Ross’ column details Pope Benedict’s recent missive allowing what we might call a greased (or at least fairly frictionless) path for inclusion of Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church while keeping their Anglican heritage.  A kind of Anglican Rite within the Roman Catholic Church not unlike The Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church (except this is a Western Rite).  Benedict’s predecessor Pope John Paul II had written an encyclical in 1995 called “Ut Unum Sint” (That All May Be One, a direct quotation from the Gospel of John) which basically called for the exact structure that Benedict is now putting into place.

As personal disclosure, I should remind everyone of my religious affiliations here–I was raised Roman Catholic (actually from Southern German Bavarian stock like The Papa himself, though obviously in my case of immigrant US extraction).  I grew up in the city (as I recall) with the almost largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany in the world.  I spent four years with the Jesuit order, a religious order not exactly high on Pope Benedict’s (and formerly as Cardinal Ratzinger) favorites list.  I then left the Roman communion for the Anglican communion (colloquially described as swimming to Canterbury) about 5 years ago.  So I’m pretty well placed to know about Anglican-Roman Catholic exchanges.

So the formal idea of Ross’ op-ed is on the meaning and implications of the Pope’s decision.  But he goes from there towards the end into some more controversial waters:

But in making the opening to Anglicanism, Benedict also may have a deeper conflict in mind — not the parochial Western struggle between conservative and liberal believers, but Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam.

Here Catholicism and Anglicanism share two fronts. In Europe, both are weakened players, caught between a secular majority and an expanding Muslim population. In Africa, increasingly the real heart of the Anglican Communion, both are facing an entrenched Islamic presence across a fault line running from Nigeria to Sudan.

Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam’s compatibility with the Western way of reason — and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.

By contrast, the Church of England’s leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.

There are an awful lot of Anglicans, in England and Africa alike, who would prefer a leader who takes Benedict’s approach to the Islamic challenge. Now they can have one, if they want him.

Now I know Ross wants to dismiss the “parochial struggle between conservative and liberal believers” so he can get to the real juice (Islam), but the practical effect of Benedict’s announcement is very likely only going to have substance in basically England and Wales, with groups of disaffected very conservative Anglo-Catholics.  And, if personal experience and lifelong immersion in a sub-culture is any form of persuasive evidence, I can tell you that conservative Anglo-Catholicism–at the clerical level–is totally dominated by gay men.  Mostly repressed.  What used to be called when I was in seminary, the pink mafia.  And the thing that is the initial trigger for this decision is the upcoming very likely to happen decision to ordain women as bishops in the Church of England (there have already been women priests there for about 15 years or so).  Which has a certain irony in this case.  If these Anglo-Catholics join the Roman Communion they can join up with very conservative Roman Catholic groups like Regnum Christi and The Legionaries of Christ, also totally dominated by closeted gay fellows.  You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to see the awesome tragic humor in a bunch of non-wife having grown men wearing pink dresses (and in the Pope’s case super expensive fabulous Prada shoes!!!) telling everybody else they shouldn’t be gay.

But anyway onto Ross’ other arguments:

Regarding the European portion of this statement, Ross has made a number of mistakes (quite serious ones in my opinion).

The Muslim population of Europe can be said to be expanding, but this is at best a very unhelpful way of describing it.  And at worst plays into the myth of the coming Islamicization of Europe–aka Eurabia.  The kind of thing you would read about from Pat Buchanan and/or Mark Steyn about the end of Western Christian civilization.  Except that the demographics of immigrant Muslims in Europe within two generations (as is the usual case pretty much everywhere) are falling to basically the statistical norm.  Europe will continue to be a largely secular (including both those from formerly Christian and Muslim upbringings). [Read more →]

(Image via Flickr-er markkilner, Creative Commons)

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Ghaffar Hussain, former member of British Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir interviewed by Der Spiegel (h/t Salon).

Generally, what role does religious knowledge play in the process of radicalization? A lot of jihadist leaders, for example, talk a lot about faith without having much in the way of a theological education. Even Osama bin Laden and Aiman al-Zawahiri fall into that category.

Religion is not what motivates people. They don’t pick up the Quran and say: Ah, this is what I’ve got to do! They are motivated by politics. But when Islamists show their worldview they always provide some scriptural justification. As a rule, 90 percent of their speeches are political, but they will also say: And the Quran supports this, and the Prophet supports this, so as to make the argument look Islamic.

Some of us have been saying this for a long time, but it’s nice to have somebody formerly within that world give voice to this view.  This is not to say that religion is meangingless or not involved in anyway, but politics is often a, if not the driving force.

We in the West, schooled in the principle of secularization and the notion of private faith, have a very skewed understanding of how religion operates in most of the world (and throughout most of history).  Namely religion is never separate from politics–for Christ’s sake, Jesus talked about a Kingdom.

Relatedly, the reason I don’t like the Geert Wilders of the world is not just because they are weirdo bigoted dunces but also because they give credence to the bin Laden violent jihadist view of Islam.  Namely that the true religion somehow exists in this unhistorical ether simply to revived whenever it falls into disrepute.  If you ever (like I have) wasted precious minutes of your life you’ll never get back watching Wilder’s bizarre ass attempt at a film Fitna, it does nothing but argue that bin Laden is in fact right.  Right in how he (OBL) reads the Quran, understands the meaning of the religion and its history.  As a result is strengthens nutjobs and says clearly to any non-insane Muslim in Europe, you have to culturally (not just politically) become a European and abandon Islam.  You will never be accepted in this society otherwise.  i.e. Start whitening your skin now and maybe get ready for a little water splashed on your head in a church.

That ludicrous take on events, forgets Islamism’s own history: [Read more →]