Word: christianly
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...show that Islam sees God as so transcendent that reason is extraneous, Benedict cited an 11th century Muslim sage named Ibn Hazm. To establish the connection between this position and violence, he quoted a 15th century Christian Byzantine Emperor (and head of the Byzantine, or Eastern, Church) named Manuel II Paleologus. Paleologus criticized Muslims for "spreading [their faith] by the sword," both because "God is not pleased by blood" and because true conversion depended on reason. "Show me just what the Muhammad brought that was new," Paleologus said, in a passage quoted by Benedict, "and there you will find things...
...ness with Islamic sensitivity. I agree that elements of Islam that either explicitly espouse violence or are less than aggressive in combatting it need to be challenged and nudged, [just as] I would like to see the Pope continue to challenge and nudge people of all different religions--Christian and non-Christian--to look at the suffering of people." She thinks that, given the heat he's taking in parts of the Islamic world, his willingness to go through with his Turkish trip is "so brave...
...what should he do while he's there? John Esposito, a respected Islam scholar at Georgetown University, says the Pope can't confine himself to meetings with Christian leaders. "He must address the Muslim majority." Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor at George Washington University and one of the 38 signatories to the October letter to Benedict, says the Pope should deliver an "earnest expression of commonality"--even if it's only the widely accepted observation that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim descent from the biblical figure of Abraham. Father Richard McBrien, a theologian at Notre Dame, says that...
...Pope may want to consider the story of a much earlier walker of the Catholic-Islamic tightrope. In the 13th century, during the middle of the Fifth Crusade, St. Francis of Assisi briefly departed Italy and journeyed to the Holy Land to evangelize to the Muslims. According to Christian traditions, he preached the gospel to the Sultan, only to be told that Muslims were as convinced of the truth of Islam as Francis was of Christianity. At that, Francis proposed that he and a Muslim walk through a fire to test whose faith was stronger. The Sultan said he didn...
...attention has focused mainly on the lecture's association between violence and Islam, but the most important and disputable aspect of it was Benedict's reflection on what it means to be European. In his speech at Regensburg, the Pope attempted to set out a European identity that is Christian by faith and Greek by philosophical reason. But Benedict's speech implicitly suggested that he believes that Islam has no such relationship with reason--and thus is excluded from being European. Several years ago, the Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, set forth his opposition to the integration of Turkey into...