Would you wear a Hijab in solidarity?

[Mouthwash]

So? So you were incorrect. The Gospels reaffirmed the biblical law from old testament

No, they didn't.

upon which Sharia is also based.

It is certainly not based on OT law. Influenced by, but not based on.

So some Christians rightfully choose to ignore some or all biblical laws but the laws themselves don't change. And Muslims can and do ignore their religious laws when those laws become bothersome enough.

The difference is that Christian denominations which don't follow biblical laws believe that they genuinely don't apply in a theological sense, while Muslims who don't follow Shariah just call themselves secular or modern Muslims. Islamic and Jewish law are both vastly more extensive than any laws found in the OT alone.

It's as inherently arbitrary in Islam as it is in Christianity.

The focus in Christianity is on Jesus, while the focus in Islam and Judaism is on the law itself. That is what 'saves' them.

 

[Traitorfish]

Christianity is not a code of law. Islam is. To be a Muslim you must follow Shariah, which is a product of Arab and Mediterranean tribal law.

Aren't you Jewish?

The only real unifying characteristic of Christians is acceptance of Christ and the Gospels (who hardly lay out a political platform).

Historically, the unifying aspect of Christianity is the apostolic succession. The sects which reject this tradition are atypical of the majority.

 

[Mouthwash]

Aren't you Jewish?

Well yes, I assume there are things which are derived from Halakha. But I don't think it's too significant, based on what (little) I know of Islamic law.

Historically, the unifying aspect of Christianity is the apostolic succession. The sects which reject this tradition are atypical of the majority.

You mean... Protestantism?

 

[Traitorfish]

Well yes, I assume there are things which are derived from Halakha. But I don't think it's too significant, based on what (little) I know of Islamic law.

I meant that it's odd for a Jew to condemn a religion for being legalistic and tribal. And for having funny rules about head-coverings, come to think of it.

You mean... Protestantism?

Some of them. Anglicans regard apostolic succession as centrally as Catholics, while the position of Methodist and Lutheran churches is complicated. Of the major historical denominations, only the Reformed churches rejected the succession outright, and they were only predominant in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland and New England, or in parts of the world colonised by those people. It's only since the mid-nineteenth century that non-apostolic churches have become numerically significant on the world scale, with the conversion of huge numbers of Americans to Baptist, evangelical and Pentecostal sects, and subsequent missionary efforts in South America, Africa and Asia. Even today, after a century of religious change that has seen Africa and Asian converts and European apostates each numbering in the tens or hundreds of millions, about one fifth, maybe one quarter of Christians globally belong to non-Apostolic traditions.

 

[Mouthwash]

I meant that it's odd for a Jew to condemn a religion for being legalistic and tribal.

Did I condemn it for that? All I did was point out that the equivalence with Christianity doesn't work.

And for having funny rules about head-coverings, come to think of it.

Some of them. Anglicans regard apostolic succession as centrally as Catholics, while the position of Methodist and Lutheran churches is complicated. Of the major historical denominations, only the Reformed churches rejected the succession outright, and they were only predominant in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland and New England, or in parts of the world colonised by those people. It's only since the mid-nineteenth century that non-apostolic churches have become numerically significant on the world scale, with the conversion of huge numbers of Americans to Baptist, evangelical and Pentecostal sects, and subsequent missionary efforts in South America, Africa and Asia. Even today, after a century of religious change that has seen Africa and Asian converts and European apostates each numbering in the tens or hundreds of millions, about one fifth, maybe one quarter of Christians globally belong to non-Apostolic traditions.

Seems a bit no true Scotsman-y to label a fifth of self-declared Christians unchristian.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm not sure we do, reliably, label them so. I tend to like Baptists, when I meet them, as I tend to like people from Islamic traditions, when I have the opportunity to interact with them though the cultural baggage tends to be heavy as hell. It's lighter with Baptists or Jews. We share more music. Literally. Be that as it may, TF's concerns are relevant if you want to get into the level where you start grubbing through each other's legal and theological traditions. I really, really don't like the Presbeterian take on Grace. Capitalized because it is gorsh dern fundamental, but I am totally fine with my local church combining Sunday School with the Frozen Chosen because, well, it's near enough that the difference will translate out at home, or it won't.

 

[Traitorfish]

Did I condemn it for that? All I did was point out that the equivalence with Christianity doesn't work.

The criticism seemed implicit, but maybe I'm over-reading. (I do that.)

Seems a bit no true Scotsman-y to label a fifth of self-declared Christians unchristian.

Not un-Christian, but atypical of historical Christianity. What defined most Christians for most of their history was the apostolic succession, which was understood as a tangible historical link to Christ. Even the Reformed tradition shares this basic concern with a genealogy going back to the Incarnation, they just frame the Church as a community of believers, first and foremost, rather than a community of bishops and their flocks. The idea that Christianity is an individual, a-historical connection to Christ was simple heresy until the Reformation, and a fringe notion for a long time after that; it only becomes mainstream over the nineteenth century, when the Great Awakenings pull millions of Americans into previously marginal or entirely novel religious traditions. So, a definition of Christianity that is stretched to encompass these new religious movements is going to be far too broad and woolly to describe Christianity over its two thousand years.

Essentially, the claim that Islam narrow and hide-bound where Christianity is happy-go-lucky and open to negotiation, is based on the fact that a minority of Christians, and until recently a small minority of Christianity, just do whatever they feel like with no reference to the majority. All it would take, then, is for a small minority of Muslims to branch off into their own eff-y'all-I'm-doing-me traditions, and it would end up along Christian as a choose-your-own-salvation religion. It's a definition based on contingent historical change, not the "essence" of either religion, so therefore seems a questionable basis for comparison.

If nothing else, it highlights the point that in certain fundamental ways, certain branches of Islam are closer to Protestantism than either are to Christianity, namely, that the only things required to practice them are a book and faith; it just happens that the Muslims' book is more explicit about what it expects from believers than the Protestants'.

 

[Mouthwash]

Essentially, the claim that Islam narrow and hide-bound where Christianity is happy-go-lucky and open to negotiation, is based on the fact that a minority of Christians, and until recently a small minority of Christianity, must do whatever they feel like with no reference to the majority. All it would take, then, is for a small minority of Muslims to branch off into their own eff-y'all-I'm-doing-me traditions, and it would end up along Christian as a choose-your-own-salvation religion. It's a definition based on contingent historical change, not the "essence" of either religion, so therefore seems a questionable basis for comparison.

The Gospels provide vague moral injunctions, while Shariah legislates nearly every aspect of life. There's no wiggle room.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Gospels provide vague moral injunctions, while Shariah legislates nearly every aspect of life. There's no wiggle room.

The episcopacy legislated nearly ever aspect of life, too, and until some German started nailing his fifteenth century version of a twitter rant onto a church door, virtually every Christian in the world was subject to some branch of the episcopacy.

 

[Mouthwash]

The episcopacy legislated nearly ever aspect of life, too, and until some German started nailing his fifteenth century version of a twitter rant onto a church door, virtually every Christian in the world was subject to some branch of the episcopacy.

But that episcopacy isn't the representative of Christianity as a whole. It couldn't even wipe out rival episcopacies before that fifteenth-century Twitter rant.

 

[Traitorfish]

But that episcopacy isn't the representative of Christianity as a whole. It couldn't even wipe out rival episcopacies before that fifteenth-century Twitter rant.

It's representative of at least three quarters of Christians, and until the nineteenth century was representative of virtually all Christians. The Christian Church as an institution was inseparable from the episcopacy until the Reformation, and even then, the great majority of Christians continued to be organise themselves on broadly episcopal lines simply out of convenience. If we're talking about Christianity in historical terms, as an institution and culture, we're mostly talking about some form of episcopalianism. The fact that there were rival episcopacies simply emphasises that point: for all the political and theological and liturgical divisions between Christian communities, it rarely occurred to them to adopt anything other than an episcopal form of organisation, because that was so widely assumed to be inseparable from Christianity.

The basic point is, it's silly to try and define religions in abstract doctrinal terms, because that's not what religions are: they're living communities defined by their institutions, rituals and practices. Comparative religion is always a comparison between actual religious traditions, not simply between big, fuzzy abstractions like "Christianity" and "Islam" that can be boiled down to a one-sentence summary.

Besides, even if we define Christianity as "accepting Christ", you've still got to define "accept Christ". Many Muslims regard Jesus as the Messiah and the anointed of God, which is not fundamentally different from certain Unitarian Christian traditions. So are Muslims actually Christians? Are Unitarians non-Christian? Such abstract distinctions made wading into two thousand years of doctrine, and if we are not ourselves Christians, we have really no grounds to say which doctrines are right or wrong, only which doctrines have been held by certain people at certain times.

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't see how that refutes my point about Islam being inherently litigious and inflexible.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't see how that refutes my point about Islam being inherently litigious and inflexible.

It was specifically the contrast to a libertarian and individualistic Christianity I was disputing. Islam is not historically any more or less dogmatic than Christianity, it's only more consistent, and that has as much to do with the fact that Muslims historically possessed a shared liturgical and scholarly language as it does to do with any inherent rigidity. That a dozen bishops have a dozen opinions, while a dozen imams share one opinion, does not imply that the bishops are more open-minded or pluralistic, only that they are in disagreement with each other.

 

[Mouthwash]

It was specifically the contrast to a libertarian and individualistic Christianity I was disputing.

The fact that Protestantism is so popular at all sort of proves my point, no?

Islam is not historically any more or less dogmatic than Christianity

This is only true up until the reformation. Mass literacy resulted in things like Calvinism, Methodism, Quakerism, etc which all hugely influenced secular models of society. Islam doesn't have much useful to say these days.

 

[Traitorfish]

The fact that Protestantism is so popular at all sort of proves my point, no?

Not really. The kind of Protestantism you're describing really only emerges as a major cultural force in the nineteenth century in the United States, and the large slice of the Christian pie it now claims is a result of, on the one hand, aggressive proselytising efforts by American churches among previously non-Protestant populations in Africa, Asia and South America, and on the other, by high rates of apostasy among Catholic, Orthodox and Mainline Protestant Churches. From a historical perspective, it's a novel and really quite bizarre phenomenon, enabled by the unique political and economic circumstances thrown up in the American West.

This is only true up until the reformation. Mass literacy resulted in things like Calvinism, Methodism, Quakerism, etc which all hugely influenced secular models of society. Islam doesn't have much useful to say these days.

Protestantism secularism was not, for a very long time, what we recognise as secularism. It was about protecting the church from the state, rather than the state from the church, and it was still expected that the state would govern very much in line with religious principles and with the approval of religious authorities; Scotland was a virtual theocracy until the 1960s, despite the Kirk having been disestablished at its own request in the seventeenth century. This actually parallels certain strains of Islamic thought, which have tended to regard the state as something a bit grubby and disreputable and which should therefore be kept at arms length from the sanctity of the mosque and the madrasa, while still operating in accordance with the moral truths which those institutions propound.

Rather, modern secularism really emerges from the thought of French and English liberals, who lived in decidedly unsecular countries- England, to this day, has an established Protestant Church. We associate secularism with the Reformation largely because that was the mythology constructed by New England radicals during the American Revolution, who wanted to draw a line from their own secular revolution to their Congregationalist forebearers, and in doing so conflate the religious pluralism of the radical Reformation with their own modernising secularism.

 

[inthesomeday]

In the US Islam has lots useful to say, with organizations like the Nation of Islam and the Five Percenters fighting for civil rights to this very day.

 

[Ryika]

First I wanted to like your post for well-hidden sarcasm, but then I looked at your signature and now I'm not sure anymore.

 

[Ajidica]

Scotland was a virtual theocracy until the 1960s,

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? It seems like that description would fit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland more given the strong (unofficial) role the Catholic and Protestant Churches played in society.

 

[Traitorfish]

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? It seems like that description would fit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland more given the strong (unofficial) role the Catholic and Protestant Churches played in society.

It was essentially the same system. Little to nothing got done without the say-so of the Kirk, at least, nothing that could plausibly be devolved to the level of local government. Most social services, including the entire educational system, was operated directly by or under the close supervision of Kirk leaders, and the Kirk exercised acted as a de facto censor for print media, and later even over cinema and radio. The Kirk's General Assembly, while having no formal authority, acted as sort of ersatz parliament, debating the great matters of the day as if it were a genuine legislature, and its resolutions were taken so seriously by local councils and by the Scottish Office that it may as well have been.

"Theocracy" is possibly too strong a word, and the lack of formal devolved government or a united Presbyterian church meant that the Kirk never had the same sort of direct political clout that the Catholic Church did in Ireland. Additionally, a Presbyterian system means that clerics work alongside lay-elders, who were as a rule drawn from the same local business and professional communities that produced political leaders, so in some sense it was simply a religiously-inflected version of the same sort of soft-oligarchy that the rest of Britain operated under. But, suffice to say, it was a far cry from what modern liberals would recognise as a secular nation.

 

[inthesomeday]

First I wanted to like your post for well-hidden sarcasm, but then I looked at your signature and now I'm not sure anymore.

No sarcasm whatsoever