George W. Obama Says Islam is a Religion of Peace

The differences between George Bush and Barack Obama on the economy, military, spying (on you, the reader), and even abortion are so minimal that the two presidents can be combined into a hybrid creature called George W. Obama.

However, last night it struck me that they might also share at least one positive trait. Epiphanies like that are always welcome.

Barack Obama has caught so much flack on his rhetoric about Islam being a religion of peace that I don’t need to retread all of that for you.

But do you remember how George W. Bush decisively pushed back against the temptation to scapegoat Islam less than a week after the 9/11 attacks?

If you don’t,  then read the following beautiful excerpt from a speech he gave at the Islamic Center in DC. Whatever his limitations (Obama’s too) might have been, he really hit it out of the park here.

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.  That’s not what Islam is all about.  Islam is peace.  These terrorists don’t represent peace.  They represent evil and war.

When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world.  Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace.  And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race.

America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country.  Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads.  And they need to be treated with respect.  In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.

Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes.  Moms who wear cover must be not intimidated in America.  That’s not the America I know.  That’s not the America I value.

I’ve been told that some fear to leave; some don’t want to go shopping for their families; some don’t want to go about their ordinary daily routines because, by wearing cover, they’re afraid they’ll be intimidated. That should not and that will not stand in America.

Would this fly in our seemingly more polarized times? I don’t think President Obama would get away with saying this much–so directly and confidently.

After seeing the footage below and reading the transcript I cite above I want to reconsider, which is not to say entirely retract, my harsh judgment of Jody Bottum’s  An Anxious Age where he claims Bush’s 2nd inaugural as a sophisticated natural law argument. Who knows, maybe there is more to this appraisal of Bush’s 2nd inaugural from An Anxious Age than met my eye at first?

There’s even a name for the method (although not necessarily the content) of the kind of theistical philosophy [used in Bush’s inaugural]. It’s called natural law–a branch of philosophy, not theology. An inaugural address, by its very national purpose, walks the tightrope between powerful abstractions and empty platitudes, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. “In America’s ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak,” Bush said.

Let’s hope that the former, powerful abstractions in the most positive, win out in the political debates about Islam in the West. Given Christianity’s own violent past (recent past even), there’s no reason to highlight only the violent tendencies of Islam as if that were its only impulse.

As Channel Manager on Patheos Catholic I’ve been proud to see our better angels emerge in the conversation Fr. Longenecker (The Pyramid of Hate in the Muslim World), Keith Michael Estrada (Does Fr. Dwight Longenecker Teach what the Church teaches on Catholic-Muslim Relations?), and Mindy Selmys (Should We Fear Islam?) on this very topic.

The civil debate their exchange is providing makes me proud, very proud.

By the way, do you know the one and only Christian group that teaches it worships the same God as Muslims? Click here to find out.

 If you are curious about my thoughts on the topic, then look at Islam Does Not Need a Reformation.