Word: islamics
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Under Pope Benedict XVI's reign, the Vatican dossier on Islam could be entitled: "Regensburg, and Everything After." Regensburg was the professor Pope's landmark 2006 discourse at his former university that included a nasty historical citation about the prophet Mohammed and provocatively asked if Islam lacks reason, making it inherently prone to violence. The worldwide protests among Muslims, including a handful of church burnings and the killing of a nun, forced the Pope to quickly change his approach, and soften his tone...
...while he has spent the past two-plus years reaching out to Islamic leaders, Benedict has subtly tried to keep alive the hard questions he posed at the German university. Benedict has expanded on this formula since landing Friday in the moderate Muslim kingdom of Jordan, the first stop on his eight-day Holy Land pilgrimage. He told King Abdullah II upon his arrival in Amman that he has "deep respect" for Islam, and on Saturday he was welcomed in the country's largest mosque and gave another fascinating - if less radioactive - philosophical treatise. (See pictures chronicling the reign...
This idea of a faithless allegiance to reason as the cause of rising secularism is a concern of both Muslim and Christian leaders, and was a much less cited theme of his Regensburg lecture. But the source of tension two years ago was the flipside: Benedict's contention that Islam has an absolutist conception of God that doesn't leave room for reason. On Saturday, however lightly, he seemed to return to this point. "Christians describe God, among other ways, as creative Reason, which orders and guides the world," the Pope said. "Muslims worship God, the Creator of Heaven...
...Ghaszi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal, the top religious advisor to the Jordanian King, thanked Benedict for having expressed regret for "the hurt caused by the [Regensburg] lecture to Muslims" and for other words and gestures since. Still, Ghaszi pointedly condemned "distorted depictions" in the West of the roots of Islam as "responsible for much historical and cultural tension between Christians and Muslims." He said it was now clear that the Pope's comments about the prophet in 2006 was just "a citation in an academic lecture," but added that it is incumbent on Muslims to explain the Prophets' example above...
...also notes a key difference between Beliefnet and Patheos: "We're multifaith, but for the most part, people use us to explain their own, rather than learn about other, religions," says Waldman. Which is why Patheos may be well supported among those whose religions have been broadly misunderstood. "Islam is this bogeyman," says Patheos contributor Jonathan A.C. Brown, a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Washington, noting that people act as though "everyone has achieved some enlightenment, except for Muslims, who are stuck in the Dark Ages." For Muslims, he says, "to have a forum where...