Those of us who want to see an end to Islamic terrorism, yet know the terrorist bent of both the Koran and the Hadith, have struggled with whether or not Islam can be reformed. As I have written, it certainly can’t return to first principles (restoration), because it is in those that we find the blatant racism and violence. Their only moderating approach will be one of liberalism, which has a better descriptor than “moderate,’ which is nominal. Similar to “nominal Christians,” they don’t follow the teachings very closely, and merely look for a positive moral structure and humanistic ethic dressed in faith.
In fact, this truth about the rotten root of Islam is why Muslim turned atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of the new book Infidel, has called term “moderate Muslim” an oxymoron. With Islam, returning to first principles is to return to righteousness by the law, murder, deception, and control, in the name of Allah. Others have recently written about the myth of the moderate Muslim, and although this is somewhat a semantic discussion, the point is that, theologically speaking, it is very difficult to formulate a “moderate” Muslim theology based on the Koran and Hadith.
This is what separates Christianity from Islam – a return to the first principles of Christ (a.k.a. the “fundamentals”) is a return to personal piety, good works, love, and preaching righteousness, but not fear, coercion or compulsion (even though some Christian religionists may resort to such). However, I can already predict that the liberal mindset, which can’t distinguish between preaching righteousness and Islamic oppression, will not see this very significant and real distinction. But I’ll deal with that in my next post.
