The God of Abraham

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[Editor’s Note: This letter is in response to Mark Shea’s article Cursed Are the Peacemakers. The Viewer's Comments are in italics.]

Dear Carol:

You write:

Dear Mr. Shea,

I really must take exception to this article. Archbishop McCarrick may be the quintessential diplomat, but his theology stinks.

Not here it didn't. He was perfectly in line with CCC 841 and the teaching of the Church since Pope St. Gregory VII.

Would he be equally comfortable — or, would you? — if he asked Buddha to bless the nation of Japan, or Vishnu to bless the nation of India? And, what about the Wiccans?

No. Because the gods of those religions are not the God of Abraham.

You will no doubt counter that Islam is one of the Three Great Descendents of Abraham, as opposed to the others which are not. There's my point of contention. I disagree with “all [my] mind, all [my] soul, and all [my] strength”. It is not!

Then, unfortunately, you are disagreeing the teaching of Holy Church since the time of Pope St. Gregory VII. You will have to take it up with the Church, not me.

The Koran teaches that all non-Muslims are infidels.

No. It does not. Jews and Christians are historically understood by Islam as “People of the Book.” That is, we are reckoned as believers in the God of Abraham, albeit imperfectly so (very much as Catholic faith reckons Muslims).

It also teaches that it is not only “okay” but a religious duty for Muslims to kill all infidels.

Historically, the policy was “convert or die” for pagans, dhimmitude (i.e. second class citizenship, oppression, and strong pressure to convert) for Jews and Christians.

Their vision is for a Muslim world without a single living, breathing infidel in it anywhere.

Yes. It is a totalizing religion. So, for that matter, is Christianity. But that does not demonstrate that Islam is not the worship (albeit very imperfect) of the God of Abraham, which is the question at issue here.

This is why these people are never going to stop. This is why we will never be “safe”, much less allowed to live in “ecumenical unity”. Until we accept the fact that these people are absolutely single-minded in their devotion to the destruction of all that is non-Muslim, we stand in danger of “giving away the farm.”

No group of a billion people is “absolutely single-minded” about anything. The evidence of that is King Abdullah's rebuke of Muslim nutjobs.

Please. Abandon the FOX News inspired simplicities about what a billion people are all thinking and return to the question at hand. Nobody, least of all me, is denying that Islam is very dangerous. I'm simply denying that Islam is the worship of some other god than the God of Abraham. That's because the Church, like it or not, understands it to be so and urges us (as ever) to make common cause with people of good will wherever possible. Recent events have induced a great many Westerners to start speaking of Muslims in impossibly monolith terms. This is to play right into the hands of creatures like bin Laden, who despise ordinary Muslims as much as they despise us, because they are not “pure” enough. The whole point of Rome's attitude is to attempt to build bridges of common cause between ordinary Muslims and us, rather than to help radical Muslims win more converts from the vast number of Muslims who do not wish to blow us up. Treating them all as a monolith of savages is an excellent way to help Radical Islam.

This has nothing to do with Jewish Monotheism. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the God Who prepared the way for Christ.

I know that. So, in a garbled way, do Muslims, who acknowledge Jesus as a prophet and even believe in the Second Coming, as well as revering his Mother. Christians (should) see Jews as what they are: The Chosen.

I do.

The “problem” is even more simple than acceptance of Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity.

This make no sense. I don't know what you mean.

I stand by the statement of an anonymous pundit who, shortly after 9/11, pointed out the unbridgeable difference between Christianity and Islam. He said, “Their god demands that they sacrifice their sons for him; our God sent His Only Son to be a sacrifice for us.”

Yes. Muslims are ignorant of much about God. So are Jews. Nonetheless, according to the Church they worship the God of Abraham. And, of course, the radicalism you describe characterizes some, not all, Muslims.

There is no ecumenism possible, here.

There is never ecumenism possible with non-Christian religions, because ecumenism refers to what is in common between baptized Christians of different traditions. There is, however, commonality possible between Christians and non-Christians (including Muslims) in other ways. This is the teaching of CCC 841 and it is also the immemorial teaching of the Catholic faith. The commonality is possible because Muslims are, first of all, human beings. Therefore they share something in common, not only with us, but with God, who has become a human being as well. To deny any possibility of commonality with Muslims is, like it or not, to deny the reality that Christ has taken on their nature as well as yours and died for them. They deny this. You, as a Christian, do so only at the peril of your own soul.

There is no peaceful co-existance.

Of course there is. We are not at war with a billion people.

There is no appeasement that will “save” us. Only God can save us just as He saved the Israelites from the Ammorites, the Phillistines, and the other “civilizations” who practiced child-sacrifice in the Old Testament. May God have mercy on us all.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs. Carol Luscomb

Flint, MI

Unless you are suggesting a return to the OT practice of harem and the mass murder of a billion people, brute fact forces us to face the fact that the Catholic is obliged to seek peace — peace, mind you, not “surrender” — as he confronts the challenge of Islam. One small component of seeking peace is to acknowledge where Catholics and Muslims have points of commonality. That does not mean overlooking their differences. But it is as dishonest to ignore what we really have in common as it is to paper over where we really differ.

Hope you don't mind this vigorous disagreement with your letter. The ideas you reflect are common and understandable. But they are still wrong, according to CCC 841. As Chesterton said, “We do not want a Church that is right where we are right. We want a Church that is right where we are wrong.” The tough part is really believing the Church is right where we are wrong, when we are passionate about something.

Mark Shea

Senior Content Editor

Catholic Exchange