Lindsay Bernstein, of Majikthise, has a post up talking of the effect of describing some Muslims (or some Christians) as “moderates”. Although the intent may be to distance some believers from extremists with fanatical goals, a side effect is that it casts the extremist stance as somehow also the orthodox view of that faith, so that jihadists or Christian Dominionists end up being able to cast other Muslims or other Christians as heretics and/or apostates instead of as fellow orthodox believers with different opinions.
The thing to remember is that claims of fundamentalism or orthodoxy are positioning statements for brands. We often treat claims of religious orthodoxy as if they were statements of fact rather than rhetorical devices.
Positioning your doctrine as the orthodoxy is a way to marginalize your competition. If we uncritically allow the most reactionary sects to claim the mantle of orthodoxy, we do the work of fundamentalists for them.
Lindsay’s post was in turn inspired by another post from Asma Khalid: Why I Am Not A Moderate Muslim. Both are very much worth reading.
Crossposted at Hoyden About Town
I can understand the frustration of a pious and peaceful Muslim at being called ‘moderate’. I can also see how they would prefer to be called ‘orthodox’.
But the difference really is whether you are a ‘literalist’ (you believe every word in the Koran as fact and still relevant today - as does Osama bin Laden) or a ‘reformist’ (you believe that the more violent, intolerant and misogynistic passages of the Koran are no longer relevant today).
I would have to argue that ‘orthodox’ implies belief in the Koran as it stands rather than a modern interpretation.
But hasn’t “orthodoxy” in whatever faith you like to name always been a movable feast?
Who are the orthodox Christians? Those who follow the Catholic extrabiblical traditions, or those who follow the newer “sola scriptura” Protestant traditions, of which there is a contradictory abundance of interpretations? Why should one tradition of interpretation be allowed to claim orthodoxy against another competing tradition of interpretation?
I can’t see why. Sydney Anglicans, for instance, have been accused of Christological heresy by others within their own communion for their particular reading of the Gospels. Although often described as “fundamentalist”, their version of literalism actually produces quite a different dogmatic emphasis than that of evangelicals and pentecostals, for instance.
No one suggests Hillsong are “orthodox” and the Pope “moderate”.
It’s political rather than religious terminology.
For rhetorical purposes, I have left out all the other flavours of Christianity in my comment above. But surely the whole point of the separate denominations and sects is that they all have very different views of what constitutes orthodoxy:
All the different groups would argue that the faith community with which they are aligned best represents orthodoxy in terms of following God’s will, which is why they are a part of that particular group.
The same applies to the sectarian groupings in other faiths. All of them consider themselves orthodox, some are just better at claiming that rhetorical mantle than others.
Within Islam in any case, there are at least five commonly recognised schools of textual/juridical interpretation - four Sunni and one Shia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh#The_four_schools_of_Sunni_Islam
Regarding the Sydney Anglicans, Mark, I am acquainted with a minister who is part of the Jensenite inner circle. When I first made his acquaintance he described his theology as “conservative evangelical”. These days, as the Sydney Diocesan Synod moves further away from the mainstream broad tolerance of the Anglican Communion, he’s taken to describing his theology as “biblically orthodox”.
My take on this issue and all the other ones that swim in the same waters is that it is not really appropriate to compare Islam/Muslims with Xians/Xianity. The reason for this is that Islam is first and foremost a political/legal institution.
Yes, many Xians try to have their ethical/moral values/fantasies find expression in the legislature, but establishing a theocracy is not part of the deal. Also, like it or not, Australia is a transplantation of a civilization that was born with Xianity. We have co-evolved from time immemorial. For an Australian atheist to suddenly start demanding equal respect or disrespect for Xianity and imported alien value systems is naive in its denial of our Xian foundations.
I am not a religious person and have no compunction in being intolerant of Islam as to me, it is no more off-limites than the Sparticists, trotskists, BNP, One Nation, Family First, etc.
Being intolerant of religions/ideologies is one thing, treating their adherents disrespectfully “just because” they subscribe to these ideologies is not on in my book. But as soon as that ideology enters the public sphere it is fair game.
Interesting, tigtog.
I can’t see any justification (not that I agree with your characterisation of Islam, anyway), John, for assuming that it is acceptable and indeed part of the liberal tradition to decide that you are going to treat anyone’s views, political or otherwise, with disrespect and intolerance. It’s quite possible to differ with people respectfully and tolerantly and indeed I’d have thought such an attitude was a sine qua non of democratic politics.
So - when, exactly. did organised Christianity quietly exit the
publicpolitical sphere and content itself with the private?Who’s this “we”, Paleface?
In a secular society, various sects are free to yell themselves hoarse about the validity of their relative claims to “orthodoxy”. The rest of us can either ignore it or find it mildly and comically diverting. They’re doing it. We are having nothing to do with it.
However, as Gummo hints, historically, the State has either been an extension of the strongest of these sects, or it has favoured one of these sects over all others.
When the State becomes involved in signifying what is orthodox, what is heterodox, and what is heretical, then it ceases to be diverting at all and it becomes very threatening.
One theatre of the Culture Wars in the Howard era has been the political favouring of a select band of putative orthodoxies. So far, this favouring hasn’t extended far beyond massaging of sensibilities and some furious dogwhistling. But these groups want their prejudices privileged in many areas of social, cultural and educational policy.
Howard has worked hard to create a constituency among the evangelicals and pentacostalists. He needn’t bother because these folk are already wedded to conservative programs and philosophies.
Interestingly, on the other side, Muslims are taking some advantage of educational privatisation. And their sense of identity is being encouraged by Howard’s policies not in the intended way as is the case with Christian evangelicals, but in an unintended way in reaction to perceived marginalisation.
Both Christian fundamentalism and Islam are growing rapidly in Australia despite opposite treatment by the powers that be. Or maybe that should read “despite opposite treatment by the powers that be.”
Meanwhile secularists ought to be disturbed by both manifestations of the relationship between Faith and the State during the Howard era.
Organised Chistianity had a brief hiatus during the French Revolution and its aftermath, then there’s been a lacuna from Lenin to 1991 in the Soviet Union and 1945 to 1990 in the satellites. Apart from that, it’s been open slather since Origen.
Mark
Gentility has its place, but reality is often more Roman arena than bourgeois parlour game.
tigtog:
http://www.ecupatriarchate.org/
and
http://home.it.net.au/~jgrapsas/pages/Churches.html
and, as far as they are concerned, the one holy catholic apostolic church.
It’s not just Rome and Dallas
More generically orthodoxy in religion does not necessarily equal conservative and, unless the sect is itself a literalist fundamentalist one, is quite distinct from if not opposed to literalism and fundamentalism
If this blog was going to be the final accepted word on the matter of what the subject implies are the participators sure they can even summarise themselves fairly,even about the subject!? The only comment I can make is ,we are simply not helping other human beings in some countries by deciding from a distance all that could be said and written about Islam.The same would then have to be true with the small percentage of people in this country living through their experiences. You can go on about people as the young maybe,adhering to an intolerant line about what they perceive as sins of democracy around them..it is harder work to recognise if they havent directly offended you ,or .committed a crime on you, by their attitudes opinions or believes,then ,why cannot it be just accepted that,people must mature in what they think is important,and that doesnt mean,generally the use of the mind will follow a consistent process from circumstance to circumstance. A deeply Islamic young person out here where I live is not going to harm the area or themselves,and,even will find the sellers of booze,have limitations to their tolerance.Prostitution maybe a sin and evil,but it doesnt mean that prostitutes do not feel agitated enough to be intolerant of swinnish behaviour,in the use of the word. I think Australia ,and,Australians would do well in analysing by experience based matters foremost,and even if one finds the reality unacceptable, find that the others maybe having the same problem. But calling it,say,infidel!? We ,Australians,are being bogged down by the Muslim reality,yet,is it really in your life!?
Warning: your definition of respect and tolerance may vary. My respect for the right of someone to hold particular views should not preclude holding those views in contempt or exposing them to ridicule. I would have thought that attitude was the sine qua non of democratic politics in practice. Soft-pedaling on ridiculous notions simply because their adherents consider them holy writ shows a lack of respect because it estimates those adherents as too weak or flaky to defend their views without resorting to histrionics or violence.
Well, you can actually criticise and oppose something even to the point of ridicule without slipping over a line whereby you demonise and denigrate the person holding the views and damn them to hell, Bismarck. Obviously, it’s an art of citizenship observed more in the breach than the observance, but that doesn’t mean that a basic acceptance of the right to differ isn’t a fundamental preconception of democratic politics. Clearly, when religious views enter into public debate, the acceptance of that right to differ becomes problematic - for instance on some question with regard to the private rights of women over their bodies and to autonomous choices - where opinion is likely to be as vehement among both Christians and Muslims of many stripes. That’s why secularism is also a fundamental of true democratic practice. However, that should be secularism all round without regard to any ostensible privilege that history might give to a particular church or sect. Almost all the arguments that the things we value in our culture are exclusively “Christian” are, after all, demonstrably false.
Wot Bismarck said.
Worth considering here is the distinction in political theory between agonistic and antagonistic discourse (owing something to Arendt and Mouffe as well as Schmitt). In the first, modeled on the Greek agora, rhetoric and language can be pushed to limits provided that the process of decision and the rights of those who dissent are respected. In the second, characteristic of the state of war (but also of civil conflicts which tend towards symbolic and actual violence), the intent is to subjugate and even obliterate one’s opponent. There are bounds to speech. Tolerance is an insipid word, but some consideration of those bounds would be very fruitful for considering what’s happening to our political culture generally.
We appear to be in basic agreement there, Mark.
If Christianity has anything to do with Christ, which of course it must, then it is easy to sum up orthodoxy, given that its base meaning is to have a right, true and straight opinion. He qualified all orthoxoy with two simple commands - that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and that you love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). He told us that all the Law and prophets are summed up in these commands. This, then, must be the basic orthodoxy of the faith which follows Christ.
Coming off of this, for those who do believe, is Christ’s new commandment, ‘that you love one another as I have loved you… by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another’ (John 13:34-35). Spirituality and orthodoxy isn’t demonstrated by political activism or inactivism, but by the degree to which we love God, love fellow Christians (of all ‘orthodoxies’), and love all non-christians we share our lives with. Oh, and he adds the instruction to ‘love your enemies’ (Matthew 5:34)! It would seem that love is the real orthodoxy! Not merely religious, or brotherly, or sensual love, but the God kind of love that loves unconditionally, graciously, and with the other person’s best interests at heart.
Finally, the orthodoxy that binds all Christians is that of accepting Jesus Christ of Nazarethas Lord and Saviour. It’s this faith in Christ that we’ll be giving account for at the appropriate time!
And the fact that what count as “love” is different for each person and their personal deity doesn’t give you pause?
I was addressing Christian orthodoxy, Zarquon, not yours!