Thy Kingdom Come!
The Pillars of Islam:What's New?
There's a lot of information on Islam that we received in last week's opening class. Some of it was material that I had also recently encountered in a mini-course last semester on the World's Religions. It struck me at that time, and again now, that Islam's pillars contain little that a Christian would find objectionable. Three of these pillars are frequent prayer (5x a day to be precise, which is about how often seminarians and priests pray the Divine Office), fasting in times such as Ramadan, and almsgiving. These three elements have always been seen by Catholics as essential to spiritual discipline, above all during the Lenten season.
Another pillar of Islam is pilgrimage. Christians may not be required to make pilgrimages to Rome or Jerusalem once in their life, but pilgrimage, even today, remains a valuable Christian spiritual exercise. Then there is the most important pillar, the "Shahadat", the Islamic confession of faith: "There is no God but God..." A Christian couldn't argue with that either.
Ah, but there's more:"...and Muhammad is the messenger of God." A Christian is left wondering what exactly this messenger was needed for, considering that all the key elements of his religion seem to be already contained in the Old and New Testaments. Did it really require a new prophet to announce that God was the only God? I am reminded somewhat of the scene at the end of Act I in Hamlet, after the ghost of Hamlet's father departs. Horatio and Marcellus demand to learn what the ghost told Hamlet. Hamlet, after swearing them to secrecy, gravely announces, "There's not a villain dwelling in all Denmark/ But he's an arrant knave." To which tautology Horatio responds, "There's needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave/ To tell us this." Similarly, a Christian (or Jew) might suggest that there needs no archangel come anew to reveal the oneness of God.
Yet for a fifth or so of the world's population, Muhammad is considered the definitive prophet. What were the circumstances that led to this? How do Muslims see there own monotheistic faith as an improvement on all that came before? And what are Christians to make of him and the religion he preached, in view of our own definitive claims to divine revelation? This, I suppose, is a good question to have in mind in reading the history of Muhammad's life and his early followers.
Adveniat Regnum Tuum!
Back in the Blogosphere
As a glance at the archive will indicate, this blog has been defunct for almost a full year. In between came an increasinly busy schedule at the Cathedral; an exciting project teaching Latin for the last year to the Poor Clare community in South St. Louis County; the (more or less) successful end of my internship followed by an action-packed summer working with youth and then studying Spanish in Mexico for five weeks; a resumption of classes at the seminary; the Cardinals' stunning victory in the 2006 World Series; the beginning of work on my M.A. thesis; and most recently, a wonderful Christmas followed by two weeks of retreat and then vacation in sunny California. Which brings us into the middle of my third year of theology, and the verge of diaconate ordination, which is scheduled for March 31 of this year.
So what brings me back to this medium, which allows one (as someone once said of someone) to never have an unpublished thought? Not surprisingly, it is the demands of academia. I shall here be throwing out some periodic thoughts on a course in which I am enrolled, entitled "Islam through Catholic eyes." The topic is, obviously, a highly relevant one to us, both as Catholics (see Pope Benedict's Regensburg speech and the reaction thereto) and as Americans (see last night's State of the Union speech, or any newspaper since 9-11). I hope I can at least gain a little more insight into the beliefs and history of this religion which has once again become so significant for the West.
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