Because then I have to pick my son up from German School.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the reality:<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take it as a given that there exists such a thing as Moderate Islam. <\/p>\n
Not Pragmatic Islam, in which all the icky stuff (calls for conquest of nonbelievers, polygamy, death for apostates, etc.) is ignored because it\u2019s just not practical to advocate for it, but whose adherents may indeed believe that these commands are still valid for some time in the future, whether or not they admit such to outsiders.<\/p>\n
Not Unsophisticated Islam, in which adherents do whatever they\u2019re told based on a minimal education in the faith.<\/p>\n
Not Cafeteria Islam, in which individual believers growing up in that faith tradition observe what \u201cfeels right\u201d to them.<\/p>\n
But an Islam in which peaceful coexistence with others, acceptance of a secular ruling authority based on equal treatment, equal rights for women, etc., is grounded in a coherent theology with the Koran as its religious text and with religious communities coming together to practice Moderate Islam together \u2014 much in the same way as Reform Judaism has such a coherent theology even though it discards the dictates of historic Judaism as practiced in prior millennia. <\/p>\n
Even taking that as a given, that doesn\u2019t negate the existance of what, for the sake of a better term, I\u2019ll call \u201cNon-Moderate Islam.\u201d \u00a0Maybe it\u2019s Orthodox Islam. \u00a0Or Traditional Islam. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t even feel right to say, \u201cExtremist Islam\u201d \u2014 when multiple polls show that large numbers of Muslims in various countries do believe that women should be covered head to toe, that apostates should be executed, and so on. \u00a0Maybe they don\u2019t believe that their coreligionists should be attacking targets in the West, or executing fellow Muslims, but they do believe in a number of things that we would label as, to say the last, non-moderate.<\/p>\n
Which means that what needs to happen, for the world to be A Better Place, is evangelization. \u00a0Not necessarily an attempt to convert Traditional Muslims to Christianity, but for Moderate Muslims to preach their own variant of Islam, rather than saying, \u201cthis has nothing to do with us.\u201d \u00a0 These Moderate Muslims have to stop saying, \u201ctheir Islam isn\u2019t real\u201d and start trying to convert to their own.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I know, not gonna happen. \u00a0But still. . .<\/p>\n
(A postscript: \u00a0no, I\u2019m not saying that Moderate Muslims share in the guilt of their extremist brethren. \u00a0But, because they, and only they, are in a position to actually reach out to others, they do have a duty and obligation to do so. \u00a0And perhaps that even means something like the American concept of a \u201cmissionary trip\u201d in which Westernized Muslims travel overseas, and provide education for children to compete with the Saudi-funded Koran schools.<\/p>\n
And \u2014 by the way \u2014 Moderate Islam really has to mean more than just lip service to peace and tolerance. \u00a0Believing in all manner of \u201cimmoderate\u201d things like penalties for apostasy, or criminalizing whatever you perceive as insults to your religion, or polygamy, or restrictions on Christianity in your home country, or anywhere, pretty much disqualifies you, even if you disavow violent attacks on Western targets. \u00a0You just can\u2019t play this game of, \u201csure he believed in X, Y, and Z fundamentalist Islamic positions, but he wasn\u2019t radicalized until the West\/Israel\/the US did some bad thing or another.\u201d \u00a0And the media shouldn\u2019t be allowing these folks to bear the label \u201cmoderate\u201d just because they claim to be so, or aren\u2019t as extreme as they could be.<\/p>\n
But, that being said \u2014 I have to believe that the nice, perky, headscarfed (but you can see her hair) young woman at the pharmacy who dilligently checks for discounts for me is most probably a true Moderate Muslim.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because then I have to pick my son up from German School. Here\u2019s the reality: Let\u2019s take it as a given that there exists such a thing as Moderate Islam. Not Pragmatic Islam, in which all the icky stuff (calls for conquest of nonbelievers, polygamy, death for apostates, etc.) is ignored because it\u2019s just not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-islam"],"yoast_head":"\n