In an address to Catholic bishops from England and Wales, he echoed the recent comments of Pope Benedict who said the Church faced “powerful political and cultural currents” in favour of redefining marriage, the Telegraph reported:

His comments come after a series of high-level interventions by some Muslim and Jewish leaders last month after the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, launched a national consultation on how same-sex marriage might be introduced.

Last month the Muslim Council of Britain voiced opposition to the plans, describing it as “unnecessary and unhelpful”. In Scotland, the Council of Glasgow Imams recently agreed a joint resolution describing same-sex marriage as an “attack” on their faith and fundamental beliefs.

Opinion in the Jewish community has been more sharply divided. The Liberal and Reform synagogues have given their support to same-sex marriage but rabbis within the main United Synagogues have expressed opposition.

The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, who is retiring, has so far resisted pressure to voice opposition to the proposal.

But Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill United Synagogue in north London, who advises him on family issues, recently accused the Coalition of launching an “assault” on religious values.

Meanwhile Lord Singh, head of the Network of Sikh Organisations, recently said the proposed reforms represented “a sideways assault on religion”.

Addressing English and Welsh bishops at their plenary meeting in Leeds, Archbishop Mennini, warned them they faced a “lengthy and probably difficult campaign”.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t ask for and look for more support among other Christian confessions and indeed, persons of other faiths,” he said.

“It seems to me that, concerning the institution of marriage, and indeed the sanctity of human life, we have much in common with the position of the Jewish community, the Chief Rabbi and many of the more significant representatives of Islam.”

In the pre-Islamic period, the practice of female infanticide was widespread in much of Arabia, but it was immediately forbidden through Islamic injunctions. Several verses of the Quran were revealed that prohibited this practice to protect the rights of the unborn and of the newborn child: “When the female infant, buried alive, is questioned for what crime was she killed; when the scrolls are laid open; when the World on High is unveiled; when the Blazing Fire is kindled to fierce heat; and when the Garden is brought near; Then shall each soul know what it has put forward. So verily I call” (81: 8-15). Indeed, there are many verses in the Quran that remind us of the sanctity of life. We are told that “Wealth and children are an adornment of this life” (18:46), and we are commanded to “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Verily the killing of them is a great sin” (17:31).

While the religious injunctions reverberate through faith on a spiritual level, the blessings of life touch us daily on a worldly level, as well. As the mother of three beautiful children, I can truly attest to and appreciate the gift of life. But I also understand how heartbreaking it is to lose it.

I want to share with you the story of how I came to realize life’s fragility and the importance of making the most of our spiritual journeys here on earth. Over thirteen years ago, my husband and I were eager to start our family. We were ecstatic when, a few months shy of our first anniversary, we found out that we were expecting. Very early on, we began playing the “new parent” planning game, picking out names and nursery colors even before our first doctor’s appointment.

A few months into the pregnancy, the doctor scheduled a routine ultrasound. Giddy with excitement, we entered the darkened room and waited in great anticipation to see our child. There on the screen—fuzzy, yet discernible—we could see our baby’s outline. We imagined the features and jokingly guessed who the baby might look like. But the ultrasound technician did not laugh with us. As she solemnly stared at the screen, we followed her gaze. As inexperienced as we were, we could tell that something was not right: our baby had no heartbeat.

After losing my first child, I truly began to understand the meaning of life. When the heartbeat we’d heard so clearly on the Doppler suddenly ceased, our baby’s life ended in the womb, before he or she even had a chance to begin in the outside world.

But strong faith and an unshakeable belief in a just God is a great formula for filling any emotional void. As the Quran states in Verse 156 of Surat Al-Baqara, there are great blessings for those “who, when a misfortune overtakes them, say: ‘Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return.’” Losing our first baby led to a deeper appreciation of God’s magnificence and the miracle of His creation.

Several months later, we found out we were expecting again. This time, the excitement was tempered with worry. Our first ultrasound came much earlier in the pregnancy, and we eagerly scanned the screen for the telltale beating before glancing at fingers and toes or eyes and nose. And there it was, strong and steady! We breathed a sigh of relief. Our baby was alive.

As the months of this second pregnancy progressed and the baby bump grew larger, we began to hope. Each ultrasound revealed a little more of our child and each kick confirmed that this time we were really going to begin our family. As the due date quickly approached, we felt more confident in choosing baby items and room colors. We even chose the name for our baby girl. Her name would be Jennah, which means Heaven in Arabic.

With just a few weeks left before my scheduled delivery date, I went into labor. As we sped to the hospital and I was wheeled into the darkened ultrasound room, out of habit, my eyes went directly to the heart area on the screen that I knew all too well by now. That tiny heart, which I had sought out so many times in the previous ultrasounds, had stopped beating.

That day, so many years ago, I delivered Jennah, my stillborn daughter; and that day we buried Jennah. We hadn’t known how fitting her name would really be. As the infection that had ended the pregnancy sped through my blood in the days that followed, I recognized just how delicate life really is. Nothing can bring life into perspective as much as loss. And nothing can affirm faith as much as life.

Today, as I look at my three beautiful children, I know that God is good. No, God is great, or in Arabic, Allahu Akbar. And what gives me the greatest solace in times of trial is the verse in the Quran that states: “It may be that you detest something which is good for you; while perhaps you love something even though it is bad for you. God knows, while you do not know” (2:216).

As Muslims, we believe in the power of life to change others, and we believe even more in the power of God. In any disaster, in any calamity, and in the face of any death, we are urged to repeat “inna lilah wa inna ilayhee raji’un”—“To God we belong and to Him we return.” In the end, only He knows what is best for us.

I could share with you so many stories from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran that illustrate the power of God in our lives: the creation of Adam, the patience of Job, the perseverance of Noah, the purity of Joseph, the judiciousness of Solomon, the trials of Jonah, the obedience of Abraham, the wisdom of Moses, the devotion of Jesus, and the inspiration of Mohamed. I could share these stories with you, but they are available to all in the Holy Scriptures.

Instead, I want to share with you the story of an amazing woman whom I met recently at a conference. This woman truly exemplifies the spirit of respecting life. Melinda Weekes had recently returned from a trip to the Sudan, where she was helping to enact a policy of slave redemption. For years and years, a rampant genocide was perpetrated in southern Sudan by the wealthy slave traders of the north. They would pillage and torch the mud huts of the villagers, and then capture the women and children to sell them into slavery.

Heartbroken by what was happening in Sudan, this woman traveled across the world to help free these slaves by buying them back from the traders and returning them to their villages. Upon their return, she helped them rebuild their lives by establishing schools and educating their girls so that they could break free from oppression. Describing the strength of these women in the face of modern-day slavery, Melinda shared story after story of the things she had seen on her trips to Sudan. She spoke of one of the most powerful experiences she had had, when she sat with a woman who had lost her home, her husband, and her children, and had suffered incredible harm at the hands of her slave master. She asked the woman, “How do you survive? How do you manage to continue living?” The woman responded, “When the world pushed me down to my knees, I knew that it was time to pray. I am blessed to still have these old knees that allow me to kneel, blessed to be able to prostrate, blessed to be able to pray. And I am blessed because I have God.”

I ask you today to reflect on women like these, to reflect on their inner strength, and to reflect on your own life as you know it. I ask you to accept life as a gift and to understand that your life belongs to a greater power, to a higher authority that breathed life into your soul at your beginning and decreed that you should live it with good morals, good ethics, and a good heart that can truly make a difference in the lives of those around you.

In the memorable words of Mother Theresa:

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

I’d like to end with a prayer, a Muslim ayah (verse 286 from Suratul Baqara) from the Quran:

On no soul doth God place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Pray:) Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; help us against those who stand against faith.

I ask you today once again to respect life, for there is no greater gift. Respect life, yours and the lives around you. For when we lose respect for life, we lose respect for humanity, and when we lose respect for humanity, we lose respect for God’s creation, and when we lose that, we have lost everything.

Suzy Ismail is a Visiting Professor at DeVry University in North Brunswick, New Jersey and is the author of When Muslim Marriage Fails: Divorce Chronicles and Commentaries. This article has been adapted from remarks made in the Princeton University Chapel for Respect Life Sunday. It was originally published in Public Discourse. 

I left college in May of 1998.  By the next month, I had a teaching position in the same school district I went to as a child.  The man I’d loved since I was 14 proposed to me in October of that same year, and we moved in together in February of 1999, with the wedding date set for August of that same year.

To say that it was a busy time in my life would be, in retrospect, an understatement.

Moving from the extended adolescence that college allows to something resembling responsible adulthood meant that I could, for a while anyway, shelve the whole search for a resting place in God.  I did so with relief.  I still maintained a set of holdovers from my pagan years—a belief in reincarnation, and a vague pantheism being most notable.  Unable to figure out how God wanted us to relate to one another, I gave up trying.

Then time for serious wedding plans came.  My first choice was an extremely small wedding of no more than 50 or so people, held entirely in my parents’ backyard—it was a beautiful setting, and full of comforting memories; I couldn’t imagine having it anywhere else.  My parents, sensibly concerned about a number of logistical and potential problems a home wedding brings with it, encouraged Ken and me to come up with another option.

We couldn’t think of one.  Neither of us wanted to elope, and the thought of the actual ceremony taking place in a dreary, municipal setting was depressing.  Lack of options meant that when the Presbyterian church of our childhood was suggested, we couldn’t think of anything compelling to counter it with.  What it lacked in religious significance for me it made up in sentimental ones.  After all, Ken and I had both gone there growing up.  And while we went to the same school, we were in different grades, so it was the church’s youth group that was the stage for our fledgling romance.  Marrying in that church seemed a sweet nod to the physical location that brought us together.

The pastor who had worked there when we attended had since gone to another church, but Ken and I thought we’d see if he’d be willing to come back to officiate the wedding.  We met with him in his office at his current church, and he agreed to do so.  He handed us a packet of common wedding vows, and said that we could customize the ceremony however we felt comfortable.

I took him at his word, and spent the next several nights sitting at the coffee table with scissors and glue, cutting one phrase from one version of the wedding ceremony, and another phrase from a different one.  In every version, however, I made sure to remove the name of Jesus from the proceedings.  I was fine marrying in a church.  I was fine having our childhood pastor officiate.  I was fine mentioning God in the ceremony, but I would not allow Christ to be mentioned.  It was too religious, too Christian.  A non-specific “God” could be invoked, and that was as far as I was willing to go.

Both the pastor and Ken agreed to my editing job, and so we were married in a Presbyterian church in a ceremony that banned any reference to Jesus.

Despite the changes in my life, I found my thoughts returning with increasing frequency toward God.  Having found nothing particularly useful in New Age teachings, absolute desperation turned my attention to organized religion.  After all, I reasoned, if a religious institution was going to have staying power and a sizable audience, two things it needed to fall under the “organized” category in my mind, it probably had something logical and useful to say.

But are they the same God?

The question is not answered by simple linguistic identity, as evidenced by St. Paul’s complaint to the Corinthians: “For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough” (2 Corinthians 11:4). The “other Jesus” that was being preached among the Corinthians was not a different person of the same name, but a view of Jesus of Nazareth that was so radically different from Paul’s that he termed it “another Jesus” altogether.

In the same way, it is possible that the Qur’an and Islamic tradition present a picture of God so radically different from that of the Bible and Catholic tradition that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the proposition that they are the same Being in both traditions, apart from some minor creedal differences.

But wait a minute. Don’t Catholics have to believe that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, because the Second Vatican Council says so? The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church tells us that the “plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” (Lumen Gentium 16)

It is almost more important to clarify what this text does not say than what it does. The first statement, that “the plan of salvation also includes” Muslims, has led some – mostly critics of the Church – to assert that the Council Fathers are saying that Muslims are saved, and thus need not be preached the Gospel, as they’ve already got just as much of a claim on Heaven as do Christians.

This is obviously false. This statement on Muslims comes as part of a larger passage that begins by speaking of “those who have not yet received the Gospel” and concludes by reaffirming “the command of the Lord, ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature.’” It speaks of the possibility of salvation for those who “through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.”

Clearly, then, Muslims figure in the “plan of salvation” not in the sense that they are saved as Muslims, that is, by means of Islamic observance, but insofar as they strive to be attentive to and to obey the authentic voice of the Creator whom they acknowledge and who speaks to them through the dictates of their conscience.

This suggests that a Muslim who refrains from suicide bombing because he understands that it is cold-blooded murder has a better chance to be saved, and is more clearly attuned to the promptings of the Creator within whose plan of salvation he finds himself, than does a Muslim who blows himself up in a crowd of infidels because the Qur’an promises a place in Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111).

The Conciliar statement also wisely adds the caveat, all too often ignored by the Church’s critics, that “Mohammedans” (Musulmanos) are “professing” to hold the faith of Abraham. Whether or not they actually hold it is arguable, but the Vatican Council is only noting that they claim for their faith that it is that of Abraham, without discussing whether or not Islam actually is an authentically Abrahamic faith.

Likewise widely misinterpreted, or at least given a weight that it was clearly never meant to bear, is the subsequent affirmation that Muslims “along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” Many see in this also an assertion that the Gospel need not be preached to Muslims, or that they are already saved, for they adore the one and merciful God. Many Catholics, including writers of some prominence, have asserted that Vatican II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church that quotes it, teach that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God, and then proceed as if this establishes more than it actually does, or as if it were obvious that the Council was thus forbidding a critical stance toward Islam or concern about Islamic supremacist advances in Europe and the U.S.

In this vein the great Catholic writer and apologist Peter Kreeft writes disapprovingly that “many Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, do not believe what the Church says about Islam (for example, in Vatican II and the new Catechism): that Allah is not another God, that we worship the same God.” He leaves unexplained, however, what he thinks that means exactly, or what responsibilities or courses of action it sets out for Catholics.

The Council document is actually saying perhaps less than Kreeft and others of like mind would wish it to be saying. In the first place it is clearly affirming that Muslims, like Christians, are monotheists, which is a rather commonplace observation that has been noted numerous times over the fourteen centuries of Islam’s existence. As far back as 1076, Pope St. Gregory VII wrote to Anzir, the king of Mauritania, that “we believe and confess one God, although in different ways.”

What it is asserting beyond that bare fact, if anything, can best be ascertained by considering the passage in light of those “different ways” to which Pope Gregory alluded. It is noteworthy that Pope Gregory doesn’t say that the one God that he and King Anzir both worship is the same God. All he says is that both he and Anzir worship one God; in other words, they’re both monotheists. And the Second Vatican Council is not actually making a definitive statement on that issue. It is saying that both Catholics and Muslims adore the one and merciful God, and while that clearly does indicate a certain commonality, there can be no doubt about one thing it certainly doesn’t mean: that Muslims and Catholics adore the same God in every particular, for Catholics do not believe that Muhammad was a prophet or the Qur’an is God’s Word, and Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God or the Savior of the world, or that God is Triune.

The same may be said of Jews, of course: they, along with Muslims, reject the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the divinity of Christ, and yet clearly Catholics and Jews worship the same God. This, however, is because Christianity began as a form of Judaism and is in a certain sense an extension of it, affirming faith in the same Old Testament Scriptures, the same prophets, and many points of belief.

These things cannot be said about Islam, which considers itself to be less an extension of Christianity than a rejection and correction of it, such that Muslims even reject the Old and New Testament Scriptures as corruptions.

In declaring that both Muslims and Catholics adore the one and merciful God, the Council obviously did not mean that Muslims and Catholics regard that God in exactly the same way, or that the differences were insignificant. The Council is silent on the question of whether or not the Muslims’ adoration is blind or informed. So what, then, is the Council actually saying?

Vatican II was a large-scale attempt to restore relationships that had been broken for centuries and build new bridges of trust where groups had been divided from the Church by centuries of mistrust, suspicion and outright conflict. Consequently it emphasized common ground rather than differences, unlike every ecumenical council that preceded it. No case, however, can be made that its statement about the shared adoration of the one and merciful God in any way mitigated the Church’s truth claim or sense of its own responsibility to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, any more than shared monotheism removes that responsibility in regard to Protestants or anyone else, for that responsibility is reiterated in the same passage.

It is not even certain that the Council is saying that Muslims and Catholics adore the same “one and merciful God.” Muslims certainly believe that their one and merciful God is the same One whom Christians (and Jews) worship, for the Qur’an tells them so (29:46). And whether they know it or not, the only God actually available to receive their adoration and hear their prayers is the Christian one. However, the differences in how Muslims and Catholics conceive of the one and merciful God lead to the possibility that while Muslims believe that they are worshiping the same God that Catholic worship, the teachings of Islam itself, despite the Qur’an’s insistence that Muslims worship the same God as do Christians and Jews, actually paints a picture of a God who is substantially different from the God of the Bible and the Catholic Faith.

It is noteworthy in this connection that the Council speaks of “Muslims” (Musulmanos), not “Islam,” adoring with Catholics the one and merciful God. It is a manifest fact that Muslim people believe that their God and the Christians’ God is the same. It is by no means as clear that the teachings of Islam itself about God offer a picture of the same Being who is delineated in orthodox Catholic theology. Although Arabic-speaking Christians generally use the word “Allah” for the God of the Bible – the same Arabic word used for the God of the Qur’an – this identity of name does not require that the two Beings referred to in each book are one and the same. It may be so, but it is not established on the basis of the Qur’an’s declaration, or of the identity in nomenclature.

In any case, this short passage from Lumen Gentium is burdened down by a weight of assumptions. When Kreeft says that “many Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, do not believe what the Church says about Islam (for example, in Vatican II and the new Catechism): that Allah is not another God, that we worship the same God,” he apparently assumes that to affirm that Muslims and Christians worship the same God establishes an important kinship between the two groups, and may even indicate that Islam in itself is a fundamentally good thing, such that Catholics should encourage Islamic faith and Muslim piety. Kreeft, in fact, espoused such a view in a debate with me.

These assumptions, however, do not proceed as a matter of necessity or inevitability from the Conciliar text. It would do no outrage to that text if the differences between the Islamic and Catholic views of the one and merciful God, and between Islam and Catholicism in general, were such that Catholics would not wish to encourage Muslim faith or fervor. One may therefore take a jaundiced view of the prospects for Catholic/Muslim cooperation and dialogue without dissenting from the Council’s teaching.

At the same time, even if the Council Fathers did mean to affirm that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God, this would have little significance for the contemporary ecclesiastical or political situation, in which Muslims are oppressing and killing Christian believers in several countries without regard for the Qur’an’s insistence that “our Allah and your Allah is one.” And as for the assumption that the Council meant to speak of a special kinship between Catholics and Muslims, Catholics have a moral obligation to be charitable to all people, regardless of whether or not they believe in the same God we do. Genuine charity includes a concern for justice.

The second Vatican II reference to Islam comes in the Declaration on Non-Christian Religions,Nostra Aetate:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

While this is a bit more descriptive about Muslim belief than was Lumen Gentium, as it includes the Islamic classification of Jesus as a non-divine prophet and Islam’s respect for the Virgin Mary, it adds nothing in terms of substance to the Dogmatic Constitution’s statements about Muslims. Here again we see that the Muslim linkage of Islam to Abraham is presented not as fact, but as something Muslims affirm, or “take pleasure” in affirming. Here again we see that they adore the one, merciful God; in other words, that they’re monotheists.

That is all that Vatican II is really saying about Muslims: they’re monotheists, they say they belong to the religion of Abraham, and they revere Jesus, but not as the Son of God, and His Blessed Mother.

The tone is very different, but not much in terms of substance is added in earlier Church statements on Muslims and Islam. And as Pope Benedict XVI has reminded us, Vatican II is not a super-council that supersedes all previous Church teaching; rather, its teachings must be understood in light of tradition. When it comes to Islam, the consistent focus in earlier statements about Islam is generally not on what Muslims believe, but on Islam as a heresy, and on the hostility of Muslims to Christians and Christianity. In that vein, Pope Benedict XIV in 1754 reaffirmed an earlier prohibition on Albanian Catholics giving their children “Turkish or Mohammedan names” in baptism by pointing out that not even Protestants or Orthodox were stooping so low: “none of the schismatics and heretics has been rash enough to take a Mohammedan name, and unless your justice abounds more than theirs, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.”

Pope Callixtus III, in a somewhat similar spirit, in 1455 vowed to “exalt the true Faith, and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East.” Neither this statement nor that of Lumen Gentium rise to the level of a dogmatic definition, but is it possible for Islam to be a “diabolical sect” that at the same time adores the “one and merciful God”? Certainly, for it is always possible that their adoration of the one and merciful God may be wrongly directed, marred by wrong emphases and outright falsehoods.

Nonetheless, many Catholics would argue that the statements of Benedict XIV and Callixtus III (and others like them from other popes) reflect a very different age from our own, and that Vatican II’s statements reflect a more mature spirit, as well as the charity toward others that Christians should properly exhibit. And that may well be so, although it must be noted that even though they are only fifty years old, the statements of Vatican II on Islam reflect the outlook of a vanished age no less than do those of the earlier popes. For in the 1960s, secularism and Westernization were very much the order of the day in many areas of the Islamic world. It was, for example, unusual in Cairo in the 1960s to see a woman wearing a hijab, an Islamic headscarf mandated by Muhammad’s command that a woman when appearing in public should cover everything except her face and hands. Now, on the other hand, one may walk down the streets of the same city and be surprised to see a woman who is not so attired.

This change has not been solely external. The hijabs in Cairo are but one visible sign of a revolution that has swept the Islamic world, or more properly, a revival. Islamic values have been revived, including not only rigor in dress codes but also a hostility toward Western ideas and principles. The “Arab Spring” uprisings have led to a reassertion of the political aspects of Islam, as opposed to Western political models, all across the Middle East. Western ideas of democracy and pluralism that were fashionable in elite circles all over the Islamic world in the first half of the twentieth century have fallen into disrepute.

One consequence of all this is that the Islamic world that the Fathers of Vatican II had in mind is rapidly disappearing. The words of Vatican II on Muslims must be accorded the respect that all Church teaching merits, and obeyed to the degree that obedience is owed to all magisterial statements. These statements must be evaluated, however, within the context of their times. The documents of Vatican II are no less a product of their age than the statements of Benedict XIV and Callixtus III are a product of theirs. Just as the age of crusading knights has vanished, so also the age of a dominant secular West striding confidently into what it terms the “modern” age is rapidly vanishing. This is not to devalue or denigrate the Council in any way, but simply to see it as what it is, no more, no less: an enunciation of certain eternal truths, to be sure, but within the context of a number of unexamined and yet decisively influential core beliefs and assumptions about the nature of the world and of mankind.

Ultimately, while it may always be the Christian’s responsibility to reach out with respect and esteem to Muslims, the hostility that the Islamic world had always displayed toward Christendom was never less in evidence than it was in the 1960s, and so a statement of friendship was never more appropriate, either before or since. That situation does not prevail today, a fact that has a great many implications for the prospects for dialogue as well: Western-minded Muslims who have a favorable attitude toward the Catholic Church no longer have nearly the influence among their coreligionists that they once had, at least in the Islamic world.

That is not to say, however, that we have returned to the world of Benedict XIV and Callixtus III, when Catholics understood that Mohammedanism, as it was then popularly styled (to the indignation of Muslims themselves) was a heresy, steeped in falsehood and perhaps even diabolical, and dedicated to the destruction of the Church and the conversion or subjugation of Christians. We are centuries away, and separated by chasms of cultural assumptions, from the world in which it was even possible to think of one’s faith as having enemies and needing to be defended. Catholics of the modern age have long assumed that that world was gone forever, and there is some reason to believe that it is indeed.

But with Muslim persecution of Christians escalating worldwide, there is also considerable evidence that that rough old world is returning, and may never have been as far away as it seemed to be.

Today I want to make one simple argument. That in order to ensure faith has a proper space in the public sphere, in order to encourage social harmony, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities, more confident in their beliefs. In practice this means individuals not diluting their faith and nations not denying their religious heritage.

If you take this thought to its conclusion then the idea you’re left with is this: Europe needs to become more confident in its Christianity. Let us be honest. Too often there is a suspicion of faith in our continent: where signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; where states won’t fund faith schools; and where faith is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded.

It all hinges on a basic misconception: that somehow to create equality and space for minority faiths and cultures we need to erase our majority religious heritage. But it is my belief that the societies we are, the cultures we’ve created, the values we hold and the things we fight for stem from something we’ve argued over, dissented from, discussed and built up: centuries of Christianity.

The Christian roots of Europe

It’s what the Holy Father called the “unrenounceable Christian roots of [our] culture and civilisation” which shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. You cannot and should not erase these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.

Let me get one thing very clear: I am not saying that everything done in the name of faith has been a blessing for our continent. Too much blood has been shed in the name of religion. But trying to erase this history or blind ourselves to the role of religion on our continent is wrong. We need to realise what drives us, what binds us and what inspires us is a history we are in danger of denying.

I know, in a globalised world, it is easy to think that to relate to others you must water down your identity. But my point today is that being sure of who you are is the only way in which you will be more accommodating of others.

And there is a second strand to this argument. That true confidence has the power to guarantee openness. Because only when you’re content in your own identity only when you realise that the ‘Other’ does not jeopardise who you are can you truly accept and not merely tolerate the presence of difference. Just as the bully bullies because he or she is insecure, so too the state suppresses, marginalises, dictates and dismisses when it feels its identity is at stake.

In the United Kingdom, we have guarded against such fear by recognising the importance of the Established Church and our Christian heritage – our majority faith. And that is what has created religious freedom and a home for people like me, of minority faiths. Majority faiths and minority faiths – as a Muslim who was born and raised in – and now serves – a Christian country, I have experience of both.

What truly enabled me to learn about my faith and to practice it was that my country – the bed over which the river of my faith flowed – had a strong Christian identity. This defined, shaped and gave me confidence in my own faith which, combined with the confidence of my country’s principles and values have since been evident in the decisions I’ve taken as an adult.

Good works come from conviction

A strong sense of Christianity didn’t threaten our Muslim identity – it actually reinforced it. It enabled me to make the case for further interfaith debate, discussion and work. It motivated me to stand up and speak out against anti-Muslim hatred, the persecution of Christians and anti-Semitism. And it inspired me to challenge the growing marginalisation of faith in my country and in Europe.

As I look around the world today, my resolve is strengthened. Where we see faith inspiring, driving and motivating good works is where certainty of conviction is at its strongest. As the Bible teaches us: “For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead.”

The Qur’an teaches us something similar – that: “those who believe and do good works are the best of created beings”. We see the proof every day – globally, locally and individually. From the Catholic Church being instrumental in toppling communism to its key role in securing peace in Northern Ireland. From the Catholic Schools in the UK, many of which are outperforming other institutions to the domestic response to the earthquake in Haiti, the floods in Pakistan and the drought in East Africa. And where day by day, faith sustains people through their darkest, most desperate periods. There is no denying the link between these positive actions and faith.

Don’t dumb down religion

As a UK cabinet minister of the Muslim faith, representing a country with an Anglican Established Church, visiting our friends in the spiritual home of Catholicism you will find no greater champion of understanding between faiths than me.

But I believe that where interfaith dialogue does not work is where faiths are dumbed down in order to find common ground. Just as the European language of Esperanto, which attempted to build a new tongue, neutralises our component languages, a common language between faiths risks watering down the diversity and intensity of our respective religions.

The point is that in so many ways, being sure of your faith adds a layer of strength to society. Confidence in our own beliefs enables us to defend attacks on others. Faith asks you to stand up for your neighbour. As the fourth Muslim caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib said: “Every man is your brother.either your brother in faith or your brother in humanity.”

This is the spirit which inspired Muslims to protect Jews during the Holocaust, which motivated Christians to support Muslims fleeing persecution in Darfur and which led Chief Rabbi Sacks to call for action against persecution in Bosnia. It’s something I’ve been arguing for a long time. That persecution somewhere is persecution everywhere. That if you oppress my neighbour you are oppressing me. That an attack on a gudwara is an attack on a mosque, a church, a temple, a synagogue.

Marginalisation of faith

But the confident affirmation of religion which I have spoken of is under threat. It is what the Holy Father called ‘the increasing marginalisation of religion’ during his speech in Westminster Hall.

I see it in United Kingdom and I see it in Europe: spirituality suppressed; divinity downgraded. Where, in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, faith is looked down on as the hobby of ‘oddities, foreigners and minorities’. Where religion is dismissed as an eccentricity because it’s infused with tradition. Where we undermine people who attribute good works to their belief and require them to deny it as their motivation. And where faith is overlooked in the public sphere with not even a word about Christianity in the preface of the “European Constitution”.

When I pledged that the new government in the United Kingdom would ‘do God’, in some quarters there was uproar. More telling were the countless comments I received of quiet support a relief that finally someone had said what they had been thinking. This fact alone shows the extent to which religion has been sidelined by some.

Because in parts of Europe there have been misguided beliefs that in order to accommodate people from other backgrounds, we must somehow become less religious or less Christian, that somehow society must level itself out so that faith becomes something that is marginalised and limited to the private confines of one’s home or even one’s mind.

But those calls are not coming from other faith communities. They are coming from two types of people. First, the well-intentioned liberal elite who, conversely, are trying to create equality by marginalising faith in society, who think that the route to religious pluralism is by creating a path of faith-neutrality, who downgrade religion to a mere subcategory in public life.

But look at their supposed level playing field. Its terrain is all but impassable to anyone of belief. One of the arguments of the liberal elite is that faith and reason are incompatible. But they don’t realise, as the Holy Father has argued for many years, that faith and reason go hand in hand. As he said to us in Westminster Hall, “the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilisation.” In other words, just as reason should not be excluded from debates about faith so too spirituality should not be excluded when we look at worldly matters.

Second, there are the anti-religionists, the faith deniers, the people who dine out on free-flowing media and sustain a vocabulary of secularist intolerance, attempting to remove all trace of religion from culture, history and public discourse, while ignoring the fact that people of faith give more to charity and that the number of people going to a place of worship is globally on the up.

The deep intolerance of militant secularisation

For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity and failing to understand the relationship between religious loyalty and loyalty to the state.

That’s why in the 20th Century, one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion. Why? Because, to them, a religious identity struck at the heart of their totalitarian ideology. In a free market of ideas, they knew their ideology was weak. And with the strength of religions, established over many years, followed by many billions, their totalitarian regimes would be jeopardised.

Our response to militant secularisation today has to be simple: holding firm in our faiths; holding back intolerance, reaffirming the religious foundations on which our societies are built. And reasserting the fact that, for centuries, Christianity in Europe has been inspiring, motivating, strengthening and improving our societies. In public life – driving people to do great things, like setting up schools, creating public services, leading the way in charitable acts. In politics – inspiring parties on both the left and the right. In economics – providing many of the foundations for our market economy and capitalism. In culture – influencing our monuments, our music, our paintings, and our engravings.

Faith must inform public debate

Politicians need to give faith a seat at the table in public life. Not the privileged position of a theocracy, but that of an equal informer of our public debate. So we are not afraid to acknowledge when the debate derives from a religious basis. And not afraid to take onboard – and take on – the solutions offered up by religion. Politicians must also not be afraid to speak out when we think people who speak in the name of faith have got it wrong.

I am not saying that faith leaders should have a monopoly on morality. Because, of course, as our Prime Minister David Cameron said, there are Christians who don’t live by a moral code and there are atheists and agnostics who do. But for people who do have a faith, their faith can be a helpful prod in the right direction.

Therefore, I’m arguing that religion needs a role when we look at the problems today. So that even the most committed atheist can find that those who are committed to religion have something to offer and that faith can be good for society, good for communities and good for those who choose to follow a faith. When religion has a role in public life, it enables us to look at our economy and refer to the Christian principles on which our markets were founded. It means we can take solace from teachings such a Rerum Novarum and Caritas in Veritate, which offer up answers for creating moral markets.

It means we can look at our social problems and be inspired by Catholic Social Teaching [by] looking at our welfare system and thinking, how does this impact on human dignity; [by] looking at social breakdown and thinking, are we reinforcing responsibility between citizens; [by] looking at governance and thinking, are we relying on large organisations to do what smaller units could achieve — all the while thinking and remembering that many of our values — loving our neighbours, acting as the Good Samaritan, supporting and championing the family unit, doing to others as you would be done by — are Biblical, spiritual and religious in their origin.

People need to realise that, in our continent and beyond, Christianity’s teachings and values are as permanent as Westminster Abbey as indelible as Da Vinci’s Last Supper and as solid as Christ the Redeemer and that Christianity is as vital to our future as it is to our past. Our two states have lots to learn and much to teach and I have hope, and yes faith, that others will continue with us on this path.

This speech has been edited for length. For the full speech, visit Sayeeda Warsi’s website.

Harold G. Koenig, MD

Two weeks ago, I boarded Saudi Arabian Airlines in Washington DC headed for Jeddah located on the Red Sea.  In August of last year, I learned that I was one of 100 scientists worldwide chosen to serve on the faculty as a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at King Abdulaziz University, one of the top three universities in Saudi Arabia with nearly 2,000 medical students.  This position requires that I spend three weeks per year in Jeddah doing research with faculty and teaching medical and nursing students at the university.  This is my first time traveling here (and my first time in a Muslim country).

When I got to my departure gate in Washington, I realized I was about to enter into a new world.  Many people, including the flight attendants, were dressed in clothing I had never seen before — the women with black dresses covering everything except their hands, wrists and faces, and the men with long white gowns and head coverings.  At this time, my impression of the Middle East and Islam was like that of many Westerners, and it was not a positive one.  This impression was largely based on discussion within evangelical Christian groups that tended to demonize Muslims and from the popular media that characterized the Middle East as a place of roadside bombs that killed American soldiers, the birthplace of terrorists who bomb ships and fly airplanes into the World Trade Center (indeed, Osama Bin Laden graduated from the university where I was headed), rioting people participating in the Arab Spring, endless fighting and suicide bombing, kidnappings and beheadings, and most of all, hatred for Americans (and Christians in particular) viewed as invaders, burners of the Qur’an, and backers of Israel.  Therefore, it was with considerable trepidation that I sat down in my first class seat (at least I was flying in style) that would transport me to within an hour’s drive of what for Muslims is the holiest place in the world, Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed and Islam.

I became even more nervous when a man dressed in traditional Arab garb boarded the plane and sat next to me, and began chanting quietly (but definitely out loud) bending over and holding a small book in his hand.  When the pilot signaled that the plane was ready to take off, I capitalized on a brief break in the man’s chanting to introduce myself and ask him about what he was doing.  He told me that he was Muslim and that he was reciting from the Qur’an.  He also happened to be a physician (cardiologist) who was headed back home to Jeddah where he worked in a local hospital.  As our conversation progressed, he seemed eager to tell me about his religious faith, and I was a receptive and eager listener — desperate to make friends with someone in this new and strange place where I was headed.  He was actually a delightful person, polite and friendly and full of information about Islam.  It was very clear that he was serious about his religion, and I wanted to learn everything I could about that.

When we got to Jeddah, I got off the plane and self-propelled my wheelchair into the airport terminal and what seemed to be a different planet.  Men and women were dressed like the flight attendants on the plane.  I had only seen in the movies (Laurance of Arabia, Arabian Nights, etc.).  Had I made a mistake in coming here?  I began to definitely think so when I learned that the airline had lost my luggage.  They were apologetic, but were clear that it would be some time before they could track down my bags.  Until then, I realized that I would have to wear what I had slept in during the 14-hour flight on the plane.  I was surprised, though, by how helpful people seemed to be, offering to push me to different places in the airport as needed, even pushing me ahead of others in line at the money exchange booth, and then out to the curb to catch a cab.  This helpfulness continued at the motel when I arrived, where staff seemed eager to assist (although being a 5-star hotel probably also had something to do with it).

Benitez, 63, of Madison Heights, worked at the city’s taxpayer-funded health clinic. He alleges he was ordered by a female supervisor not to treat conservative Muslim women, specifically those wearing head scarves, according to the lawsuit. He was told the clinic’s male Muslim clientele did not want a male treating female patients.

He complied until November 2010, when a doctor ordered him to treat Muslim women as he would any other patient. Benitez followed the doctor’s order and was fired less than one month later, according to the lawsuit.

An Associated Press item clarifies that his former female supervisor is Muslim and “told Benitez to refer patients wearing hijab to her, rather than treating them himself.” The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gave the suit a green light in October.

Alarming on their own, the allegations also reinforce a pair of trends tracked by Islamist Watch:

• Islamism in Dearborn. Nobody should be surprised to hear such a tale coming out of this Detroit suburb, which has a large Muslim population and public entities known for bending over backwards to accommodate it. Examples include the University of Michigan-Dearborn installing foot-washing stations to aid Muslims preparing to pray, Fordson High School holding football practice from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. in 2010 to ease the Ramadan fast for Muslim athletes, and officials’ repeated attempts to inhibit Christians from engaging in speech that might discomfort Muslims. Without a doubt, Dearborn is at the very center of the battle against Islamist encroachments in the U.S.
• Strife over gender mixing in medical settings. Hospitals and other health-related venues commonly spawn gender controversies, as rapidly moving events and limited resources can make male-female contact unavoidable. Two months ago, a Muslim woman demanded to see a female doctor in a Pennsylvania emergency room, but a male nurse declined the request and reportedly said that God would forgive her for being examined by a man; she left in a huff. Last year, relatives “attacked and kicked” a doctor trying to treat a woman at a Swedish hospital “because they objected to him being a male.” An altercation involving medics even erupted at an Australian accident scene in 2009.

A court will need to weigh the veracity of specific claims made by Benitez against Dearborn, but his attorney’s remarks are relevant well beyond the parameters of this one suit: “When you get to the point that taxpayer-funded entities are having to comply with personal religious beliefs rather than letting people do their job, you’re going down a road that does not end in a good place.”

The Vatican’s official transcript of the Pope’s comments at the Amman airport records him as saying:

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.

There are so many different angles to this situation. First, we have the spectacle of a Pope being received as a head of state. This is wrong on so many counts. Second, we have the Pope speaking in diplomatic jargon, rather than in plain and direct speech. Third, we have the Pope speaking of “respect” without any clear understanding of what this really means. Does the Pope believe that Muslims can be saved through the teachings of Islam?

Actually, he probably does — at least within the context of a salvific inclusivism. The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that Muslims are “included in the plan of salvation” by virtue of their claim to “hold the faith of Abraham.”

In the words of Lumen Gentium, one of the major documents adopted at Vatican II:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

The same language is basic to the current official catechism of the church as well. Within the context of the document, this language clearly implies that Muslims are within the scope of God’s salvation. While the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Islam is both erroneous and incomplete, it also holds that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ’s salvation through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.

Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of “respecting” Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot. …

Let’s see what we have here. First of all, the pope is a head of state. Since to Mohler, a Baptist, the pope is no spiritual authority at all, he is nothing other than a head of state. Certainly Mohler can understand why a head of state would be welcomed as such on a foreign visit. However, when Mohler says that it is wrong for the pope to be welcomed as a head of state, he saying that it is wrong for someone in the pope’s spiritual position — a position Mohler does not recognize as real — to be treated that way. Either there is an actual spiritual office the pope holds or there is not. To Baptists there is no such thing as the papacy. Now, if there really is and Mohler wants to address the way the office is handled, that is one thing, but to claim an office does not exist and then criticize the way it is carried out is as silly as criticizing a bald man’s hair style.

Second, the pope is not speaking in diplomatic jargon. The pope is not speaking in euphemisms or coded language. The pope is being forthright, but with kindness and tact. The kindness and tact recommended in that book that Evangelicals claim is their “sure norm”: “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person” (Col. 4:6) and “[A]lways [be] ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15).

Third, Pope Benedict XVI really does understand what respect means. Mohler is the one with the problem.

Mohler says: “Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of ‘respecting’ Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot.” His detour into the teachings of Vatican II and the Catechism very conveniently separates that criticism and claim of difference from the actual words that the pope said. It’s convenient because it allows time for the reader to forget what the pope actually did say — which was nothing at all about respecting Islam! Look again at the quotation from the pope:

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.

Respecting the Muslim community — those made-in-the-image-of-God human beings who are adherents to Islam — is not the same thing as respecting Islam. Mohler knows this; really he does, because later on the article he says:

Thus, evangelical Christians may respect the sincerity with which Muslims hold their beliefs, but we cannot respect the beliefs themselves. We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God’s Son, and takes millions of souls captive.

In order to pretend that there is some great divide here between the Evangelical viewpoint and that of Catholics regarding the Muslim faith, Mohler has to ignore what the pope actually said, (which he quoted!) and ignore his own quotation from Lumen Gentium — which does not say that Muslims are included in the plan of salvation “by virtue of their claim” to hold the faith of Abraham. It does not even say that Muslims hold the faith of Abraham, merely acknowledges that they claim to.

Yes, the Catechism says that God’s plan of salvation “also includes… the Muslims.” That’s because the Catechism says that all men are included in God’s plan of salvation! Nowhere does it make the assertion Mohler is trying to attribute to it: that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ’s salvation “through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.” What the Catechism does say is reasonable, balanced, and scriptural; read it for yourself and see:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race:

All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.

In addressing the issue of how those who do not hear the Gospel might come to be saved, the Church does not attribute salvific power to any false belief system, whether Islam or any other, but rather to God’s mysterious ability to sow faith in Himself into every human heart that sincerely seeks HIm. But even this acknowledgment of God’s power does not diminish the world’s need to hear the Gospel:

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

It was just such evangelistic zeal that motivated the Holy Father’s historic visit to the Middle East, where over and over he turned men’s attention to Christ as the hope for peace. One of his themes was the need for honest, humble dialogue based upon respect for the dignity of every person. I submit that contrary to Mohler’s assertion that the pope is “without any clear understanding of what [respect] means,” the pope’s understanding of it surpasses that of Dr. Mohler. The pope understands that one of the first requirements of respectful conversation is to seek to clearly understand and then to fairly represent the position of another.