AND TO THINK–BACK IN 1996, PETER KREEFT WAS PUSHING THE “ECUMENICAL JIHAD“: What a difference a day makes.

Haven’t posted about the “intoonfadeh” because I didn’t have much useful to say. Here’s a roundup of things that have interested me, in case you care.

Anthony Esolen, at Mere Comments, with what may ultimately be the most insightful comment on the whole mess:

Some years ago, after teaching a few classes on what happened to the works of the Islamic heretics Avicenna and Averroes, I asked a philosopher friend of mine whether their rejection was inevitable. So it seemed to me, reading selections from the Koran and from their bitter and clear-thinking opponent, the theologian Al-Ghazali. He said that he thought that Islam really left no room for the development of natural law thinking; the flaw lies at the heart of the religion, in the voluntarist conception of God. “What will happen to us, then?” I asked. “One side will destroy the other,” he replied. And he was a liberal who detested war.

(link)

As I understand voluntarism, it sharply divides God from human reason. Once you’ve made that move, I expect it’s hard to know why a believer should ever bother with religious freedom. I don’t know enough to have an opinion on whether Islam is inherently voluntarist in this sense (…obviously); but if it is, that’s a very bad sign. (And also a reason the many Catholics who identify with Islam as a faith despised by secularists might want to reconsider their allegiances. This one bites, I think.) …Link via Relapsed Catholic.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS WESTERN TERRORISM.

Koranic criticism: the next battlefield?

Your Life of Brian reference for the day:

…For better or worse, expatriate and foreign-educated Middle Easterners have helped to shape decisively the secular and religious cultures that have dominated their homelands since World War II. Many of the best and brightest of the Middle East now live abroad. Many have sought greater freedom of expression and personal liberty in the West. Is it Presidents Clinton and Chirac’s desire that Muslim satirists never develop because their work would be insensitive to less irreverent Muslims? In its heyday, Islamic civilization contained many heterodox and heretical strains. In particular, Shiism, always a vehicle for minority protest, was rich in movements and cultural experimentation that sometimes electrified and horrified the Sunni Muslim world. …

Like Christendom before it, the Muslim Middle East will have to work out its relation to modernity. The faster democracy arrives, the sooner the debates about God and man can begin in earnest.

(more; well worth your time, and a counter to the Esolen perspective)

Toons bad! Fire pretty!, or, links you should look at. Also via Relapsed C.

A nuanced discussion from Amy Welborn, which–to my un-nuanced mind–centers on the question of whether America can do better than Europe in responding to Islam, and, if so, why.

Pictures of prophets: “For reasons that include ‘cultural sensitivity,’ and today’s bloody news, none of these old paintings is currently on view.” (more)

Kevlar kisses from the silver screen….

Cause opened for sainthood for priest killed in Turkey: “A cause for the beatification of Father Andrea Santoro, the Italian missionary slain in Turkey last Sunday, will be opened as soon as possible, Cardinal Camillo Ruini announced at the priest’s funeral.” (more)–via Cacciaguida.

And yet more Kathy Kathy Kathy!:

Were they deliberately provocative? Of course. Deliberate provocations are also part of the great Western tradition, from the Boston Tea Party to the Sex Pistol’s first single. And many people deserve to be provoked. It will do them some good.

(she wasn’t raised by nuns for nothing…)

Michael Kinsley vs the world.

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.”
And whisper’d in the sounds of silence

Oh, awesome, too much. (Also, unsurprisingly, via Relapsed C.)

Surely Voltaire and the Prophet (pbuh? snuh?) are not our only options.