Spiritual Hypocrisy in America on Islam

Numerous statements have come to light recently about how many neo-conservatives and religious right pundits and leaders see Islam. These remarks are not restricted to extremists within Islam but are thrown at Islam as a whole. The remarks run from picturing Islam as a bastard religion to a terrorist religion.

Martin Luther, the Protestant theologian and preacher had a different view. Instead of focusing on the outside threat posed by Islam in his own time, he saw the real threat as being spiritual decadence within his own society and culture. ...

Recent statements by right-wing commentators include the following:

• Right-wing writer Anne Coulter calls Islam "a car-burning cult"
  
• Radio personality Oliver North says "There is no such thing as an Islamic moderate"
  
• CNN commentator William Bennett said, these people are unhinged
  
• CBN reporter Dale Hurd told listeners, ”The cartoons seem to have unified the Muslim world against the West. It remains to be seen whether they will also unify the West in defense of its civilization.”
  
• Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president William A. Donahue said on MSNBC, “But over there, they take the uncivilized approach. And then they wonder why so many people don't trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty, because they will abuse it. In this country, we prize freedom of religion. They abhor it.”

These statements set out to portray Islam as comprised of irrational and irresponsible individuals. At the same time, the comments appear to take it for granted that western culture and religions are inherently different and eminently rational. In setting up this opposition, these writers and pundits hope to paint western civilization, American society, and themselves as righteously virtuous. By implication, and along with other comments they provide, Christianity and Judaism are superior to Islam.

By setting themselves up as arbiters of virtue, these people presume to cast aspersions on others, as though there are no problems not only with themselves and thei own consciences but also problems within their own culture. This type of spiritual self-righteousness is often employed by those who delude themselves into believing they are in close contact with God.

There is an alternative to this approach. It understands all questions of ethics and religious attitude as starting first with oneself and working one’s way out. It is this ethically oriented approach that scours one’s own conscience before attacking others. At the same time, it does not presume to judge others since one cannot presume to do so since that judgment will itself reflect back on me. In this regard, Luther’s comments on Islam prove instructive.

According to Martin E. Marty, the sociologist of religion

[Luther’s] most consistent point: there dared never be any religious, theological, or spiritual claim that "our side" had a monopoly on virtue. Instead, Luther's whole theme was a call to prayer and repentance by "our side." The Muslims, he sometimes said, though they were evil, might be more pious than most Christians. Historian Mark Edwards writes that Luther saw the Turks as a "scourge of God," an apocalyptic sign that the world was coming to an end.

What was repentance to include? The twentieth century's major biographer of Luther [in 3 volumes!], Martin Brecht, summarizes: Luther preached that the true "Turks," the real enemies, were all on "our" side. He specified them, "greed, usury, arrogance, arbitrary morality, tyranny of those in high places, unfaithfulness, evil." Arrogance disturbed him most.

Conclusions you could draw from Luther’s remarks, juxtaposed with those of the talking heads quoted above, include the following:

• The emphasis on attacking Islam as a religion is an effort to turn eyes away from our own spiritual decay,
• political leaders have taken over religious prejudices between adherents of religions to exploit them for purely political purposes
• The neglect of the dictum that spiritual and ethical realization begin within oneself and at home.