the boy who cried wolf. People stop listening.
There is a danger of a similar development in respect of Islam. What the pope called for in his address was a dialogue between faith and reason, between cultures and religion, summed up in the phrase, ‘Not to act reasonably is contrary to the nature of God’. The address itself was outstanding, and makes really good reading for anyone interested in the relationship between faith and reason. If Muslims react with violence to something which was not critical of Islam, was not even about Islam, if, as reported from Nigeria, they killed Christians and burned Christian churches in retaliation, that diminishes their credibility. I cannot help but wonder if Islamic leaders who led reaction to the pope’s address had read it before doing so. Muslim reaction has increased the difficulty of creating dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In a world as divided as ours, where the stakes are high, perhaps even as high as world peace, dialogue is necessary, and words and actions that jeopardize it should be firmly excluded.
(In passing, I cannot help but remark that some Irish commentators seemed happy to seize on the matter as a handy stick to beat the pope with, and indulged themselves in the pleasures of Benedict-bashing. That was unworthy, and it doesn’t help.)
If you would like to read what the pope said, and thereby make an informed judgment, go to the web: www.vatican.va; click on English at the bottom of the home page; then, on the right hand side, under Focus, click on Regensburg; scroll through the list of engagements, and click on Meeting with the Representatives of Science. That’s it; you’ve got it. Read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
For those in a hurry: ‘Unfair criticism arouses reasonable resentment, and increases the difficulty of creating an atmosphere receptive of new ideas’. (Ernest Gowers)