22 September 2006
Joseph Ratzinger: a serious opponent in a continent of pushovers?
2:01 PM
That’s what Peter Hitchens says:
[W]hen I was invited to a debate on religion at the Cambridge Union, I accepted with a heavy heart. Religion? Students? Surely not. I expected to speak to a thinly-populated, uninterested hall. Why couldn't we have something more controversial? Yet when the speakers walked in we were all amazed to see the place full to the ceiling, fuller than I'd ever seen it before, with people who stayed to the end, made lively, passionate contributions and voted, if my memory serves me right, in favour of religion rather than against. Or maybe it was just very close. And by the way, one of my allies that evening was a highly-articulate and persuasive Muslim, one of a small but growing number of British-born converts to that faith.
I strongly suspect that his decision to choose Islam was a result of that religion's self-confidence, its refusal to apologise for its existence or be embarrassed, the sense of belonging that it gives, and because of the simple, clear demands it makes on its followers.
If any serious Muslims really were disturbed by the Pope's lecture, I suspect it was because they recognised in Joseph Ratzinger the same tough single-mindedness and determination that they themselves show. And, in a Europe where Muslims generally get what they want from weak and complacent leftist establishments, they see Joseph Ratzinger as a serious opponent in a continent of pushovers. They are right to do so.
But what of the liberals? When Islam is a stage more powerful than it is now, and begins to demand more and applications of Sharia in European cities, will they then regret their failure to stand up for the man who is in many ways best qualified to defend our open society from the veil, the Mullahs and the other things Islam brings with it? They will not like these things when they arrive, as the Netherlands has already found.
The Left's flirtation with the Mosque is one of the oddest alliances in the history of either politics or religion. Surely it cannot last much longer? I can see why Islam is happy to take the benefits the alliance gives it. But quite how people such as Ken Livingstone justify their position, I do not know. You can pay too high a price for your votes (emphasis mine, of course).
I think he's right about the Pope. His Muslim critics just want him to a push-over, like every other European leader. And he won't play ball, darn it!
As a Christian, like Hitchens, I find myself wondering about something else he wrote in the selection from which I've quoted. I wonder what it would be like with respect to the growth of the Church catholic if Christianity be could decribed as he does Islam above:
I strongly suspect that his decision to choose Islam was a result of that religion's self-confidence, its refusal to apologise for its existence or be embarrassed, the sense of belonging that it gives, and because of the simple, clear demands it makes on its followers.
Let’s face it. Christians are always apologizing (no I am not referring to apologetics); and to listen to many Christ makes no personal moral demands, only that we work for peace and the elimiation of poverty—other than that we can fornicate, sodomize and idolize at will. His crimson blood serves as our wonderful all-excusing ecclesiastical white-out. Many will point to Muslim extremes such as forcing women to dress completely covered from head to toe (including veil), but Christian women, increasingly it seems, cannot be prevailed upon not to wear halter tops just to church. Some Christian couples are so busy carressing each other in worship that one supposes that if they forgot where they were (and they look like they just might!) they would copulate right there in the pew.
Increasingly, Christianity looks like a religion for moral bozos and intellectual wimps who are too weak to do anything, whether it’s thinking for themselves, or behaving themselves.
[W]hen I was invited to a debate on religion at the Cambridge Union, I accepted with a heavy heart. Religion? Students? Surely not. I expected to speak to a thinly-populated, uninterested hall. Why couldn't we have something more controversial? Yet when the speakers walked in we were all amazed to see the place full to the ceiling, fuller than I'd ever seen it before, with people who stayed to the end, made lively, passionate contributions and voted, if my memory serves me right, in favour of religion rather than against. Or maybe it was just very close. And by the way, one of my allies that evening was a highly-articulate and persuasive Muslim, one of a small but growing number of British-born converts to that faith.
I strongly suspect that his decision to choose Islam was a result of that religion's self-confidence, its refusal to apologise for its existence or be embarrassed, the sense of belonging that it gives, and because of the simple, clear demands it makes on its followers.
If any serious Muslims really were disturbed by the Pope's lecture, I suspect it was because they recognised in Joseph Ratzinger the same tough single-mindedness and determination that they themselves show. And, in a Europe where Muslims generally get what they want from weak and complacent leftist establishments, they see Joseph Ratzinger as a serious opponent in a continent of pushovers. They are right to do so.
But what of the liberals? When Islam is a stage more powerful than it is now, and begins to demand more and applications of Sharia in European cities, will they then regret their failure to stand up for the man who is in many ways best qualified to defend our open society from the veil, the Mullahs and the other things Islam brings with it? They will not like these things when they arrive, as the Netherlands has already found.
The Left's flirtation with the Mosque is one of the oddest alliances in the history of either politics or religion. Surely it cannot last much longer? I can see why Islam is happy to take the benefits the alliance gives it. But quite how people such as Ken Livingstone justify their position, I do not know. You can pay too high a price for your votes (emphasis mine, of course).
I think he's right about the Pope. His Muslim critics just want him to a push-over, like every other European leader. And he won't play ball, darn it!
As a Christian, like Hitchens, I find myself wondering about something else he wrote in the selection from which I've quoted. I wonder what it would be like with respect to the growth of the Church catholic if Christianity be could decribed as he does Islam above:
I strongly suspect that his decision to choose Islam was a result of that religion's self-confidence, its refusal to apologise for its existence or be embarrassed, the sense of belonging that it gives, and because of the simple, clear demands it makes on its followers.
Let’s face it. Christians are always apologizing (no I am not referring to apologetics); and to listen to many Christ makes no personal moral demands, only that we work for peace and the elimiation of poverty—other than that we can fornicate, sodomize and idolize at will. His crimson blood serves as our wonderful all-excusing ecclesiastical white-out. Many will point to Muslim extremes such as forcing women to dress completely covered from head to toe (including veil), but Christian women, increasingly it seems, cannot be prevailed upon not to wear halter tops just to church. Some Christian couples are so busy carressing each other in worship that one supposes that if they forgot where they were (and they look like they just might!) they would copulate right there in the pew.
Increasingly, Christianity looks like a religion for moral bozos and intellectual wimps who are too weak to do anything, whether it’s thinking for themselves, or behaving themselves.
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About Me
- James Frank Solís
- Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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