Islam and the Separation of Church and State
There is a very significant court case happening in Indonesia right now, where the Christian governor of Jakarta, named Ahok, is on trial for blasphemy against Islam. There have been a series of rolling demonstrations calling for his arrest on blasphemy, based on his comments that various Imams had misinterpreted a particular Koranic verse which says that Muslims ought not to be governed by non-Muslims.
I think it is a graphic illustration of the tension that exists between democratic institutions and the essentially theocratic nature of Islam, which doesn't recognize the separation of religion and state. It's causing huge anxiety for President Joko Widodo, who has been anxiously meeting with opposition politicians, military leaders and others to try and damp down civil insurrection over this issue.
Here in Australia, the commentators are tipping that Ahok will be found guilty and sent to jail. I hope not, but fear the worst.
I think it is a graphic illustration of the tension that exists between democratic institutions and the essentially theocratic nature of Islam, which doesn't recognize the separation of religion and state. It's causing huge anxiety for President Joko Widodo, who has been anxiously meeting with opposition politicians, military leaders and others to try and damp down civil insurrection over this issue.
Here in Australia, the commentators are tipping that Ahok will be found guilty and sent to jail. I hope not, but fear the worst.
Comments (138)
I think that's a mischaracterization. Separation of church and state is a strategy for creating social stability. It was hard for some Christians to let go of political authority to allow that separation. They fought against it and some continue to to this day... not because Christianity is inherently theocratic, but for both elevated and vulgar reasons.
Union of church and state can also create a very strong social foundation. Europe enjoyed that kind stability until the Protestant Reformation. Where there is no need for separation, forces will probably tend to drive toward union.
Australia and many other other 'secular' countries have hate speech laws, which stop abusive speech with civil and criminal penalties. I mention Australia because the conservative government had planned to amend Section 18 C of the Act, which prohibits offending someone on the basis of race, color or ethnicity. I read that the government shelved those plans at the insistence of Muslim leaders in the interests of forging closer community cooperation against extremists.
The basic issue is not between religion and government but freedom of speech versus the state's right to prohibit certain types of speech. Many countries have laws that prohibit hate speech. The USA has no hate speech laws, virtually all speech is allowed (with a few of exceptions). The question becomes one of what is required for civic order & human dignity in my opinion.
Nothing you said shows how it's a mischaracterization.
The cool story is the role separation plays historically... analyzing why union of church and state is such a strong social construct... and so what people are actually giving up when they accept separation.
X-)
Laws against basphemy are routinely invoked for the most appalling savagery in Islamic states, such as Pakistan, where people are butchered or stoned to death for allegedly 'insulting religion'. Often this is used in vllage disputes when accusations are levelled over some petty argument, the mob whipped into a frenzy, and the alleged 'offender' dragged out and beaten to death in the street.
In this case 'Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, angered religious conservatives after he referenced a verse from the Islamic holy book, Al-Maidah 51 of the Qur’an, on the campaign trail in September. Ahok rather boldly told voters they should not be duped by religious leaders using the verse to justify the claim that Muslims should not be led by non-Muslims.'
It's widely being reported as 'democracy in the dock' which I think is a fair characterisation.
I wonder what the judges based their ruling on because the full video doesn't seem damning at all (assuming I can trust the translation).
Yes, but it's not a freak verdict:
[quote=Guardian]Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said ... more than 100 Indonesians have been convicted of blasphemy in the past decade, and acquittals in such cases were extremely rare.[/quote]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/09/jakarta-governor-ahok-found-guilty-of-blasphemy-jailed-for-two-years
Quoting Wayfarer
I think it shows less about the essential nature of Islam than it does about the currently prevailing conservative mood in Islam. Without reform and re-interpretation it is no doubt officially less amenable to the separation of church and state, but such has been a feature of the Islamic world at certain times and places.
It's interesting how so many people are willing to attribute the kind of liberalism to Islam which Islam itself seems to be doing everything possible to destroy. To paraphrase Voltaire, 'I will defend to the death your right to say it, even if you are the one that kills me for it!'
The 'relaxed' attitude of Western civilization towards other faiths is a byproduct of the great secular success of this civilization (in a global scale); it is not written in stone. As the West fades away, it is likely that the defensiveness against other faiths will return. (It is already happening).
There's nothing in the Qu'ran on "laws" against blasphemy and apostasy, as matters of faith are the provenance of Allah to judge. There are no wordly punishments on these things. In fact, the freedom of belief is repeatedly mentioned in the Qu'ran.
There is some stuff in the hadiths but we should ignore those. Why? Here's some blasphemy for you, the hadiths are the political motivated ramblings of a conservative clergy inventing what Muhammad said centuries after he lived because "Muhammad said..." is a useful tool for oppression.
Apparently though as a non-Muslim and non-clergy my opinion amounts to less than that of a gnat as if having a religious degree and belief are a prerequisite to sound reasoning.
You'll see I did not say otherwise. I said that "traditional and modern fundamentalist Islam" has such laws.
The idea that Islam should be judged by the Quran, as if the traditional praxis of the religion were unimportant and could be ignored, is strangely similar to fundamentalist Christianity if you ask me. It is certainly unanchored in reality.
What's that you say? Islam isn't actually a person at all, but a label applied to hundreds of millions of people who have an extraordinarily wide range of beliefs amongst them?
Stop over-complicating things! Obviously this Islam guy is just bad, right? ... and anybody who doesn't say they hate him needs to be thrown in jail or at the very least kept out of our country (which of course has no violence in it at all)..
It's not about people, but the politics and religion, and their relationship. All of your comments on the issue are motivated by respect for individual freedom of religious belief - which is a fine thing, but it's not necessarily intrinsic to Islamic culture.
nothing is intrinsic to Islamic culture, because there's no such thing as Islamic culture. That's my point.
All these pages are about nothing, then.
In any case, there were big protests about the jailing of Ahok in Indonesia, with many moderates, and non-Muslims, expressing the view that the charge and the conviction were indeed a threat to democracy and pluralism in Indonesia, which I believe they are.
Surely that's not the first time you've found dubious info on wiki, is it? Wiki is a marvellous institution that has enriched my life in many ways, but it also has lots of errors. Sign up for an account and you can start correcting them. I do that from time to time on maths and science articles, when I have the energy. It's both fun and rewarding.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes. This charge is a terrible thing and makes the future of Indonesia's democracy, such as it is, look shaky. As Benkei pointed out, the governor didn't even criticise the Quran. He (the governor) said that people - the Violent Fundies - were lying about what it said.
I suggest we refrain from using the term.
https://www.amnesty.org.au/act-now/iar834-indonesia-ahok/
Quoting Benkei
Along with all mention of 'different', also. It's inherently discriminatory.
Yes, it reports 77 million hits.
Then I Google 'Asian race' which is generally agreed by anthropologists and biologists to be a non-existent category, and get 186 million hits.
Conclusion: large numbers of Google hits do not validate concepts.
How about we discriminate based on people's actions and statements, rather than based on arbitrary, meaningless labels we want to slap on them, like Asian or Islamic.
For instance, we can agree that the people inciting the mobs that cowed the courts into convicting the governor were very dangerous, mean people and that we should do whatever we can to frustrate their nasty purpose.
Ergo, Unicorns are even more real than cultures.
I feel a rejoinder to Quine's 'On What Is' in the works.
So, doe Christian culture not exist? Does atheistic culture not exist? Does progressive liberal culture not exist? Does southern American conservative culture not exist? Is Barbecue not real? Is everything racist?
Culture itself doesn't exist, right?
My point is that it isn't a useful term for philosophical debate due to the issues I mentioned.
This is a very clear-cut case, with clear political, social and cultural implications. The Amnesty International page I cited above reproduces the quotation that Ahok was jailed for two years for:
Jailed, for two years.
The thread is about 'separation of church and state' and the observation that Islam doesn't really recognise that separation And thiis case is a textbook illustration. If that offends your liberal sensibilities because it singles out Islam, then so be it.
and the Amnesty page does not mention 'Islamic Culture'. Why not try to learn from the example of an organisation led by very wise and compassionate people?
First, there are two problems. The issue that certain countries do not have a separation of religion and state and the issue of blasphemy (and apostasy) laws.
The reality is that some Muslim majority countries are secular and do not have blasphemy or apostasy laws and some do. I can't distill a common position on what Islamic culture is exactly on this point. I don't see how you can especially not by raising the Indonesian example to a standard.
Fun fact; until 2014 the Netherlands had a blasphemy law in its criminal code.
Which are those?
How about: "What do you mean by Islamic culture, Wayfarer?"
Not to mention religion and language. Of course, these are not universal among Muslims--the Arabic language didn't take over in, for example, Iran or Indonesia, and there are deep religious divisions--and it might be better to say there are several Islamic cultures. But that doesn't mean it's always inappropriate to refer to "Islamic culture" as such, because some cultural dimensions, such as religious interpretations and ideologies (and pottery), can spread very quickly beyond the original source ethnicity, nationality, language, etc., and considering that this happens with Islam primarily among Muslims (obviously), it's indispensable to be able to refer to an Islamic culture in general. A relevant example is the ultra-conservative Salafist movement, which has been influential far beyond Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There are trends in religious interpretation that can be seen across Islamic cultures (plural), thus allowing us to refer to a single Islamic culture, insofar as the dimensions of religion and ideology are considered important aspects of a culture.
I take andrewk to be saying that you have to be careful about making claims about all Muslims, which is right, but that doesn't mean there are not trends, e.g., towards conservatism, that can be identified and which cut across other cultural dimensions. To say things about Islamic culture is not necessarily to make sweeping claims about all Muslims. andrewk and Benkei are probably sensitive to those times when such terms as "Islamic culture" are used to make sweeping claims about all Muslims.
So, to get back to the point: against andrewk's first post in this discussion, it may be quite legitimate to say that Islam is currently theocratic, i.e., that theocratic tendencies are pronounced, though I wouldn't go so far as to say this is essential to Islam, notwithstanding its theological support.
@Benkei The fact that cultures might intersect or contain each other doesn't matter. The relevant granularity depends on what you're interested in. In this case, that's religion, so it's surely then appropriate to speak of Islamic culture, because there are few things more cultural than religion. But it is complicated. The big French survey from a few years ago showed that millions of French people (mostly of North African descent) identify as Muslims but also as secular and non-observant. However, I think this backs up my basic point.
It does matter because it makes clear cultures are not monolithic structures and therefore aren't useful in a discussion about blasphemy laws as these vary country from country. I'm this case it goes further as that problem is subsumed under the umbrella of secularism (incorrectly) then it becomes a problem of Islamic culture, whatever that is - it appeared as short hand for all Muslims, considering "Islam is theocratic" (as opposed to Islamist interpretation of the Qur'an). Details matter because we otherwise get statements that are too easily waylaid by the existence of facts (such as Muslim majority countries with secularism even if that is deteriorating).
I wasn't suggesting dropping the term because I don't agree with the criticism where it concerns certain Indonesian, Islamic, political parties but to get to statements that are verifiable and true. I'm proposing to be more precise and it has nothing to do with my sensibilities.
Second, there are Islamic religions (plural) just as we have Christian religions that have such significant differences that to brush over them also leads to statements becoming meaningless in their generality because they only concern a subset.
To your last point, the rush for social conservatism isn't limited to Muslim majority countries, so why do the Netherlands, France (historically high numbers for Le Pen) and UK have the same happening?
It is telling that the decision is hardly uncontroversial, and that many Indonesians - alot of them Muslim - have been out in protest of the sentence. The issue is outrightly political too, insofar as Ahok has been a close ally of the current president, Jokowi, and the sentence is a political blow for him, and a victory for his opponents. Any analysis of the Ahok case that doesn't take into account Indonesian politics and sees it as a matter of what is 'intrinsic to Islam' is full of shit. Indonesia still remains the one the world's biggest secular democracies, and it's hard-line Islam is one among a myriad of political forces at work in the country. Trying to use this case to demonstrate that Islam - as if some abstract entity - has some 'intrinsic' inability to separate church and state is not only blind to the facts - that Indonesia has been, for quite some time, a model of exactly that - but also operates with a shitty religious sociology that thinks it can talk about it in the abstract without taking into account politics and social conditions. Textbook my ass.
Interestingly, this tend continued in the recent French election. Olivier Roy - the single best commentator on these issues for more than two decades now - wrote a cool little piece recently showing that in fact, Muslims in France largely voted not along religious lines - unlike Catholics, who, by contrast, mostly voted Catholic. Importantly, the reasons have to do not with anything 'intrinsic to Islam' but are due to - as half-decent analysis would recognize - sociological reasons, owing to economic and cultural status. Here's the article: http://www.boundary2.org/2017/05/olivier-roy-french-elections-catholics-vote-catholic-muslims-vote-secular/
Incidentally, Roy's books are the best resources in trying to understand what the deal is when it comes to Islam and politics. Time and time again he has shown that political Islam is overwhelmingly a response to modern and local socio-political conditions, and that the specific shapes it has taken on - different in the many countries where it has appeared - have always been in response to the particular 'on the ground' conditions, as it were. Over and over again he has shown that trying to isolate a political stance or even a stance with respect to the state that is 'intrinsic to Islam' is not simply naive but dangerously so. He put it very nicely in the closing to his Secularism Confronts Islam: "The problem is not Islam but religion or, rather, the contemporary forms of the revival of religion."
So with respect to the question of 'Islamic culture', it'd be more correct to say that there are Islamic cultures, each of which is shaped locally and historically, and in response to the social and political forces at play in any one frame of analysis. The naivety of those who think they can talk about 'Islam' in the abstract - as if divorced form the historical and social conditions in which it is practised - is just insane to me. Yet it dominates the media discourse and if infects, like a virus, discussions like these.
The thread is about a general issue, in reference to a specific case, which has attracted worldwide media coverage.
You said
Quoting Benkei
Which are they? //edit// there's a list of secular Islamic states provided here, although Indonesia is on that list, and it clearly does have blasphemy laws.
Quoting Benkei
It is true that Islam, generally, doesn't recognise the distinction of church and state, or the distinction between secular and religious law. Maybe they are correct in that; maybe the liberal notion of separation of powers is corrupt, and maybe Western liberalism is degenerate, but that is not at issue in this case.
If you deny the theocratic tendencies in Islam then so are you. It is a fact that Islam doesn't recognise the separation of Church and State. To say that doesn't characterise 'all Muslims' as anything - but in this case, Islamic hard-liners have appealed to that aspect of Islam, to engineer an outcome which has ramifications both political and cultural. Of course it is true that many Indonesian Muslims are appalled by the outcome and have protested against it.
Yeah, a 'fact" that, y'know, facts speak out against. As in, you are literally 100% wrong about this. Put it this way dude, there are literally more than half a billion Muslims in the world who live, eat, sleep, and breathe in largely secular nation-states. You are half a billion reasons wrong. 'Islam', like any other religion, is a human phenomenon - it does not exist in some pie-in-the-sky realm or live by the fantasies of some book: it is a diverse sociological entity subject to the forces of history, economy and culture, like anything else. But don't take my word for it, here is Roy, arguing against the utter naivety of anything who think 'Islam' can be in any way properly analysed outside of these factors:
"It strikes me as intellectually impudent and historically misguided to discuss the relationships between Islam and politics as if 'there were one Islam, timeless and eternal ... Not that I wish to deny fourteen centuries of remarkable permanence in dogma, religious practice, and world vision. But concrete political practices during that time have been numerous and complex, and Muslim societies have been sociologically diverse. We often forget as well that there is a broad range of opinion among Muslim intellectuals as to the correct political and social implications of the Quranic message. Western Orientalists, however, tend either to cut through the debate by deciding for the Muslims what the Quran means or to accept the point of view of a particular Islamic school while ignoring all others.
...To reduce all the problems of the contemporary Muslim world-from the legitimacy of existing states to the integration of immigrant workers-to the residual effects of Islamic culture seems to me tautological, in that by imposing the grid of a culturalist reading upon the modern Middle East, we end up seeing as reality whatever was predetermined by the grid, notably with regard to what I call the "Islamic political imagination," to be found in generic statements such as "In Islam, there is no separation between politics and religion." But it is never directly explanatory and in fact conceals all that is rupture and history: the importation of new types of states, the birth of new social classes, and the advent of contemporary ideologies." (Roy, The Failure of Political Islam).
Finally, even if you are granted the analytically broken idea that 'Islam' is an entity that functions in a complete vacuum of history and society, your 'generic statement', as Roy puts it, that there is no separation between politics and religion in Islam is entirely contestable not merely at the level of historical and sociological fact (where, y'know, Islam and the state have everywhere been separate, in all sorts of countries, in all sorts of times), but at the level of the 'religion' alone. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im for instance, has made exactly this argument in his Islam and the Secular State:
"Islam is the religion of human beings who believe in it, while the state signifies the continuity of institutions like the judiciary and administrative agencies. This view is fundamentally Islamic, because it insists on the religious neutrality of the state as a necessary condition for Muslims to comply with their religious obligations. Religious compliance must be completely voluntary according to personal pious intention (niyah), which is necessarily invalidated by coercive enforcement of those obligations. In fact, coercive enforcement promotes hypocrisy (nifaq), which is categorically and repeatedly condemned by the Quran .... Sharia principles by their nature and function defy any possibility of enforcement by the state, claiming to enforce Sharia principles as state law is a logical contradiction that cannot be rectified through repeated efforts under any conditions."
An-Na'im's takes the whole book to make the argument, and it is but one of course, and there are those who disagree with him. But he is not alone: "From a theoretical point of view, Ali Abd al-Raziq, for instance, conclusively demonstrated the validity of this premise from a traditional Islamic perspective more than eighty years ago... In the 1930s, Rashid Ridda strongly affirmed in al-Manar that Sharia cannot be codified as state law." This, coupled with "the fact that the state is a political and not a religious institution is the historical experience and current reality of Islamic societies" speaks overwhelmingly against any straightforward claim that "there is no separation of Church and State in Islam". At the very least, it is anything but something that can be claimed as some kind of incontestable 'fact'. Note too that I didn't say anything about you being wrong "on the grounds of prejudice and racism", but it's awfully curious that you find yourself forced yourself to use those words nonetheless, no?
You know that no Muslim would agree with that, right? But that doesn't matter, because Islam is what Western liberalism says it is, correct?
But most of those five hundred million don't support secularism, they would institute theocracy if they had their way. Most religious people want theocracy, the Mussulmans are no different.
Quoting Center for Security Policy
This claim needs some elaboration and corroboration.
Certainly there are religious people who hanker after theocracy and having priests of one kind or another running their lives; but there are a lot of religious people who most decidedly do not desire having theocrats in charge.
I don't know how the numbers stack up.
I don't either really, but take Evangelicals for instance, it's pretty clear that a good many of them want something close to theocracy if not theocracy proper.
What does one figure it means to have sharia law, and courts? That they can behead infidels in the streets now?
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islamic_Law#Separation_of_.27Church.27_and_State
Doubtlessly, one will find dissenting opinions, but I had understood that this was the mainstream view. If I'm shown to be incorrect about that then I will certainly stand corrected
First, 'there are multiple Muslim cultures' does not imply 'there is no Muslim culture.'
Second, a generic claim can't be refuted by insisting on the negation of a universal.
It seems to me clearly wrong either to deny that there is an Islamic culture (however loosely it would have to be defined), or that it's analytically useful to ask questions about it.
The questions asked to date have been things like 'does Islamic culture say such and such', which is about as useful as 'Does American culture like Milli Vanilli?'
Otherwise, I had already made three points that have been made by others since: that there are several Islamic cultures, that this does not imply that there is no Islamic culture (singular), and that which Islamic cultures we talk about--and when we should use the singular "Islamic culture"--depends on what we're interested in.
Generally, those in this discussion who deny the usefulness of "Islamic culture" are being quite irrational.
The second thing to note is just how anachronistic the terms of the passage are. The very idea of a specifically 'Islamic state' (not 'the' Islamic State, but a state-form organized according to Islamic principles) doesn't even date until some time in the early 1900s, and the political impetus to organize such state-forms don't even begin until the 1940s or so, in the context of de-colonialization: "The notion of an Islamic state is in fact a postcolonial innovation based on a European model of the state and a totalitarian view of law and public policy as instruments of social engineering by the ruling elites. Although the states that historically ruled over Muslims did seek Islamic legitimacy in a variety of ways, they were not claimed to be “Islamic states.” The proponents of a so-called Islamic state in the modern context seek to use the institutions and powers of the state, as constituted by European colonialism and continued after independence, to regulate individual behavior and social relations in ways selected by the ruling elites." (An-Na'im, Islam and the Secular State).
Moreover, serious organizational efforts to think of Islam in a state-centered context began in response to very concrete and very particular socio-historical pressures: "The Islamist movement has developed over half a century, beginning more or less in 1940... Indeed, as much from a sociological as from an intellectual point of view, these movements are products of the modern world. The militants are rarely mullahs; they are young products of the modern educational system, and those who are university educated tend to be more scientific than literary; they come from recently urbanized families or from the impoverished middle classes. Islamists consider Islam to be as much a religion as an "ideology," a neologism which they introduced and which remains anathema to the ulamas (the clerical scholars). They received their political education not in religious schools but on college and university campuses, where they rubbed shoulders with militant Marxists, whose concepts they often borrowed (in particular the idea of revolution) and injected with Quranic terminology (da'wa, designating preaching/propaganda).
... For them, taking control of the state will allow for the spread of Islam in a society corrupted by Western values and for a simultaneous appropriation of science and technology. They do not advocate a return to what existed before, as do fundamentalists in the strict sense of the word, but a reappropriation of society and modern technology based on politics." (Roy, The Failure of Political Islam).
In any case, there is simply no way to take seriously any source which would claim that "separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims" - not only because it really, actually, in real life *is* an option, one exercised all the time - but also because there the practice of Islam is constantly being renegotiated in a way that no strict closure can ever be so pronounced.
Yeah fair enough.
Well, it's a Wiki site, so feel free to update it. Let us know how you get on.
With respect to the Ahok case, here is an analysis of the Ahok case, (prior to the conviction), by Sidney Jones of the Lowy Institute.
The Indonesian Ulama Council is the peak body of Islamic leaders in Indonesia. So this can't be said not to represent Islamic views or culture, as this is the charter of the organisation. In terms of the issues under discussion, it is unequivocal.
Quoting StreetlightX It's not only Muslims, a large percentage of religious people favor some form of theocracy -
Quoting Do Muslims Want Democracy and Theocracy?
Quoting 57% Of Republicans Say Dismantle Constitution And Make Christianity National Religion
M.Q. Zaman says it's mostly a set of customs. This has posed a challenge to the dream of some Pakastanis to fully institute Sharia: Pakastani judges are used to operating with codified law. It's part of their British heritage. Some suppose that in time Sharia could be codified, but it would be a massive undertaking.
I would expect that the vast majority of Muslims in the world would not earnestly wish to live without any law but Sharia because of its limitations. Slavery, for instance, can't be outlawed by Sharia.
But there is disagreement among Muslim scholars. This video is pretty long, but it's an interesting conversation.
I honestly think there is a fact here that you haven't understood. I am not making up the non-separation of religion and state in Islam; it is an often discussed fact about the nature of Islamic culture and society.
Now, as you have pointed out, it is quite true that in practice, not all Islamic societies are theocratic - if that is, in fact, what you're trying to argue. But the principle of the 'separation of powers' has generally never been accepted in Islam. This is not a matter of opinion, nor is it anti-Islamic propoganda.
In Christian cultures, the separation of Church and state was hard won, and occurred as a consequence of many centuries of conflict and bloody religious wars, including the Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years War. But Christianity also had a precedent for the idea, in the saying 'thou shalt render unto Cesar those things that are Cesar's, and unto God those things that are Gods'. This at least laid down a warrant for the idea that there could be a secular authority in matters of state.
It's simply a fact that this 'division of powers' has no warrant in Islamic scripture. I'm sure you will find any number of passages that purport to show that this really isn't the case, and that 'in the real world', there are examples of Islamic states where there was some recognition of the separation of civic and religious powers. But they're exceptions rather than the rule, which are generally as unequivocal as that expressed in the Ahok case.
This has nothing to do with 'Platonic essences', or any other things of that kind. And your constant refrain that religion is 'made, enforced and lived by humans', is obviously the viewpoint of secular liberalism. Now, you're welcome to that view, and it has many things going for it. But the fact that you're brandishing it, in defence of a religious tradition which frequently eschews liberal principles, and which in any case would never agree that religion is 'a human invention', should at least be recognized as being ironic, if nothing else.
It's sensible to talk about religion in terms of human evolution and psychology. I don't think it's possible to really understand religion without considering what all religions have in common whether they be secular political religions, or doomsday cults, or major world faiths. I wouldn't say there's an essence of religion necessarily but there do seem to be elements that are near universal.
I would hope most Christians (and members of any other religions) would emulate or improve upon these results. (Yeah, fat chance). To disobey the government when the government passes a law contradicting religious laws is the duty (of conscience) of any believer.
Separation of Church and State does not, in its original theory, mean handing all power to the State, even though the actual practice of it for the last few centuries certainly points in that direction. It meant that the State would not meddle in religious affairs (whether by favoring some groups by the use of its power or by actively interfering in dogmatic disputes), and the religious groups would not try to meddle with the State (by using the power of the State to impose their religious laws upon non-believers).
Perhaps Separation of Church and State is another of those good ideas which simply cannot take hold upon human groups for long enough.
The one thing you are right about is that Islam does not really have a principle regarding the religious separation of power, but this is because the very idea of the state has simply been radically alien to Islamic discourse. Like I said, it wasn't even until the early 1900s that Islam even had to confront the apparatuses of state power, let alone have within it a set of principles to deal with it in either a positive or negative way. Literally, one could not talk about the very idea of an Islamic state up till about a hundred years ago, let alone consider it as some integral part of Islamic practice.
Further, if you've any historical sense at all, you'd know that the Islamic 'turn to the state' was brought about, ironically enough, by a raft of failures in Muslim majority secular states in the 70s, most prominently Iran, Egypt and Pakistan, egged on as well by the aftermath of the Six Day war in '67, which had the unfortunate effect of channelling what was Arab post-colonial nationalism into full blown religious revanchism. To spell this put as clear as I can for you: Islam was politicized due to multiple secular state failures that left Muslim societies economically and culturally disempowered, before which the very idea of 'political Islam' would have been a complete anachronism (check out Karen Armstrong's magisterial The Battle For God for a fantastic history of all this).
Long story short, you can quote scripture all you like, continue to ignore the complex political and historical factors which factor into the ever changing relation of Islam with the State and it's power (which, again, is an entirely modern issue), or you can continue to insist that the reality of Islam is somehow entirely divorced from it's, uh, reality, because somehow, the real world is not a good enough metric by which to understand the very phenomenon which you're talking about. As if the failure of Islam to measure up - or rather down - to the abysmally low bar you've set for it means that it's not the 'real thing'. Roy has some choice words for this kind of asininity as well:
"To show the modernity, and thus the deep historicity, of Islamist movements is interesting in terms of political sociology, but goes against the Islamists' own arguments. For them, there is only one Islam, that of the age of the Prophet, which has since lost its way, for modernity is loss. But this vision of Islam as possessing a single essence is not unique to the Islamists, since we find it both among traditionalist ulamas and among many Western Orientalists, who are in turn adopting Max Weber's reading of Islam: a culture, a civilization, a closed system. Islamist and Orientalist thinkers are in disagreement, of course, as to what constitutes the essence of Islam, but all speak in terms of a global, timeless system-a mirror effect that no doubt explains both the violence and the sterility of the polemics.".
You don't even get that much; only the assertion that this is the case. Meanwhile Muslims disagree on what the Qur'an has to say about this all but luckily we already have an expert that decided on the correct interpretation: Quoting Wayfarer
That is the point at issue.
On Giving Too Much to the Human.
It seems pretty obvious that the idea of Islamic Culture is useful enough, even indispensable, to distinguish from others, for example, Christian culture. If the notion is hypostatized as a purportedly monolithic culture, which it patently is not, then it becomes not merely useless, but positively inimical to any rational discussion.
The same could be said of Christianity, no ?
Bollocks. There needs to be an accomodation between Islam and the modern secular state. The fact that Islam finds it almost impossible to come to that accomodation is what is at issue.
@Benkei asserted that there are secular Islamic states with no laws about blasphemy and apostasy, but he couldn't say what they were. So I googled the 'list of secular Islamic states'. To be blunt, it is not an impressive list. Until now, the highlight was - Indonesia! But now we have seen that there, Islamic radicalists have had a successful and popular non-Islamic governor of a very large city, booted from office and put in jail for blasphemy. This is a highly ominous development; Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation.
What, exactly, are you defending?
What, exactly, are you advocating?
Haha, wow, yeah sure 'almost impossible'. Don't let the actually exisiting fact of hundreds of millions of Muslims living in relatively secular states get in the way of a good bit of fantasy hey? It's against this sort of unnuanced bullshit that i'm 'defending' against. I ought not to have bothered. With your shitty two line replies, its clear that you're entirely uninterested in any substantial debate. At this point, given your inability to offer up anything but assertion and the occasional rhetorical question, I think it is fair to call you out for the prejudiced shmuck that it turns out you are.
I'd also say that because Islam has no equivalent of the Catholic Church, Islam is pigeon-holed into funneling most, if not all, of its religious authority into and through a governing state. Of course, the Catholic Church used the state in centuries past to enforce its religious doctrine to sometimes a large degree, but now that it doesn't have that kind of leverage and power anymore, it has relied on itself as an institution in itself to project itself out into the world. Can Islam do such a thing without the state's involvement? I don't think so. As I think Wayfarer has alluded to, a secular Islamic state is pretty fuckin' rare, especially one that is more like the United States, say, than a Sandy Arabia. Again, "we" separated church from state in the West, and the Christian churches are still very powerful in themselves, and are still able to evangelize in their own ways. I think that if you took away the theocratic leanings of many of the Muslim majority states, Islam would find itself in a super worrisome place without a centralized, and institutionalized, religious authority. At present, Islam is utilizing what ought to be secular states as the ground from which Islam is propagated, which is what I, at least, am not in favor of, and which needs to be addressed. And, while it is true that we have countries like Lebannon and Jordan who are trying their best to emulate the West, there's still a Sandy Arabia and a Qatar right around the corner.
From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_secularism
The role of Islam or religion in the Muslim-majority countries as outlined in the constitutions. Including Islamic or secular states.
RED: Islamic state
ORANGE: State religion
YELLOW: Unclear / No declaration
BLUE: Secular state
I can't. obviously, attest to the accuracy of this; but if it is accurate it certainly points to your conclusion being very mistaken.
Are you being deliberately simplistic?
"In fact, the reality of the social positions of many of the 1.2 Billion Muslims around the world is that they have been and are very much already working, eating, sleeping, living among secular nation states, and that secularity is compatible, simply by the virtue of that fact that it is what is happening all around the world. This is a sociological argument, one that looks at Islam as it is practiced, not a normative one that simply looks at the forms and shapes the arguments ‘for’ or ‘against’ secularization are.
... The role of Islam, the way it interacts with the West, with secularism, and with other cultures is not defined actually by its religiosity, but by politics and existing structures of culture and state. Secularism is established by political means, or, to put it another way, the principal agent in the establishment of secularism is the political order, not changes internal to the Islamic religion. We can look as well at the parallel experience of the Catholic Church – when it finally accepted the idea of a secular republic after the Second Vatican Council in 1965, it wasn’t because a commission of theologians spent hours pouring over and rereading biblical texts, but because the Vatican Council really had no choice in the matter – the council was a consequence of the changes already brought about by secularization and it had to respond in a positive manner, or dissolve as an irrelevant institution."
Or, here's an actual scholar of this stuff: "Until the contemporary period, secularization in Muslim countries had taken place routinely, with no tension between secular and religious authorities (except in Iran in the twentieth century, but precisely because Iran has a form of church that does not exist in the Sunni world). In western Europe, conversely, the very nature of power was shaped by that tension. In this sense, Islam never had a theocratic ideal, neither in terms of institutions (the clergy before Khomeini never demanded power) nor even in terms of law: the possible institution of sharia as state law does not in itself define an Islamic state, as all advocates of political Islam have said, from Saïd Qutb to Khomeini.
De facto secularization has also affected Muslim populations, but there has been a refusal to apply to Islam the basic principles of the sociology of religion, which is concerned with the concrete conduct of the believer. This sociology arose from the study of the Christian populations of Europe, and it showed how the changes in the conduct of believers (among other things, the phenomena of de-Christianization) had nothing to do with changes in dogma: the reasons religious observance declined in Beauce but remained constant in Rouergue had nothing to do with theological debate. The same thing is true of Islam: there is an entire realm and process of secularization that has nothing to do with changes in dogma." (Roy, Secularism Confronts Islam).
Every attempt to analyse Islam on the basis of theology and not in terms of sociology and politics is vacuous.
What is your proposal for addressing it?
It's a complex issue, there may be either theocratic or ecclesiocratic states where the politic is closely associated with the religious. Take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy#Christian_theocracies
Christianity is a much older religion than Islam, so just on the face of it, it is not surprising that predominately Christian countries have developed nearly universal separation between politics and religion earlier than Islam has. There are also many economic, geographical and historical factors in play. Thinking about complex issues simplistically leads to simple-minded conclusions. The tendency to want to view cultural issues simplistically is driven by either laziness or negative emotion or a combination of both, and leads to conclusions which are not rationally supportable.
Why not all together? Excluding religious critique is equally vacuous in my estimation, as such would imply that Muslim doctrine plays no part in society, either at the macro or micro level, and thus doesn't deserve careful consideration.
Quoting andrewk
I'd say this goes country by country. For example, getting away from Saudi Arabia and Qatar's fossil fuel economies would be helpful in leveraging better human rights compliance from their theocratic, Muslim governments. But, we can't seem to do that very well, so a whole lot of shit gets a pass. Similar economic shackling is involved in SEA, but there it'd be more of a grass roots effort to help educate local villages and small towns - that is, a bottom-up approach. I'm simplifying here, but I can only say so much in a forum post. I will admit to having not studied Islam in SEA as well, though, so perhaps there are nuances I've neglected :)
Quoting John
True, but the difference between the Vatican, and even Tibet, with a Saudi Arabia, is that there really isn't any secular sphere in the former communities. There aren't secular people fartzing around in the Vatican that are bummed about the Christian law there because that's all there is. But in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, etc., there is an ever growing secular, consumerist culture that has begun to come into direct conflict with the governments that are paradoxically obtuse to such developments. I mean, if Tibet had a slave labor issue like Qatar does, then Tibet wouldn't get any sort of "pass" from me. I'd damn them to hell and back just like Qatar.
Quoting John
Yes and no. As I said before, Muslim countries have no equivalent of the Catholic Church, a kind of guiding sub-institution to a secular state that informs society. If Islam came first, and without a largely centralized religious framework, then Muslim countries probably wouldn't have been able to progress as steadily as the Christian West has in reality. However, this all is speculation, even if I defend myself with books and articles in the dozens. My history background is reminding me not to do that, hehe.
Quoting John
Okay, but I fail to see how I'm being overly simplistic in this thread. As I say above, I'm not ruling out any other additional angles we might use in order to better understand the whole picture concerning the topic at hand.
Apologies for just jumping in and critiquing (my mental quota for posting here gets filled pretty fast, but I keep reading), but how does a purely theoretical concept like this support any real argument? Islam is an Abrahamic religion; removing it from it's proper context to theorize about that context removes the meaning of the context itself and doesn't present an actual argument. Sorry to be obtuse here; you've made some valid arguments as well. Just a fine point that always tends to push my buttons. Carry on with your well-reasoned critique.
But as to John's comment, and as a slight critique of his, and a slight credit to you, I think the distinction is that Islam is specifically Abrahamic, not just that it comes after Judaism. So, the grounding seed if you will of Judaism already existed for the pith of Islam to sprout, and the natural result was a decentralization of the new religion, based on a former center.
That may be true, but those in power always seem to want to hang onto it; and it doesn't seem to have much to do with theological issues.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
If Islam had come first and enjoyed the geographical and cultural advantages that Christianity has, then it might well have had a more centralized structure. If Islam had been around instead of Christianity then Constantine might have chosen it to unify his empire instead of Christianity. Of course, that is really pretty empty speculation; and if Hegel is right and history is a dialectic, then Islam as we know it could not have preceded Christianity in any case. You are of course free to cite "books and articles by the dozen" or present the arguments from those in your own words.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
As I see it "religious critique" (if by that you mean critique of the actual theology of a religion) is relevant only insofar as the theology has a bearing on people's actual practices. And then it becomes a matter of critiquing something more substantial than the mere dogmatic abstract principles of doctrine. It is not easy to see how such things could even be effectively critiqued from outside the religion, in any case. Critiquing people's practices is sociological, political and moral or ethical critique; and I think that is what is relevant; it is what people do with "Muslim doctrine" that counts, and the very fact you have already pointed out, that Islam has no predominant cross-cultural central authority (and neither does Christianity these days; it has a couple or three) means that many diverse things are done in the name of doctrine.
I agree with that.
In the next bit you used the abbreviation SOE, which I can't quite place. What does it stand for in this context?
South East Asia?
Bullshit. Ottoman Empire.
Theocracy doesn't have to mean, and doesn't usually mean, that the head of state is identical to the religious leader. It's the relationship between the two that marks theocracy. The religious leader supports the legitimacy of the king and the king provides the religious leader with authority. Saudi is typical.
This arrangement produces a strong, resilient backbone for a society. Think about what has to happen to leave that behind. How is the government's legitimacy affirmed if a religious leader isn't doing it? How does a church maintain its authority without political back-up? What are the conditions which would force a community to abandon the time-honored formula of church/state union and try a real secular government?
I was merely stating my opinion. As I say later in the post you quote, I'd never really try and argue that opinion, as it's more speculative. I could, but I won't here.
Quoting John
Take out Islamic law and the authority of those governments lessens to a great degree.
Quoting John
We're both speculating now, lol. As I just told Noble Dust, I never meant to defend my position on this/that.
Oops, I mean SEA, as in South East Asia. Apologies, I dunno why I was writing SOE, >:O
Ross Douthat wrote a good OP on this subject in the NY Times called The Islamic Dilemma.
A Muslim commentator, also in the NY Times, asks Is Free Speech Good for Muslims? He also notes the 'paradoxes' of the relationship between Islam and free speech:
He says that this
These are the kinds of questions that need to be asked. And Islamic leaders need to be deeply engaged in this dialogue. As it is, if the hardliners who had Ahok put in jail win the day in Indonesia, what are the prospects for such a dialogue?
Quoting Mongrel
(Y)
What Islamic leaders? Name one.
Really jogs my noggin...
I think the assertion that "the heart of Islam is necessarily illiberal" also can be said of Christianity. Religions must be fundamental or reactionary at "the heart", and it is their moral role that is problematic when it is mixed into with politics where pragmatism ought to reign. No religion "at heart" can stand pluralism.
"There's a conflict in every human heart." -- somebody
Young Christians are more interfaith than their elders. I discovered this during some years living near a Southern Baptist seminary. One student told me that the real divide in Christianity in the US isn't between denominations, but between liberal and conservative Christians.
Is this a bad sign for the future of Christianity?
This is a topic that has taken my interest in the last week, after I heard a discussion between a liberal and an Evangelical Christian on ABC Radio National, in which the Evangelical said that Evangelicalism was better because when churches became liberal, they shrank.
I was convinced for about five minutes, because it's true that Evangelicism seems to be the only part of Christianity that is growing. But then I realised that that means Evangelicalism is better only if the sole measure of a religion's success is its size. Which implies that it is better to be a horrible Christian than not a Christian at all - a premise that only Evangelical Christians would accept.
When a church becomes liberal, it typically discards the threat of hellfire for nonbelievers and sometimes also the carrot of heaven as long as one believes (no matter how nasty one may be). As with any organisation propped up by threats and bribes, the membership falls as soon as the threats and bribes disappear.
But what's left is those that really want to be part of the organisation, rather than just being in it out of fear or greed.
To me that's a better outcome. Some people in the world have an emotional affinity with Christianity, and some do not. Since there are so many different available worldviews, in the absence of the threats and bribes that have been part of Christianity for most of its history, only a small proportion of all the world's people are going to want to be Christian. But that's good, because the people who are suited to being Christians will be Christians, and the others will be Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Stoics, Epicureans, or whatever suits them.
Liberalisation of a religion destroys it only if one measures the success of the religion by numbers of members. Most people would instead measure the success of a religion by whether it brings spiritual fulfilment and community to those that are unable to find it elsewhere, without causing undue misery. I would suggest that, on that measure, liberal churches, despite their smaller numbers, are far more successful than Evangelical ones.
I suspect the same would apply to Islam. The emergence of more credible, easily accessible, liberal, moderate sects of Islam may reduce the number of Muslims, but it would not destroy Islam, and it would improve its rating against the above-suggested KPI.
1) A religion can't succeed with no members, or few enough that it has no cultural capital.
2) Liberalization in itself makes the religion less interesting in a liberal society, as it becomes just another wing of the larger secular culture. But religion is interesting precisely because it has content to it, and not as a consumer choice among a larger atheistic society that one takes it implicitly to be subordinate to.
Quoting andrewk
What is spiritual fulfillment? Liberal religion can make one comfortable, but comfort and fulfillment aren't the same.
I don't agree with claim 2.
What is 'spiritual fulfilment'? This means different things to different people. For me it means a bunch of things, including something like feeling a connection with something much greater than oneself, and coming to terms with the existence of so much suffering in the world.
Christianity in the western world is dying off, and liberal Christianity is basically atheism.
Quoting andrewk
Does it? People may have differing opinions on the matter. But part of the problem with the liberalization of religion is that a religion that has assimilated to a liberal society will fail to offer anything the wider society does not. And since liberal societies are by definition nihilistic, defined negatively in terms of their lack of values, this means a liberal religion will have very little meat to it. And so as you note, no one will stick around, because the religion no longer has any content.
I don't agree with that unsupported claim either.
Quoting The Great Whatever I didn't note that at all. I presume your mistake comes from too hasty a reading, as I imagine you understand the difference between 'the membership falls' and ''no one will stick around'.
Nor do I agree with the unsupported claim that liberal religions have no content. I wonder if you have ever conversed with a liberal Christian about their beliefs and values, as none of what you say about them has any relation to reality.
This is the logical endpoint of the liberalizing of Christianity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
There is no content to UU that the wider secular culture does not provide (itself threadbare and defined negatively, in terms of tolerance).
To be liberal is to be contentless – liberalism is defined in terms of lack of content, and permissiveness. You yourself in describing it only defined it in terms of losing facets of a substantive belief that it once had.
You cannot ignore the existence of UU – it's a historical reality.
Nonsense.
What does it mean to be liberal?
To repudiate the idea justice, worth or an afterlife is dependent upon following one belief, culture or deity. Not contentless, just a rejection of most religion's hierarchal self-absorption.
So, UU believe that God is a single person, not a trinity. They don't believe that Jesus was a deity, on earth or later. They believe
Liberal Christianity certainly but not nearly as daft as the jokes would have it. ["What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah's Witness? Some one who goes door to door, but doesn't know why."]
Unitarian Universalists do what other religious people do: They gather regularly to learn about their faith. They teach their children how to behave in accordance with their faith. The engage in worship. They have fellowship together. They, like other Christians, believe in doing good works. They are not a liturgical denomination.
Without content? Hardly.
Lots of "mainline" Christians find the Trinity very problematic. I don't find it necessary or helpful. Jesus was not a Trinitarian, and as far as I know, God never claimed to be Trinitarian either.
To the dogmatic religious believer, no doubt. In cultural and human terms, absolutely not. It means justice and worth of life are given without following one particular tradition. It means a culture where people aren't killed for not following a particular religious belief. It means an understanding of the self and fulfilment not tied making others hold your specific religious beliefs.
Contentless? Only to religious zealots for whom their religion is the only content that counts.
Even if one accepted that belief is not a significant part of liberal Christianity, that would not make it contentless. The emphasis on belief stems from the 'sola fides' doctrine of the Protestant reformers ('justification by faith alone'). It is not essential to Christianity, and it plays very little role in most other religions.
As the great liberal RC priest James Allison points out, it reveals a peculiarly Evangelical-Christian-centric view of the world to refer to religions as 'faiths', when it is only some parts of Christianity, and to a lesser extent Islam, that regard faith as essential.
If you want to know what the content of liberal Christianity is, you need to get out and talk to some liberal Christians about their religion, rather than just armchair-theorising.
Nevertheless, you could make a start by reading the following by Marcus Borg, a well-known liberal Christian, recently deceased. He starts, of course, by saying what he does not believe, because the first thing he has to do is distinguish his position from the Evangelicals. But then he presents three key positive aspects of his religious position.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/11/what-is-a-christian/
Quoting andrewk
Really? Might there not be another reason he begins with that?
Is there any point behind this rhetorical question?
It's hard to claim that UU is a historical reality, and yet claim that liberalism is contentless. Contentful liberalism is a historical reality. The ideas of J S Mill, for instance, argue for a certain form of utilitarianism, and a multiplicity of freedoms of speech, freedom from want and rights to assembly, to be enacted through liberal democracy, with a special emphasis for its time on sexual equality. I'm not that sort of liberal, but I admire and recognise its presence in my world.
I think it will be an interesting listen. I haven't listened to all of it yet. It's here. The link is direct to the MP3, which is 49MB.
I am increasingly coming to like that show, which is called God Forbid, on ABC Radio National on Sunday nights. The host seems to try hard to get people from contrasting religious backgrounds and foster a constructive discussion between them. The show's web page is here.
[sup]I personally know a lovely Muslim couple, currently living in the US (and was a bit worried when Trump got into office, but fortunately they're fine for now). They're just ordinary moderates, not anti-secular, or theocratic or anything. If things in the US takes a turn for the worse, then we'd invite them to stay here until they could get a footing. Off hand, I'm guessing their sentiment is the majority among Muslims, but it's a guess on my part.
I also know a Muslim that's a bit less moderate. In their own words, Islam is all-encompassing, and addresses every aspect of life. Not sure what their sentiment on secularism is, though I can't really see them wanting to enforce Islam, Sharia Law, or the likes. All I can say, is that they'd most likely be fine if living in a theocratic, Islamic society with heavy enforcement of blasphemy laws.[/sup]
At this time in history, it seems that a good lot of violent, extremist religious folks are Muslims. I'm not sure that can be derived from the Quran in particular (in comparison to any other scripture) though. It comes down to what their reading is; you can also find passages that prescribe kindness toward others.
But, yeah, "Jakarta's Christian governor jailed for blasphemy against Islam" is ridiculous, deplorable, and should be met with critique accordingly.
It's somewhat related to Islam, in part due to the unfortunate Israeli-Palenstinian situation.
Here's a short youtube: The Monster Among Us/ Allen Mondell Cynthia Salzman Mondell (4m:38s)
Yeah, if there are aliens out there, then that's why they're keeping out of sight.
In America, gays in bars get gunned down.
In Indonesia, gays in bars get arrested, >:O