TD: In prison I saw black people converting to islam. These were not immigrants of course, but native British-born people. Conversion to religion can lead to an improvement in day to day behaviour, if people do not become extremists, because religion can give a transcendent purpose. The question, however, is whether Islam is inherently unstable and will always tend to extremism. That is the question that has to be answered.I hadn't thought of that before, the concept of the Pope as a bulwark against extremism, placing a limit on just how far Catholics can go in the name of their faith. It's hard to be a militant Catholic if the Pope is a peacemaker. Without the Pope, I could see Catholic sects vying to see which one was the most militant, the most devoted or propagated the fastest. It would be a very different world indeed.
PB: What is your view? Is Islam inherently unstable?
TD: I personally think it probably is, because it does not have anybody to define the doctrine. There is no hierarchy in Islam.
PB: There is no Pope?
TD: There is no Pope, there is nothing to be laid down. A moderate person can always be outflanked by someone who claims to be more Islamic than he is. That is a very serious problem.
I would also suggest (without evidence or much thought on my part) that Catholicism acts as a stabilizer for Christianity in general. The size and power of the Church within Christianity must have some indirect effect on the decisions of the other denominations, wouldn't you think?
5 comments:
My grandmother-- the one who recently passed-- did NOT like Catholics. Doubt it, you could just ask her-- she'd make poo-pooing sounds and look disapproving. (She was the Scottish flavor of Protestant.)
However...From the year she got cable, she watched the Catholic Mass on EWTN-- every Sunday that I was there. She'd also sometimes have it on as "the only decent thing that was on."
It's pretty telling that only really loony folks attack the living Pope, most of the time-- much easier to wait until they're dead.
Certainly the cogent positions and intellectual edifices built by the Catholic Church find their way into Protestantism. My own pastor's Easter sermon resonated with Pope Benedict's discussions on "Faith and Reason."
However, American Protestantism is very market driven, both in the literal sense (see Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven..." series) and in a figurative sense, because successful denominations craft a message that attracts a large following. This could lead to extremism, if there was a mass market for that, I suppose. Fortunately, in America, that seems to not be the case.
Speaking as a Protestant, the person of Jesus and the life he led and what he preached would certainly seem to be a bulwark against extremism.
B-Daddy, great point. American sensibilities being what they are, we've never had much of a stomach for extremism. This applies to extremism in politics, as well. Please see: Communism, socialism, fascism, etc. bomb in America.
Speaking from the perspective of a former secularist turned United Methodist converted Catholic, I can tell you one thing for sure: everybody wants to criticize the Boss.
Without ignoring the egregious sin and excess of the medieval Church, the Great Schism (Eastern and Roman orthodoxies) and the Protestant schism are driven, at heart, by a reaction to authority.
One of the things I have noticed is that Hollywood, when they wish to make a movie about a Christian theme, always seem to pick a Catholic priest. Whether he's exorcising demons or converting a noble savage or counseling an Irish terrorist, it's virtually always Fr. So-and-so. If it's the theme of the Great Christian Conspiracy To Enslave The Planet, it's always conniving Cardinals skulking around in the bowels of the Vatican's Secret Archives.
And however much caterwauling about Catholicism may occur among Christians, it's my perception that the non-Christian world views the Pope as speaking for the Christian religion as a whole. Certainly the Muslims would prefer to see the dome of St Peter's a smoking ruin over, say, the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention.
But perhaps most telling is that Trinitarian Christians (as opposed to philosophical followers of Jesus) view the Nicene and/or Apostle's Creeds as the quintessential statements of what it means to be a Christian. And both are, obviously, Catholic.
SA-
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChristianityIsCatholic
It's bad enough that there's a website for it....
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