Religions of Peace

Islam gets a bad rap sometimes.

This is understandable in a world with Al Qaeda and ISIS, but not everyone is in these organizations. In fact, these kinds of terrorist organizations comprise the tiniest minority of Muslims.

At the same time, it's not correct to say that members of ISIS aren't Muslim. They're actually very strict in reading the Koran and following it. Indeed, their very problem, it might be said (at least if this article, which is a very interesting and insightful, though long, read, is to be believed), is that they are too strict and literal in their reading and interpretation of many aspects of Islamic scripture, and they fail to recognize that they're doing any interpretation at all. This same article gives an example of a very peaceful, quiet branch of Islam that is just as strict in its interpretation of the Koran, which views ISIS as neglecting some of the most important aspects of Islam (particularly unity of the umma, or Muslim community) in favor of the particulars they focus on so heavily.

So Islam is (as so many have been proclaiming the last several years) a religion of peace, yet, apparently, it can give rise to atrocities. How can this be?

Well, the same way that Christianity could give rise to the Inquisition.

I'm not a scholar of Islam, so I can't say whether the analogy is perfect, but you have to realize that any written word is subject to interpretation. Of course, some things are clearer than others, but even such definitive statements as "Thou shalt not kill" are complicated a bit by translation (some have suggested that it should really be translated "murder" rather than "kill," and then you can get into shades of meaning and things), and anyway the Children of Israel were elsewhere commanded to go to war. So if you really want, you can play interpretation games even with things that seem relatively clear.

In the case of the Inquisition, it seems pretty clear to me that there's some pretty bad interpretation going on, possibly colored more by aspirations for power than by sincere searching for truth. There's really no sign in the Bible of the Lord approving of torture, and it seems pretty clear to me that the response of the Church to sin that is approved of by Christ's teachings and the writings of the apostles doesn't include torture and killing. In 3 John, we hear about a branch of the Church that seems to be falling apart, with unquestionable apostates (they won't even allow the apostles to come speak to them), yet there's no sign that John was planning to inflict any physical punishment on these people.

Still, Christ did say that he "came not to bring peace, but a sword." So maybe Crusades and Inquisitions make sense? Never mind that this is a single verse, and that the context is His saying that His followers must choose to follow Him even if it causes division. Never mind that He further explains this concept, that even families might be divided for the sake of the Gospel, and set against each other. Clearly the only valid interpretation is that we must take up arms against unbelievers. Actually, you might be able to make some kind of a case for that interpretation, but it seems rather thin to me, especially in light of Christ's response to Peter coming to His defense (if you're not familiar, Peter cut the ear off a servant in the crowd that came to arrest Jesus, and Jesus healed the man). Still, you could make the case.

So Christianity is a religion of peace, one centered on the Prince of Peace, yet in His name some rather horrible things have been done. It just requires a bit of creative interpretation.

Now, lest the secularists in the audience claim that this is the fault of religion, I'd like to point out one more good thing which has been used to justify terrible things. You see, both the Nazis and the Soviet Union called their regimes the first "scientific" systems of government. They acted in the name of science. Sure, it required some pretty horrible interpretations and misunderstandings to get from real science to Soviet policies, but still, if you're going to hold the interpretations that a minority assigns to a religion against the whole religion, you'll have to do the same thing with science.

In short, whether you believe in Christianity, Islam, or nothing beyond science, someone has used what you believe in as a justification to do something terrible. So be charitable in judging others' beliefs.