Welcome to "The
Liberty Insider."
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This is a
program that brings you
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news, views, discussion,
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opinion on religious liberty
events in the United States
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and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine,
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a religious liberty journal
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that's been around
now for about 106 years.
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And the guest on
this program is Dr. Cook--
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Glad to be here with you.
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A good friend and an
author in Liberty magazine
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articles over the years.
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You're an expert on
church state studies,
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we'll push the limits of that.
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But starting from the known
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and going to the
unknown Secretary Rumsfeld
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used to say there are unknowns
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and things that we
don't know that we don't know.
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So we'll see where we go.
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It impressed on me that
early on his pontificate,
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Pope Benedict gave a
poorly receive speech
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in Regensburg, Germany.
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And I've spoken about
it on this program before.
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He was really
slapping around Protestants
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for tending
toward violence, he said.
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But he started off by
quoting a historical dialogue
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between a Muslim
and a Byzantine Emperor,
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and the Islamic world bananas.
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Even though he
only repeated the record
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that there was some tendency
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to violence in
Islam, he thought.
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You know, that seems
to me a discussible point.
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Whether you're
definitive on it that's--
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everything hinges on it.
But we are living in an era
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where there's a need
apart from doctrinal truth,
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there is an imperative,
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a need for religions to
get along with each other.
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Not to give away
their beliefs to each other,
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that would be wrong to us.
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How do you think
the Christian world,
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as well as Roman Catholicism,
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how can we reach some
sort of datum with Islam?
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You know, I think
that the first thing
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that one needs to doing
in analyzing that question
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is look at the
historical record of Islam
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because obviously
that's something that just
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as people studying Catholicism
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and asking that
question prior to Vatican II,
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the question was,
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how can Catholicism
bridge the gap of modernity
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and stay in touch
with the modern world?
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Then of course at Vatican II
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is where they hammered out
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and reformulated a
lot of their positions
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and views in the documents
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that were enunciated
then through Vatican II.
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You get ironically,
it's the very modernity
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that that's causing a
rethink of Vatican II.
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Correct. Pope
Benedict is preoccupied
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with the threat from secularism
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which may not be
as real as he thinks.
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But that's
causing a unfreezing--
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Yes, a
reevaluation of Vatican II.
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And so based on that,
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I think that when
one looks at Islam
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and the question
of church and state
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and how can Islam
relate to other religions,
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one needs to look at
the historical background
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and recognize that, you know,
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through the time
period of the crusades
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in the 7th and
the 12th centuries,
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the reaction or
response of Christianity,
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Catholicism to that,
and in the modern world
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what we're-- we
need to understand
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is the bigger
picture you've got--
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it's a democracy now rather than
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a formalized confessional state.
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And so that is another dynamic
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that would
regulate interaction between
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Islam and other religions.
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In fact, I would say
that's one of the central issues
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that Islam
scholars are taking the time
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to discuss and debate,
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looking into their
own historical tradition--
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To see if they can move away
from the confessional state.
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Yes, more towards a
modern democracy basically.
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How can Islam relate
to democracy, in essence.
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And the
scholars, that you've read,
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are they doing with this
with the reference to the Quran?
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They claim, and I've read,
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you know,
through their statements,
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their books, their writings
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as well as how they
refer back to the Quran,
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they claim that there
are statements in the Quran
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that would-- they
contain the principle,
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in other words, of
religious plurality.
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And there are statements
that I would have to state--
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to refer to that for example,
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there are two
statements that may--
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that refers to
if the creator God
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had wanted all to be of Allah,
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in other words,
believers in Allah,
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would not he have
made them that way.
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Basically, contain the
idea that they recognize
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that in the world of today,
there's going to be people
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that believe in other
religions other than in Allah.
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Yes, you're right.
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You know, I've read
the Quran--not enough,
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I've read it twice.
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Well, once through
formally and methodically
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and another times
sort of reviewing it
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and then I refer
to it now and then.
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But like the
Bible, I don't think,
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you can read this
complex holy books often enough
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'cause there's
layers of meaning.
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But yeah, I know
what you're talking about
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because Muhammad,
speaking as a non believer,
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If you're a Muslim,
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you have a totally
different view of Muhammad
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and the dictation
from the Angel Gabriel.
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But looking at as
Muhammad writing this
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and feeling he
was on inspiration.
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But Mohammad clearly
accepted the inevitable
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that there were
non-Islamic communities.
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And as long as
they acknowledged Islam
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and that's a key, you
can't leave them alone
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when they're rejecting
or even harassing the UMMAH,
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the body of believers.
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But if there
were sort of a truce
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and they acknowledged,
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"Yes, you are
Muslims we are Christians."
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They would leave you alone
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as long as there was sort
of an acceptance that Islam
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is a preeminent religion.
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But I don't believe
you can find in the Quran
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any prophetic acceptance
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that the Muslim community
used to have a secular rulership
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or any sort of rulership
separate from the religious
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dictates of the
community. It's so specific.
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And I don't know how
they'll get around it.
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But I think myself the
only way around it is--
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and it sort of a dangerous path,
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to encourage within Islam
what Christianity has done
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and you and I would to
decry treating the holy writings
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as less than literal.
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You know, there's
one Catholic scholar,
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a theologian by the
name of John Esposito.
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And basically--and he
edited a three volume work
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on Islam from a
Catholic prospective.
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And basically he has
fostered relations with Muslims,
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Muslim scholars.
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And basically
what Esposito argues
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is that just as
Catholicism prior to Vatican II
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was out of touch
with the modern world
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and now through Vatican II
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has attempted
to bridge that gap.
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He argues that
Islam needs to go through
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that same transitionary
period as the Catholic Church
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did in Vatican II
and therefore be able
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to bridge a lot of that gap.
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Now obviously I think
some of the challenges
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that one would
see in that picture,
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as you pointed out,
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is that within
the Muslim community,
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the Ummah, the
body of believers,
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you don't have a
central figurehead
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as the religious leader
like in the Catholicism,
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you've got the pope.
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So based on the Islamic concept,
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it is more of an
integrationist approach.
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They believe that
their religion needs to be
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interwoven in the
fabric of society.
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They don't see a
separation of church and state.
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For Catholicism,
when they have the leader,
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the figure head, the episcopacy
with the pope at the top.
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The pope through a
council, like Vatican II,
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can basically lead
the different groups
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that are in charge of
formulating these documents
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to try to conceptualize of a way
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by which Catholicism can exist
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and flourish
within a modern democracy.
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The contrast of that is
that within the Muslim community
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among the Ummah,
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you've just got a
mass of people that are--
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they adhere to their beliefs
and they integrate into society
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and they don't
have somebody that call
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a general council to
meet among all of them.
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Yeah, you're right.
No central authority.
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It's--in fact, in a
way, it's...in a certain way,
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it's really what
Christianity should have been.
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I think it'll be very
hard line to argue the crust
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and the early church--
the very early church leaders
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ever envisioned a higher
denominational structure.
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And even within our church,
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the Seventh-day
Adventist Church,
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Ellen White, who was
a pioneer of Adventism
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and I'm satisfied that she
spoke under some inspiration.
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She was quite
apposed to structure itself.
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She saw it as
necessary as a group
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come to a certain size.
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So, you know, we're apparently
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criticizing or critiquing Islam.
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But in some ways
that it's strength,
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not it's weakness.
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But it's a
weakness when you're dealing
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with bringing the whole group
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into a new more
benign point of view.
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Correct.
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And I don't really
have the west could
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or the Christian west
or the Christianity per say
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could influence
Islam in that direction.
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You know, there is
another scholar that recently,
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it was in just a few years ago,
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published a book,
an Islamic scholar,
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that's titled
"Redefining Church and State,
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the influence of
Muslims in western society."
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Yeah, let's read
that. That's a good title.
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Maybe some of our viewers
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will look up
something about that.
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And what he's arguing basically
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is that the traditionally
concept of church and state
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as it was-- the
history of Europe shows--
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It's a very new concept for us.
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Yes, the struggles
between the Catholic Church
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and the state at the time--
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different empires existing
during European history.
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That interaction between the two
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is something that
was the given norm.
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And then we move
into the modern era
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with the
enlightenment philosophy,
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influence in America,
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the idea of
separation of church and state
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through the first amendment,
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the vision of
the founding fathers,
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and as democracy
began to birth here
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and then flourish
throughout the world,
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so that now it's
became more of the dominant
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political
structure in the world,
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you find that based
on that Catholicism said,
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"Okay, we need to
reposition ourselves in relation
00:10:29.61\00:10:32.23
to that modern construct."
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So in the same way, this
Islamic scholar is arguing
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that now with Islam dominating
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much of the global
field it is forcing
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western society to rethink
the church-state concept--
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Well, not in the
right way either.
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It's more of an
argument for the western society
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in essence to recognize
that religion should not be
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distinct and
separate from society.
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Yeah. And even as you outline
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what is true because
in "Liberty Magazine"
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we speak of it and have
articles on it all the time
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about the
separation of church and state
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in the U.S.
informed by the enlightenment
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and we drop that
enlightenment very frequently.
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But really when
I look at history,
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from my knowledge of it,
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while it was
informed by the enlightenment,
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it was really only
the American experiment
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that truly took it to
its logical conclusion.
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And you mentioned
the western world,
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most of the rest
of the western world
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doesn't have the
strict separationism
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that the U.S.
aspires to. Correct.
00:11:27.51\00:11:29.89
Like in Canada just
north of the border.
00:11:29.92\00:11:31.65
There it's really
equal treatment of religions.
00:11:31.68\00:11:34.40
And there's some heavy
state subsidy of Catholicism,
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for example, in
Quebec and that area.
00:11:38.28\00:11:40.10
And so the goal
of the government
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and those working
with that is to make sure
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that they equally
favor other religions.
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But it's not church-state.
00:11:47.51\00:11:49.57
And in England where arguably
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the American experiment
began today in England.
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You know, they haven't
established state-church.
00:11:55.62\00:11:57.71
Then don't meddle in
the private lives of people.
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That's--but I
wouldn't really call that,
00:11:59.84\00:12:02.49
you know, a bright line
between church and state.
00:12:02.52\00:12:04.66
Correct. And you
can go pretty much
00:12:04.69\00:12:06.57
all around the
world looking at that way.
00:12:06.60\00:12:09.47
So I can see as
you say that it could--
00:12:09.50\00:12:12.32
the stress of dealing
with a total religious other
00:12:12.35\00:12:14.98
and trying to
reach some accommodation
00:12:15.01\00:12:17.68
could lead us to
rethink negatively
00:12:17.71\00:12:20.04
at separation of
church and state.
00:12:20.07\00:12:21.97
You know, what's
interesting though as far as,
00:12:22.00\00:12:23.98
I guess, kind of
flipping the scenario around
00:12:24.01\00:12:27.11
and looking at it
from a Catholic perspective
00:12:27.14\00:12:30.65
would argue more
along the lines of wanting
00:12:30.68\00:12:32.59
to recognize that government
00:12:32.62\00:12:34.68
has an obligation
to support religion
00:12:34.71\00:12:37.24
and not have a vacuum in essence
00:12:37.27\00:12:39.14
or a neutral
position of government and--
00:12:39.17\00:12:41.78
And that's not a bad position.
00:12:41.81\00:12:43.18
I wish in the U.S.,
there was more thinking like
00:12:43.21\00:12:45.28
that because groups like
00:12:45.31\00:12:46.68
the Freedom of
Religion Foundation
00:12:46.71\00:12:48.08
are playing on the constitution
00:12:48.11\00:12:49.48
with a state of desire to
drive it out of existence--
00:12:49.51\00:12:52.11
religion out of existence.
00:12:52.14\00:12:53.51
We'll be back
after a short break.
00:12:53.54\00:12:55.32
So please come
back and rejoin us
00:12:55.35\00:12:56.87
on our discussion of
the challenges of Islam
00:12:56.90\00:13:00.54
and the separation
of church and state.
00:13:00.57\00:13:04.02