A Muslim Reader Puzzles About The Concept Of “Secular Blasphemers

Responding to this piece about the curious affinity between secular blasphemers and right wing Christian torture defenders, he writes:

Peace be upon you, I am a Muslim from turkey, I want you ask you a question, is there a difference between secular and blasphemer, what does it mean to say secular blaspemers, are there non secular blasphemers?

Pleased to meet you! I don’t get to chat with Muslims too often, so bear with me since I, as a Catholic, suspect we are coming at questions from perspectives both very similar at times and also very different at other.

In answer to your first question, yes: there is a difference between “secular” and “blasphemer”. “Secular” is, in fact, a word coined by the Catholic tradition, which affirms that there are thing which are properly secular: that is, having to do with this world. So, for instance, plumbing, or math or fishing are secular pursuits. A person can, of course, do them to the glory of God, but these things have their own integrity and their own internal logic that are not dependent on revelation. 2+2=4 is not Catholic math or Muslim math. It’s just math. This distinction between secular pursuits and things proper to revelation is found, for instance, in Jesus, who says “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.” Likewise, St. Paul says that Caesar has his own proper sphere of power–under God, of course, yet still not particularly dependent on revelation. The Department of Motor Vehicles or the Department of Agriculture are not commanded in the Bible. They have their own integrity, internal logic, and rationale.

This is not godlessness. This is, instead, the recognition that God, in creating the world, invests it with its own powers and human being with their own innate dignity. In short, it is to say that while the Catholic faith always maintains that God is the Creator and Lord of creation, his way of doing that is to make creatures secondary causes. So, for instance, there are two reasons this email exists. The first is that God willed that it exist. The second is that I wrote it. Moreover, I wrote it on a computer that is the result of thousands of secondary causes such as mathematicians, engineers, providers of raw materials, and manufacturers, corporations that generate electricity, ISPs, and a host of other things that help this email I am sub-creating land in your mailbox. All this is secular work. None of it is blasphemous. It is simply human beings doing the work of tending and using the creation God made.

That said, there are, of course, secular blasphemers. That is, there are those who insist that there is nothing but this world of time, space, matter and energy, and therefore, no higher goods in the world than money, pleasure, power, and honor. This is a kind of passive blasphemy since it takes the gift of the universe God has given us with a stunning lack of gratitude. There is an even more aggressive form of secular blasphemy which does not merely ignore God, but which actively insults him in the name of some merely earthly good, or simply out of raw pride.

Finally, it is vital to know that, yes indeed, there are non-secular blasphemers. Everybody involved in the murder of Jesus was, at least ostensibly, a believer in God, not an atheist. Judas who betrayed him, Annas and Caiaphas who sought his death, the mob who called for his blood, even Pontius Pilate were none of them atheists. Similarly, the bishop and Catholics who burnt St. Joan of Arc at the stake were not atheists. Likewise, in your own Islamic tradition, monsters like ISIS, who horribly blaspheme God, are none of them atheists, as they murder not only Christians but other Muslims as well. As Jesus warned his disciples, “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” (John 16:3). The key, of course, is that religious believers are not immune from the reality of sin. We can take our very belief in God and pervert it so profoundly that even it become a tool subjected to our prideful lust for money, pleasure, power, and/or honor. Nobody in the world is immune from that temptation. But the good news is that God, the merciful and compassionate, is always at work in the world to call us back from such madness.

He replies:

Thank you very much for replying my question, my english can’t be very good, but i will try to explain some thing, first about believers in appearance, in the way to describe such persons in the qur’aan we have the word hypocrite,

We Christians have that word too. Jesus had hard things to say to hypocrites in, for instance, Matthew 23.

also about secular activities, we believe if you are believer your every activity is worship,” whatever you are doing he is with you”,

Both the Jewish and Christian Bible have similar ideas. St. Paul, for instance, says, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17). And Jesus says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” at the end of Matthew’s gospel.

yes we can express also in the way you speak, this not a big problem but if someone is non-secular blasphemer or secular blasphemar he is blasphemar, there is no difference

I agree. Ultimately, blasphemy is blasphemy.