Franciscan University Presents: Catholics and Islam

in the wake of a decade of terrorism after 9/11 Catholics have more questions than ever about Islam what does this faith really teach and how can we bring the good news of Jesus Christ to our Muslim friends and neighbors today we'll discuss the challenge of Islam with our special guest the founder of jihad watch Robert Spencer I'm dr. Scott Hahn professor biblical theology at Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio and you're watching Franciscan University presents stay with us you what do catholics need to know about Islam that's our topic today on Franciscan University presents I'm dr. Scott Hahn professor of biblical theology at Franciscan University filling in today for father Michael Scanlon we're here with our panelists dr. regis martin professor of systematic theology and dr. michael cirilla professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville our special guest today is Robert Spencer he has a master's degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill he's been studying Islamic theology law and history for over thirty years beginning when he read the Quran at the invitation of Palestinian and Saudi Muslims as the founder of jihad Watch he has been sought after by dozens of print and television journalists worldwide and he's the author of numerous books including inside Islam a guide for Catholics Robert you say that you were not surprised by the terrorist attacks of 9/11 why everybody else was well Scott you know you mentioned that I first read the Quran in the early 80s and anybody who reads the Quran with open eyes is going to see that there's a martial theology in Islam and that the Quran teaches warfare against unbelievers and their subjugation and I saw that also at the same time that I was reading the Quran it was around the time that the Iranian hostage crisis had just been concluded and the Islamic Republic of Iran was coming out in full force and it was clear that the Ayatollah Khomeini was basing all that he was doing on the teachings of the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad the Prophet of Islam and that the warfare that they considered that they needed to pursue against the United States and other infidel nations was based on Islamic principles and so when 9/11 happened that was also after other attacks like the attack on the USS Cole and the attack on the embassies in Africa and so on and these also were perpetrated by Muslims acting explicitly and proudly in the name of Islam so when I saw 9/11 happened I thought well this is something that was coming for a long time so resurgent Islam is not just a contemporary event but something that really calls for historical context oh very much so yes because the contemporary Islamic Jihad movements notably al-qaeda but not limited to al-qaeda certainly also you have to add in the Muslim Brotherhood since the Hamas movement in Israel considers itself to be the Muslim Brotherhood for Palestine and other jihad organizations that started in the 20th century they self-consciously cast themselves as intending to reassert the prerogatives of political Islam and ultimately to restore the Caliphate which was the supranational unity of the Muslims united under the successor of muhammad the caliph who was the political spiritual and military leader of the muslims and the only person under Sunni Islamic law authorized to wage offensive jihad and indeed having the responsibility to wage offensive jihad against infidel nations and to bring them under the rule of Islamic law in which non-muslims are deprived of basic rights yeah what robert up you make everything sound as plain as a pumpkin up you weren't surprised we were and apparently uh the president was surprised thirty nine eleven the the members of the Joint Chiefs everybody was taken by surprise and if we need this historical context why would these men exercising that kind of national responsibilities have been so culpably of innocent ignorant of these matters well this goes back this is also something that goes back decades itself I know that at the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and when Khomeini came to power this also completely blindsided the State Department and the White House at that time and it was because they had completely discounted Khomeini ''s influence and they had completely underestimated the power of Islamic preaching and the appeal of the rule of Islamic law for ordinary Muslims so there was only one book written by Khomeini anywhere in the State Department at the time he took power and no one had read it and this came out later that they were completely unprepared and I think that it's an ongoing cultural problem within the State Department official Washington and it actually goes back to the fact that these people are generally State Department people diplomats and so on are generally secularists who do not understand and underestimate the appeal and power of a religious call - that's a ideality that's a key factor because I think at the time the only enemy in their sights was Soviet Communism exactly and so we looked at radical Muslims as allies in the one in only real war a precise against communism and so really not until the Iron Curtain collapses in 89 do people really wake up and realize there's almost a sense in which this was camouflage a distraction from an enemy that has been perennial now for ages for yes it doesn't seem that 9/11 assisted the State Department in adjusting their approach here for example the Arab Spring time in the Middle East and in North Africa we're adopting these same policies we don't I think realize that what's coming on the horizon is clearly Sharia yes and the Christians in North Africa are all are all calling for help oh yeah doesn't sound like there's been 911 helped us to a Jaa's you know it didn't you know if you had to reach back into a recent history for some parallel I I think the example of Hitler the rise of fascism meine Kampf pretty much advertises what's coming yeah and and apparently back then people were utterly ignorant of this call to arms yes if the violence is implicit if it's part of the logic of Islam then why were we so sluggish in taking note of it there's been a Middle East crisis for centuries there's several things remember also that in Afghanistan the CIA and the State Department actually partnered with some of the jihadi groups that were fighting against the Soviets absolutely and as you were saying Scott they saw everything in these bipolar terms you're either with the Soviets or with us and then combine that with the ongoing campaign the very sophisticated and elaborate campaign of deception that Muslim Brotherhood led groups in the United States have been carrying out to convey the proposition that's wholly false that Islam is a religion of peace and that it teaches tolerance and that there is nothing in it that anybody needs to be concerned about in regard to warfare against unbelievers or the subjugation of religious minorities in Islamic States now I realize there might be other factors you could enumerate but I want to stop you right there because you use the key phrase a religion of peace when we look at Islam we can look at it in political terms we can also look at it in religious terms and that's the way I think most people begin because after all it traces itself back to Abraham it is monotheistic it has a sacred book like we do it believes in a prophet the five pillars you have pilgrimages and this sort of thing you have a kind of liturgical calendar and so on the surface there are some people found similarities to Judaism or to Christianity and especially our own Catholic experience and yet this idea that Islam is a religion of peace why is it that you feel that it's really not well you know Scott in the first place I have to say just in terms of clarifying that it's perfectly understandable why Muslims who are absolutely truthful say Islam is a religion of peace but they're envisioning peace in a radically different way from what we consider to be peace expla is Lomb is the a political and social system as well as a religious one and it always has been and the rule of Islamic law Sharia is considered to be the perfect model for society and once it's implemented then there's peace and so Islam is a religion of peace but Muslims must wage war in order to impose that peace upon the rest of them explain that doctrine because isn't the world divided I mean literally and technically Islamic sources into these two areas yes it's a later it's not in the Quran itself it's a later elaboration by Islamic theologians but the world is divided into the dot of Islam and the dot o harb the dar al-islam is the house of Islam and then the house of war is the daro heart so there's a house of peace because islam means submission but it also kind of plays on the word for peace well in in arabic as in hebrew words are all built up from three consonants right three consonant base and so the word Islam is SLM and then that's also Salaam which is peace so there Adamo logically tied but actually the peace that is in Islam is the peace that comes through separation which is not just submission to God but also submission to the Islamic social order which is considered to be the law of God this is an incredibly deceptive business because superficially when you look at Muslims of you're struck by their piety I mean these are guys who pray what five times a day that's right all I wanted them to do it 50 times a day but he had to make certain pragmatic adjustments up and they they they seemed to be incredibly devout and yet underneath there is this seething cauldron of hatred for the West well you know actually it's the same thing the piety and the seething cauldron of hatred come from the same wellspring because it is in the basic text it's in the Quran the unbelievers the unbelievers among the people of the book that's the term and the people of the book refers to primarily Jews and Christians and the unbelievers among the people of the book are those jews and christians who do not accept muhammad as a prophet or the quran is the word of god so in other words essentially all jews and christians the unbelievers among the people of the book are called in chapter 98 verse 6 of the quran the most vile of created beings and in chapter 48 verse 29 it says muhammad is the apostle of Allah those who follow him are merciful to one another but ruthless to the unbelievers and so the ruthlessness or the harshness to the unbelievers you see is exactly the same motion of piety as being merciful to the Muslims you know there's there's something here that calls for a little closer attention because when you say unbelievers you know I I think we immediately think of secularized Western civilization what do Catholics not just Westerners but what did Catholics in particular have to become more aware of when it comes to Islamic resurgence well I'll tell you one other quote from the Quran that appears twice at chapter 5 verse 17 and 5 / 72 is that infidels unbelievers are those who say Allah is the Messiah Jesus the Son of Mary in other words that is generally understood be that if you say Jesus is divine then you are a kuffar an unbeliever well and that is the word that's used in that in those verses and off with your head well either off with your head or if you submit right and accept a subservient position being deprived of basic rights pay attention to churches or repair old ones you can't have public displays of the faith you know the Eastern Churches Catholic and Orthodox they don't have any kind of a tradition of ringing bells because the bells are forbidden and there are processions but they were forbidden from having the processions out into the city like they did and in Catholic urates the state called dhimmitude yes yes exactly in the dim mo is the contract of protection it's kind of like Don Corleone yeah what you actually capture and verse as if you have really read this book I actually have read of it once or in Arabic because apparently that's the only permitted language well I my Arabic is not so hot but I I can read some and I can read enough in Arabic to know for example that some of the translations in English are a little bit sanitized I see like if you look at the dual use of ollies translation which is one of the most common translations in English at sura 4:34 chapter 4 verse 34 says that's the one about beat if good women are obedient as for those that are not warn them send them to separate beds and beat them and in his translation says beat them lightly but the lightly is not in the Arabic all right there's not even in mitigating so yes so you're right right Muslims generally understand its standard Islamic theme only to let somebody's ear off the hook they don't understand what they read because they don't know arabic oh you're correct i don't obtain the grace but they submit anyway yes we'll see this is the thing if you if you're in school in pakistan then you're going to learn Quran primarily and only Quran you'll probably memorize the whole thing and when I often when I'm giving talks I tell the story and people think it's a joke but the man was very serious I was speaking a few years back to a Pakistani Muslim and he said I'm very proud of my religion and I have memorized almost the whole Quran and one day I'm going to get one of those translations and find out what means because you know we know in the days of the Latin Mass there was the Latin on the one side and the English on the other but you go to the the mosque you have to pray in Arabic you recite qur'an in arabic and there's no interlinear translation available which is really you're just mouthing here mystification but harness to great power yes you know but you also are pointing to an important distinction a fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam because you referred to how they deny divine sonship for Jesus and especially for us and they affirm a divine divine slavery a divine servitude therein lies freedom divine sonship therein lies blasphemy you know and I think when we recognized that principle of civility we really get to the heart or the inner logic of this of this religion and why it it kind of it affects people the way it does politically but also psychologically oh absolutely it's very much a master/slave relationship so it's good for using because in our faiths submission and surrender to God is a central component yes and it we also teach that it brings peace but here's a profound difference it's not just the difference of sonship and slavery for servitude but it's also this that there is a a consistent and systemic denial in Islamic thought that were created in the image and likeness of God okay nobody we need to pick up here right after the break when we're going to look at what islam teaches about christ and his church you're watching Franciscan University presents stay with us one thing that I try to do in my classes is to encourage our students to actually read the Quran and to see what it really says not that they're getting it from somebody misquoting it or maybe some Islamic fundamentalist could misinterpret the Quran and so it's better always to go to the first source and so while our students are reluctant maybe to read something from another religion I really encourage them to get to know the Korean a little bit better my name is Michael Villanueva I'm majoring in philosophy and theology last semester I had sacraments with dr. hunt and I'll tell you right now it was the best class in my entire life every class I'm just knocked out of my chair it hits me like a ton of bricks the beauty of the truth that he's speaking to us something so simple god it's so beautiful and so profound and so powerful Franciscan University is academically excellent passionate I'm Scott Hahn with two of my colleagues Regis Martin and Mike Cyrilla and our special guest Robert Spencer and we're talking about Catholics and Islam Robert what are the authoritative sources of Islamic teaching and what do they have to say about say Jesus and Mary the authoritative sources are the Quran and the Sunnah the Quran is the holy book that is considered to be a perfect copy of the eternal book that has existed forever with Allah and was delivered in perfect form over a period of 23 years through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad and then the the Quran being rather elliptical and anomic in many ways is filled out by the hadith which are voluminous you'd need a wheelbarrow or maybe several wheelbarrows to carry all the volumes of the ADIZ and they are stories of Muhammad's words and deeds which are authoritative because in the Quran Muslims are commanded to obey Muhammad as well as Allah and he is called the excellent example of conduct that is the supreme guide for behavior for Muslims I've read the Quran right I've read the Quran and translation a few times and I've noticed from the outset it's not chronological in any way like our Bible it isn't really even logical or theological it sort of seems decontextualized very much so it's essentially a series of kind of like sermons you know uh exhortation z' of various ways mostly just denunciations of the unbelievers with various stories of biblical prophets added in that all have an exact parallel to the experience of muhammad himself in other words muhammad meets with scorn and derision and he denounces the unbelievers and says they will ultimately be punished in hell and punished in this world as well and then you read stories of Noah of Moses of David and Solomon and so on in the Quran of Joseph and Jacob and they're all they all run along the same lines and it seems clear that what they're trying what he's what the point always is is to say see the other prophets went through exactly the same thing and now you unbelievers are treating Mohammed in the same way and you're going to receive the same there are broad patches of teaching about virtue and piety as well but what does the Koran have to say about Jesus and Mary in in the Quran Jesus is a prophet he's the last prophet before Muhammad and he prophesized the coming of Muhammad in the Quran he is the Christians are warned numerous times in the Quran that it not only does Allah not have a son and that Jesus is not the Son of God but that it is an insult to the transcendent majesty of Allah to say that Jesus has a son and tantamount to associating partners with Allah in worship deifying a human being and thus committing the cardinal sin of shear which is essentially polytheism or worshipping others besides Allah and he is although there are traces at the same time of Christian theology and that he's characterized as the Word of God and is in not in the Quran but in Islamic tradition identified his sinless and as the Prophet who's going to come back at the end of the world although when he does he's going to make war against Christianity in the Quran he is born of a virgin and there's in a chapter called Mary chapter 19 which details the virgin birth and even the Annunciation but without saying that of course the child will be holy in the Son of God and Jesus is we are also told that he appears before Allah and Allah asks him did you tell your followers to take yourself and your mother as gods alongside me if evidently that was Muhammad's idea of the Trinity was Allah and Mary in Jesus and he says oh no how could I say that when I wasn't authorized to do so and we are also told that he does not die on the cross but it only appeared as if he died on the cross and so that somebody was made to look like Jesus by a lie and he died instead but this is this a real stolen-base because if what they are saying is true then we are the apostates Oh quite traitorous to the true teachings of Jesus who only prepares the way for this real special guy that's quite right aganist in Islamic theology not only Jesus but all the prophets of the Old Testament are considered to be Muslim prophets and Abraham in in chapter 3 verse 67 is specifically identified as a Muslim so they've co-opted everything we'll see all the prophets and Jesus were Muslims who taught us LOM and then they're wicked followers for reasons of their own personal gain twisted their teachings to create the false religions of Judaism and Christianity I know what here's a here's a twist isn't there a chronological problem with the identification of Mary as Miriam yes they're the sister of Moses yes in Arabic and that actually there is is evidence from natural historiography that that that refutes that oh well and so they requested neces on the part of the chronology found in the chapter on Mary well see it's a funny thing because it seems it's not in the chapter well actually I believe it is there but it's also in Chapter three the family of Imran and that's very important as I'll explain Mary in in Arabic the word is the same for Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron and Mary the mother of Jesus it's Mario and so Mohammed apparently confused the two and he also is it's also presented in the Quran that all the prophets are of the same household and are essentially related and so in the Quran Mary is twice called sister of Aaron and Muhammad there is a hadith because apparently Christians from very early on we're dividing this and saying you got this wrong you're thinking that entries Jesus is Moses as nephew when he is much later and they there's a hadith in which Muhammad is approached and asked about this and he says no no sister of Aaron is just an expression of respect and it doesn't mean literal sister of Aaron but the problem with that is that she's called sister of Aaron in the chapter 3 of the Quran which is entitled the family of Imran Imran in the Quran is Moses father and so the whole thing is about the family of Moses and Mary comes in and is called Aaron's sister it's very clear that that is absolutely what is meant but it was just caught early on and this apologetic excuse fashions to explain it in the chapter on Mary though what is stated positively about our lady well it's a clear that she's very pious and she is holy and as a matter of fact she also along with her son all right they are both identified as sinless in Islamic tradition and she is the virgin birth is presented quite forthrightly and she is described with great respect and so also is Jesus although he has less to do in the Quran nonetheless he is spoken about quite often and always in glowing terms as a matter of fact there's some aspects of Gnostic Gospels in which he speaks from the cradle in the same chapter of Mary and in which he when he's a child fashions clay birds and then claps his hands and they fly away and so on and this kind of thing is striking because Mohammed several times we're told in the Quran is challenged to produce a miracle and he can't and he just says the Quran itself is the miracle and that's all they're going to get and so Jesus in certain sense has greater powers than Muhammad and there are things about him that do not apply to Muhammad like the second coming and like the the sinlessness and the fact that he is the word of God and horn of a virgin I mean he presents himself with with some fairly divine pretensions how do they cope with that how do they strip him of these so-called divine attributes he claims to be God before Abraham was I am I mean how did they oh we oh we hallucinate it all this corrupt way we corrupted it for venal purposes ngo like the Torah were both corrupted by Christians and Jesus was given a book in the Quran the gospel is not considered to be the good news of Jesus Christ but it is a book that he received from Allah the way Mohammed received the Quran and then that book which was a Muslim book that taught Islam was corrupted by the Christians to create what we call the New Testament oh and they speak of that as the injeel the gospel yeah this like the Jews have the taurah the law both of these have been so we really ought to be grateful to the Muslims because they want to disabuse us of these historical lies that's absolutely the standard Islamic view of it which makes it easier I think to submit because they're doing us a great favor and liberating us yes and they make the star honor the colors the Jesus Seminar kind of thing that's the none of these things are historical or this is and that isn't and they say see this is evidence that your scriptures are corrupted and so you have to get the full true thing in the Quran itself well the founder of this religion was a real piece of work himself I mean here is a guy who impregnates a nine year old girl who becomes his wife and that sort of sets the standard I think you mentioned merit you had mentioned the other day that after the fall of the Taliban when they go into these refugee camps there they're astonished by the number of nine year old wives yes you know well Hamid is the excellent example of conduct yeah yeah it's good be fair here we're talking about the ancient and early medieval world Augustine before his conversion was it was engaged to be married to a nine year old okay so you have a you know I think what we have is is in Christianity and contemporary Judaism we've moved beyond a number of you know anomalies you know Islam has not seemed to have what I think go ahead because Muhammad is the excellent example of conduct you know what his his example is normative in every way right and so yes it's certainly true and I think it's noteworthy that there's several aspects of Islamic the the Islamic biographies of Muhammad that clearly embarrassed Muslims at the time like when he set things up so that he could marry his former daughter-in-law who was very beautiful and that caused a lot of scandal and he had to explain it and this was clearly a source of embarrassment but there's no embarrassment at all in the stories about the consummation of the marriage with I should when she was nine it's taken for granted this is a normal thing to do the problem becomes when it's considered to be a normal thing to do now so many centuries later when we know the physical and psychological harm that can do to girls and yet because Mohammed did it there's no headway that can be made against it in the Islamic world you know in dialogue we need a balance between clarity and charity precision but at the same time openness you know in its heart because you know we understand from Muslims that Muhammad is really an exemplar of righteousness oh yeah if he's done it then it's alright you know if somebody in the name of Jesus goes out and strikes terror and butchers people everybody knows he has contradicted what the founder of Christianity did whereas if people go out and in the name of Islam imitate Mohammed and exercise force violence and terror there's almost a sense of continuity and consistency very much so that's part of the obedience that's part of the imitation of Mohammed that's required it's hard for us to really admit I mean it's hard to kind of face up to that because of the conditioning I think we've received spiritually and cultural oh yeah well people think in the first place that if you speak about these things it's somehow impolite or wrong because all religions are basically good and while the the Catholic Church of course we understand that the fullness of the truth is in the church whereas other religious traditions have only partial truths some to MU greater degree or lesser degree than others but it's still it's it's it's considered to be sort of outside the realm of possibility that there could be the founder of a religion who says something like as Mohammed said I have been made victorious through terror or I have been commanded to fight against people until they confess that there's no god but Allah and I am his messenger and so many other things that Muhammad said and did that go against standard notions of human rights and morality people can't conceive of that as well I mean some of some of this stuff is fairly preposterous on the face of it like the creation of the world that God Ollis strikes the right shoulder of Adam and white people come out and then the left shoulder is struck and you've got black people who of course are going to go to hell yes what how can this commend itself to any person of reason well you know a lot of times when you're talking about convene these features of Islam even Muslims are not aware of them you know I mean I'm aware of the hadith you're talking about about striking the right shoulder left shoulder and I was also conscious when I was quoting those just now I've been made victorious through terror and so on these things are in the canonical a death collections that Muslims accept is authentic but those being so voluminous and the Arabic language barrier since most Muslims in the world today are not Arabs and even the Arabs don't speak 7th century Quranic Arabic a lot of them are not even familiar with these things and I have to keep in mind even when I'm speaking about Islam if they're Muslims in the audience and they say none of this is true I think well maybe you don't know these things are in there but they are you know we have the challenge of dialogue we have to address because here's our Lord Jesus who dialogues not only with his disciples but with pilot with Caiaphas with Herod and the Apostles go out and do the same and so must we up next we're going to look at how the church can most fruitfully reach out to Islam and its followers in dialogue stay with us I grew up with many Muslim friends in Singapore and with these Muslim friends I did not see the level of radical terrorism that we see and associate with the Muslim faith today in fact they shared a very firm foundation in terms of who we are as human beings created by God so much so that when I shared with a group of people about the Catholic worldview of media at the end of my presentation one of the students stood up and she said that she is Muslim and she shared how what I shared which is the Catholic bull view of media is used and can be used in Muslim schools karna Lorenzo Francis Lorenzo visited Franciscan University he spoke about Islam to our student body and at that time he was the prefect of the Congregation of the Vatican relating to non-christian religions and he said that Islam is diverse that there are forms of fundamentalist or or a jihadist Islam which of course are very inimical to Christianity and to to human life and culture but he said that we have to remember though that not all Muslims are of this breed and that rather we should try to seek dialogue with those Muslims who really have a different view and this is actually the call of the Second Vatican Council which calls us to dialogue and to seek what is good and holy in other religions so this is our task to distinguish between the different forms of Islam dialoguing and finding common ground with those Muslims who share some of our values and might be open to working with us in the betterment of human culture you welcome back we're here at Franciscan University of Steubenville surrounded by our students working the equipment with our special guest Robert Spencer Robert Muslims might say that you're just cherry-picking from their sources how would you respond well this is very important question because we just were talking about how the many Muslims might not even be aware of some of the noxious and difficult elements of the Quran and of the Sunnah the ADIZ and the legal apparatus that's derived from it and while that's true at the same time there are international movements of Muslims really in every continent and in most of the nations of the world in which Muslims explicitly and avowedly are acting upon the passages exhorting to warfare and subjugation of the unbelievers the hatred and contempt of unbelievers that is taught in the Quran they know full well those passages are there and they're the ones who are bringing them to public notice by explaining and justifying their acts of terrorism on the basis of these paths so as Catholics we should be aware of those texts but at the same time in order to facilitate whatever dialogue might be possible and fruitful what examples can you think of I mean I father Zechariah Boutros or Saint Francis and the Sultan blessed Charles de Fuko what do these men share with us what do they teach us about this well those are three great heroes and very different each one touch them from one another father Zechariah Boutros is contemporary he is an elderly Coptic priest who has a television show in Arabic that airs in Egypt and he he does essentially what I do although I don't do it nearly as well he quotes Muslim texts and he quotes them back to Muslims and says will these things this is what this says and this is how Muslims are acting upon it today and these things are problematic in various ways because obviously the Christians in Egypt are being victimized on the basis of people acting upon the texts and teachings of Islam and Mohammed is an excellent example of conduct who leads the people who follow him into various kinds of immoral behavior and so on and of course they have a he's on the hit list and he lives in hiding but he's a man of extraordinary courage and great wit and immense grace I highly recommend for Arabic speakers his television show and have run a few summaries of some of them on jihad watch Nick now line them they're here at Franciscan University we're very fond of st. Francis and the story of st. Francis and the Sultan often gets retold in funny ways to make it seem as though he's just simply pioneering a kind of ecumenical dialogue how did it really happen well st. Francis was actually trying to convert the Sultan to Christianity and so he thought that the best way would be to demonstrate the power of the true God and after the pattern of Elijah and others he offered to actually immolate himself and have the Imams set themselves on fire and the one who was put out that would be the one whose God was true but the Imams did not want to take him up on that offer he was not reaching out in the sense of contemporary dialogue where differences are minimized often differences that ought to be discussed are ignored and downplayed in favor of some kind of spurious harmony to say that st. Francis was exemplary of something like that or that he was just having some sort of ecumenical talks that's that's a historical anachronism right what about blessed Charles de Fuko I mean the last century we have somebody more recent yes blessed Charles de Fuko is an extraordinary man who lived a life of certain licentiousness as a youth and he was very interested in Islam to the degree that ultimately he went to live as a hermit in North Africa and was ultimately murdered by Islamic supremacists there but with many things noteworthy about him he was just devoting himself to prayer he didn't preach he knew the restrictions and the suspicions that Muslims have about Christ and Christianity and Christians but he just thought he would live a life that would be exempt attractive and what's I think most noteworthy about blessed Charles is that one of the reasons why he devoted his life to Christ and to the church rather than become a Muslim was that he knew because of his early life that the Islamic vision of paradise which is this Carnival of sensual delights he knew that that was not the supreme happiness because he had tasted that and he knew that the soul was still longing and so he realized well this could not possibly be a true faith because of its vision of the carnal delights don't exactly exhaust the capacity we have for happiness precisely you know another example even more recent would be that splendid movie that came out a year of the monks of tempering right of gods and men I mean their witness is very much in the spirit of Charles de vehicle very and they end up moving I mean they're they're murdered they become martyrs to the faithful and they're witnesses of hospitality to their Arab neighbors they're not provoking anybody yes but they're targeted by these because they're Christian because they're Christians what happened you know I mean what what the Germans did to the Jews was not because of something the Jews had done but because of who they were that they became objects of hatred your very being is repulsive and we've got to sweep the board clean of jewelry now the difference here that's an exact parallel but with one caveat and that is that if the monks or if any Christian in that context converts to Islam then everything is okay and those so that is always an out but otherwise yes then your existence itself is an insult right no another courageous example would be Pope Benedict and the Regensburg address yes what happened there I mean can you summarize certainly Pope Benedict quoted the Patriot the not the patriarch the Byzantine Emperor Manuel ii palaiologos who was late 14th century and he said that there is nothing new or original in what Muhammad taught except what is evil and inhuman and actually holy father quoted that only in passing in order to illustrate another point but that was what the Islamic world fastened upon and demanded apologies and there were actually riots and people killed in Afghanistan and Somalia and some other places I believe because of this right and the the thing was is that there is a great deal as you had mentioned earlier Scott in the Quran that does exhort to piety and to behavior that is by any standard completely righteous at the same time that there are the strange lacunae in the Islamic vision of morality right the the the child marriage the polygamy and so on the temporary marriage among the Shiites and things that mitigate its its moral witness but there are good things that is important I think to historically contextualize the development of Islam I was reading professor Iman's book on Islamic natural law theories and this professor traces how there was a hard natural law tradition at the at the inception of Islam that slowly becomes soft and then voluntaristic until finally what we would know as natural law is sort of repudiated in in favor of a hard Sharia that it is the will of Islam pure and simple see the natural reason doesn't see the inner logic of a law that perfects and fulfills us as humans there there's no natural theology the idea of natural law and the idea of a rational systematic theology is completely alien to the Islam in the Quran there's a passage in the column chapter 5 verse 64 it says the Jews say that a laws hand is chained oh and no may their hands be chained now what does it mean that a laws hand is chained it's it's all about covenant precisely but in in in this lot in Islam he's not bound by anything at all right he's not a father who had bind himself to a family first of his children is a master I mean it would be unthinkable for a Muslim to utter the Lord's Prayer our Father I mean that alright anima our master the Quran says what you say we are children of Allah and his beloved and if that's so then say to them then the Jews and Christians say then why does he punish you your sins which is kind of odd because why wouldn't a father punish a child who's disobedient but in any case it's just explicitly repudiated in that passage that Allah is the father of human and so look any claim that there was a strong sense of natural law even from the beginning has to be qualified or tempered by by these facts but even though the Quran Locke lacks a perhaps a systematic approach there is an inner logic and a system here and I believe that it bears directly upon their notion of God and their notion of humans humans for for that for Islam unlike for the judeo-christian tradition are not created in God's image and likeness there was no no parody no point of contact there's no notion therefore that the fulfillment of human life would be metaphysical union with that God that's right and therefore that leads to making either carnal or material or created things right the the great good of human life in this life and in the next yes there is an inner logic even if it's not set out systematic that we consist and it also it also would legitimize the exercise of violence exactly pursuant to a day great a world Muslim oh yeah it's a great view even though this exhortation to violence is antithetical to reason that God is above reason yes not subject even to the word Maimonides the Jewish and medieval Jewish philosopher he writes very interestingly about his dealings with Muslim philosophers and he said that essentially he said they drove him crazy because they would never acknowledge that God might operate the universe according to consistent and observable laws they thought that would be a blasphemous limitation he would be bound as a word you know I remember a chain I had an experience where I was scheduled to debate an Islamic philosopher on the subject of God and the Trinity and this was months away but we were able to arrange for a breakfast and then that breakfast had got really tense because accidentally referred to God as father and he interrupted me and said I blaspheme so lightly I changed the subject we shifted the Jesus and I referred to him as the son of god and he pounded his fist a second time and interrupted me and said I will not accept his blasphemy there is Oh divine sonship and so I tried to find common ground on the basis of analogy saying well look you know we we have power and God is pure power we have goodness and God is infinite goodness you know we have knowledge and God is all-knowing and we are good and sometimes show mercy and love and God is perfectly Allah is that you know why not just take it in terms of fatherhood that we have fatherhood that's flawed and Allah has fatherhood that is perfect and that is the context any and he stared intently back at me and he said because Allah doesn't love as a father and he proceeded to describe his relationship to his pet and how he was going to move into a new apartment and in fact you know it didn't allow pets and so he said I may have to kill my pet you know and I was astonished you know and the conversation broke down the debate was eventually cancelled but what really happened to me was he provoked me to a kind of intellectual awakening where I began to realize that the things that we take for granted as Christians oh yes God's fatherhood Christ sonship that were the children of God that were made in the image and likeness of God none of this is acceptable yes that it is a master/slave relationship that is metaphysically projected onto the universe and historically played out in terms of slavery in terms of dhimmitude in terms of polygamy concubines and terror and most poignant ly heaven cannot be cannot be the vision the mystical intimate vision of the divine essence it cannot be no there's no grand for parody there's no claim there is if the vision is not of God's essence then it has to be of something created there's no other option this God is a dialogue between Christians and Muslims is necessary and at times it's been fruitful but I think we have to recognize it's a lot harder than we want to admit a very very hard well the conversation seems to be suggesting that there's no basis there's no commencer ability between the two yes what what do we talk about well I think that there's a there's a possibility that if you have a Muslim who would be willing to be honest oh now it might seem insulting that I would even suggest that they would not be honest in a discussion that it might be fruitful but the reality is that Islam also has a doctrine of deception and that it's permitted it's chapter 3 verse 28 says that don't take believers in preference don't take unbelievers in preference to believers as your friends and protectors unless you're doing it to guard yourselves against them which is understood in Islamic tradition as meaning that under certain circumstances you can deceive unbelievers for the advantage of Islam and that's so that makes dialogue virtually impossible well you know this segment has flown by when we return each of us will share our final thoughts on Catholics and Islam stay with us my name is Kelli Butler and I'm a communication arts major I took independent filmmaking definitely intense many all-nighters in the editing lab getting things done Pope John Paul the second has a quote do not be afraid to go out into the streets and into public places preach Christ like the first apostles that's what we're called to as Catholics and as Christian you have that responsibility that every work you create should reflect Christ Franciscan University is academically excellent and passionately Catholic explore the treasures of your Catholic heritage on a Franciscan University pilgrimage led by inspiring spiritual directors you'll walk in the footsteps of saints and martyrs in the Holy Land Poland France and Italy and you'll deepen your love for Jesus Christ through daily Mass confession prayer and the joy of Christian Fellowship led Franciscan University lead you on a pilgrimage of faith find out more at Franciscan edu slash pilgrimages well we've come to the end of our discussion on Catholics and Islam and it's time for some final words from our panelists Regis go first yeah thank you thanks so much for the job you've done today you've orchestrated the discussion very well and thank you in particular Robert for coming for your splendid witness I mean you're a man who I think has very much the courage of the convictions that you possess and and that is rare and most refreshing your era you died but you're also I think fearless and I want to applaud you and encourage you in this this apostolate and it's always a delight to be with my esteemed colleague Michael cirilla who I think touched on a theme that I'd like to sort of embroider upon for a half minute or so the theme of the image of God imago Dei the anthropological of shortcoming we find in in Islam of Pope John Paul the first whom nobody remembers but I do he lasted about a month but but one of his signature statements was we are the amazement of God that there is something imperishable important and precious about being a child of God an image of God who strives after the perfect likeness of God and this is an ancient theme in in Catholic literature both devotional and polemical we find this in Irenaeus the great founder of Western theology who tells us that the glory of God is man fully alive and there's a text I think in in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament where God literally genuflect before man because of the image that he aspires that configures and and and inscribes the whole constitution of this created being I mean this is a teaching of the church it was it was struck like granite in the 13th century at the fourth Council of the Lateran the great analogy of being we like God there is a similarity of course at the heart of that similarity were struck by the radical dissimilarity and so on the basis of all this it does seem mighty difficult to find a common point of entry with our Muslim friends and neighbors but we've got to try anyway but it's difficult when you think of people who sanction suicide bombers I mean what on earth do we share with these people well one thing a human heart they have the same longings we have and we have to persuade them that the longing for ultimate human happiness can only come as a result of acknowledging God as father not simply as master and ourselves as children not simply as subjects Mike well thanks for inviting me here once again and Robert thank you very much for your work it's been a pleasure to get to know you and and discuss Islam and the faith today Regis you hit at the heart I think of the issue on the one hand there's a disjunct we don't share a view exactly with with Muslims that humans are in the image and likeness of God and yet we are all humans and we are all in the image and likeness of God and at the heart of that likeness of course we also in our tradition hold that there's a greater dissimilarity between us and God then there is a similarity but yet there is a similarity and that similarity hits upon the depths of our being our personhood and that we have a rational soul we can know and we can love and our Muslim brothers and sisters have that and they know it and that's a point of that's a point of for dialogue to occur there has to be some commonality common language common topic to discuss here we're discussing the truth about the world and gain the commonality pre-exists however we may recognize it fail to do so speak about it or be mistaken about our expressing of our understanding of it so I think that perhaps the beginning of the dialogue would be on a more philosophical and human level on a personal level and of course I think an essential feature of dialog for to be successful is some kind of friendship and yes there are impediments certainly to to friendship and they're written in perhaps even to the canonical tacks of Islam and nevertheless we're committed to it and that's the Christian Way is to love everyone and and to pray for everyone that's a great point I mean Muslims are made in the image and likeness of God whether they affirm it or not yeah yes so that's where the conversation begins we have help with the Holy Spirit Robert your turn well I want to thank you also for the wonderful job you've done today and for making this possible and thank you Regis and Mike a very interesting discussion and I much appreciate it and in terms of the things that you're saying about the image of God and that Muslims are indeed created in the image of God like everybody else this is very important and there is a port of entry in the Koran to discuss this with Muslims because a a while it is denied in Islamic theology that we are created in the image of God at the same time there is a Jewish rabbinical tradition that's repeated several times in the Quran that when God created Adam he summoned all the angels and ordered them to prostrate themselves before Adam now the only explanation for this is because Adam bears the image of God in a way that even the Angels do not and Satan refuses and is cast out of heaven as a result of his disobedience now this is imported like so many things in the Quran from Jewish tradition and there are also many imports from Christian tradition but it's never explained and so one thing that can happen in dialogue and there are many other elements of the teachings of the Quran about Jesus the being the virgin birth being the Word of God and so on and the idea of the second coming in Islamic tradition these things are left unexplained and they can be used as the basis for a dialogue for a discussion to try to provoke thought in our Muslim friends and say how is it that these things are taught what do they mean and could they possibly have this import that we give them in Christian teaching great well I think this leads us to recognize this one fundamental point the difference between Allah and ABBA between a master and a father between slaves and sons and daughters and I think when we look at it that way we realize that the Holy Spirit is what caused sinners like us to discover God's fatherhood and the arm of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save Muslims as well as people like us and so that gives us great confidence but not in ourselves or our own powers of dialogue I'm reminded of a text in Proverbs 17 verse 2 a slave who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully it's a wake-up call for those who have given you're given this gift of divine sonship and also first John 2:22 this is the Antichrist he who denies the father and the son I mean this is what led our medieval forebears to acknowledge that there's something here at route that is not really right at all you know and I think what I would would want to saying that in the closing is get Roberts books you've written over 10 and read them learn Arabic you know to really plunge yourself into the New Evangelization and maybe into a well-paying job in the government or the economy as well but Jonathan Riley Smith Rodney Starks books you know God's battalions so many other sources too and I also want to mention that we have a free handout a free handout about today's program that you can receive simply by contacting us it's excerpts from the book that Robert Spencer co-authored inside Islam a guide for Catholics the handout includes excerpts from the chapter sharing the gospel with Muslims this is yours free for the asking that's all we have time for right we hope you'll join us next time for Francisco University defense to receive a free handout on today's topic or to purchase a video of this show call eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one that's eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one or call seven four zero two eight three six three five seven email your request to presents at Franciscan etu or write to Franciscan University presents Franciscan University of Steubenville one two three five university boulevard Steubenville Ohio four three nine five two you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

Views: 110,856

Rating: 4.6629786 out of 5

Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Michael Sirilla, Robert Spencer

Id: UZBXHxHbZZE

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2013