Apocalypse Revisited, not for the last time

morgan:

October 9th, 2012 at 8:17 pm

Charles, a question since you mentioned Rushdoony: given the choice, would you rather live under Rushdoony’s biblical law or shar’ai? I know you would say ” neither,” but of the two choices which one would you coose?

Charles Cameron:

October 10th, 2012 at 12:02 am

Fascinating question, Morgan.  I take it you mean as extreme an interpretation of Shariah as Rushdoony’s is of Biblical Law?  I don’t think I’d survive for long under either one.  Since I think severity of implementation in each case probably depends a lot on cultural background as well as the actual texts, I suspect I’d rather live under a Euro-American cultural “set” than, say, a Saudi or Pakistani one — but I’d be a serious sinner and a heretic in either case.

zen:

October 10th, 2012 at 2:27 am

I wouldn’t want to live under either. 
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It is interesting that this Fuqua character states the Founding Fathers lived by “Biblical principles” (vague) vice that they were “Christians”, which many Founders were not, at least in the sense of modern evangelical Christianity. That is at least somewhat more accurate than the usual claims of this kind. The revolutionary war era like most brutal and tumultuous times of revolution was a very secular period culturally that was sandwiched between the first and second “Great Awakenings”. The latter of which was intertwined with a rising New England middle-class and a “cult of domesticity” with the upright, Christian wife and mother as the guardian of the private sphere’s sanctity and morality. It launched both peculairly American tent revivalism as well as the great reform movements of the 1840’s-1890’s (Abolition, Suffrage, Temperance, Child Labor, Compulsory education etc.)

morgan:

October 10th, 2012 at 8:29 pm

But I’m wondering–I really don’t know as theology is one of my poorest knowledge bases–if there is more possibility of individual freedom under a Rushdoony regime thna a shar’ai-based one? I certainly don’t know the answer but wonder what one more versed in theology thinks?

Charles Cameron:

October 11th, 2012 at 4:37 am

Hi Morgan:
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I don’t have a point-by-point comparison of what the two law structures would say, and don’t know of one, but my guess is that a lot would depend on the state of the culture at the point in question, whether there were “religious police” at work and if so how much leeway they were given (think Saudi), what the mob mood was like (think Pakistan) — and these things shift notably from time to time.
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Compare, for instance, the Saudis, who have not allowed non-Islamic places of worship to be built on their soil, with other Islamic regimes around the world, which have:

Yes, I Know That Churches Cannot Be Built in Saudi Arabia. But they can be built in the other 56 Muslim-majority countries in the world! 
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dilara-hafiz/yes-i-know-that-churches_b_669159.html

Consider the recent opening of a Catholic chapel in Qatar and the Saudi-Vatican discussions, both of which are reported here:

Presiding over the cradle of Islam and home to its holiest sites, the Saudi monarchy has long banned the open worship of other faiths, even as the number of Catholics resident in Saudi Arabia has risen to 800,000 thanks to an influx of immigrant workers from places like the Philippines and India. Mosques are the only houses of prayer in a country where the strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam dominates. But Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hachem, the papal envoy to the smaller countries on the Arabian peninsula, such as Kuwait and Qatar, has confirmed that talks are under way to establish formal diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Saudi Arabia, and to eventually allow for Catholic churches to be built there. Pope Benedict XVI is believed to have personally appealed to King Abdullah on the topic during the Saudi monarch’s first ever visit to the Vatican last November.

 
Consider the new Saudi tolerance to their own students visiting the places of worship of other religions:

Sheikh Dr. Abdullah bin Suleiman al-Manee, member of the Board of Senior Ulama and Adviser to the Royal Court, told Saudi university students in Malaysia that they are allowed to visit worship places of other religions and encouraged them to heavy usage of the social media, Al Riyadh newspaper reported online on Monday.
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Dr. Abdullah explained to the recipients of H.H. the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques foreign scholarship program, that he doesn’t object visiting worship places of non-muslims and watch their rituals, even if they have to pay entrance fees, as this will strengthen the muslim’s attachment to his religion and shows the ignorance of the followers of other religions.

 
Then contrast those observations with this report:
 
by Luiza Oleszczuk in The Christian Post, titled ‘Destroy all churches,’ says Saudi Arabian Islamic leader

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the highest official of religious law in the Sunni country, has reportedly declared this week that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches” in the region, implying that no other religion besides Islam will be tolarated on the Arabian Peninsula – as there are currently no churches in Saudi Arabia.
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Al-Asheikh made the statement Monday during a meeting with a delegation from a Kuwait-based NGO, Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage, in response to a question on what Shariah law says about building churches, according to the Arabic Christian publication, Linga.org.

 
To be honest, the last of these is the only one that’s as strident as this, from the Rushdoony-style Dominionist Joseph Morecraft, as reported by Frederick Clarkson:

Such views pale before Morecraft’s deeper views of life and government. In his book, and especially when speaking at the 1993 Biblical World View and Christian Education Conference, Morecraft discussed with relish the police power of the state. His belief in the persecution of nonbelievers and those who are insufficiently orthodox is crystal clear. Morecraft described democracy as “mob rule,” and stated that the purpose of “civil government” is to “terrorize evil doers. . . to be an avenger!” he shouted, “To bring down the wrath of God to bear on all those who practice evil!”
 
“And how do you terrorize an evil doer?” he asked. “You enforce Biblical law!” The purpose of government, he said, is “to protect the church of Jesus Christ,” and, “Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody’s pseudo-right to worship an idol!” “There ain’t no such thing” as religious pluralism, he declared. Further, “There has never been such a condition in the history of mankind. There is no such place now. There never will be.”

Morecraft may be the Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh of Christian Reconstructionism, and there may well be mellower voices in the Reconstructionist fold, as there are mellower voices in the world of strict Wahhabist Sharia implementation.
 
As Clarkson also said in the same piece:

If the Christian Right ever came to power, it’s anyone’s guess what would actually occur.

My guess, that neither a full-blown Salafist nor a full-blown Dominionist government will come to power in the US, would also be my prayer if such a thing looked even remotely likely.

James Bennett:

October 11th, 2012 at 5:09 am

It would be interesting to see what a Dominionist government would try to do in Utah. Interesting in a sort of abstract intellectual curiosity way, that is.  I wouldn’t want to be anywhere nearby, since the crossfire would be intense.  Fortunately I agree with Charles on the slimness of the chances of a Dominionist government ever happening.

morgan:

October 11th, 2012 at 1:22 pm

I agree with both Charles and Jim Re; a dominionist government ever happening. My question evolved from a thought of mine–erronious as it may be–that went something like this: The early years of Christianity passed through Roman Empire, which was not a democracy through the Dark Ages and the Middle Age when political structures were authoritarian through the evolution of the nation stae after the Thirty Years war and finally the democratic era. Through that passage I imagine–but confess I’m not sure–there were bits and pieces of dominionist thinking applied to political structures throughout what was termed Christendom, yet Christianity survived and thrived as did political evolution. I just wondered if the same thing would be lesslikely to happen with Islam? My gut instict, and that is all it is, is that it wouldn’t and didn’t happen. But, again, my knowledge of theology and its path through history is far from my strong point. Thus I pose it, probably in a disjointed manner to those who are a lot more versed on the subject. My appologies if this doesn’t make sense.