though you never gets it from the
paucity of cover
there's a extraordinary persecution of
Christians going on in the Middle East
over the past several years now in Egypt
Christians have been harassed and
persecuted in some cases people pursue
it even to death the persecution of the
Copts community which is one of the
oldest Christian communities in the
world is especially egregious in Egypt
in recent days and weeks we've seen of
course Isis this group of radical
Islamists that wants to establish a sort
of Caliphate along the northern Ridge of
that part of the world their violence
has been horrendous extraordinary an
almost daily basis we see it the one
that struck me most was in Mosul when
Isis took over that city and gave
Christians basically an ultimatum either
leave or pay an enormous fine or be
killed you know so this extraordinary
aggressive violence against Christians
these more extreme cases can blind us to
the ordinary oppression that you find in
a place like Saudi Arabia where it's
impossible for Christians in any way to
practice their faith publicly impossible
to build a church etc look around the
world places like Indonesia and India
the Philippines also tremendous violent
persecution against Christians maybe the
most remarkable even beyond Isis is Boko
Haram that group in Nigeria that
recently kidnapped hundreds of Christian
girls and they fear they'll sell them
into slavery so we see this this
tremendous persecution of Christians on
the part of Muslims around the world now
it's easy enough to say and correct
enough to say this is deeply inhumane
and criminal of course it is but I want
to press the thing a little further by
appealing to Pope Francis's two most
immediate predecessors look at Pope John
Paul the second there was no greater
defender of the human rights tradition
anywhere in the world than John Paul the
second all around the globe he traveled
and on his lips always was the language
of human rights and of all the human
rights John Paul consistently said the
most important is the right to religious
liberty now why because that right
corresponds to what
is absolutely deepest in us what defines
us as human beings namely our spiritual
aspiration
therefore to invade that space with
violence is to invade humanity at the
most basic level all the other rights to
life liberty at cetera et cetera
flow in some ways from our subordinate
to that basic right and so John Paul
helps us see why were were correct and
being so offended so outraged by these
aggressive attacks on religious liberty
but I want to take still another step
and appealing to Pope Francis immediate
predecessor namely Pope Benedict the
16th we all know that in 2006 Benedict
gave his famous speech at Regensburg
that became extremely controversial
because of its implied criticism of
certain elements within Islam I want to
go back to that speech though because I
find it illuminating in regard to the
present situation so he drew attention
to this this old dialogue from the 14th
century between a Byzantines a Christian
Emperor and a Muslim interlocutor and
the Emperor was making this point that
there's something deeply irrational
about a holy war and so he was he was
scouring Islam he was critiquing Islam
for advocating holy war and forcing
people to convert through violence and
the Emperor made the argument that
there's something irrational about this
why well he sounds a lot like john paul
ii because god is love and because the
deepest part in us cannot be coerced by
violence faith belongs to the soul
therefore he says you have to use
argumentation not the threat of violence
to reach someone's soul you can use
violence and someone might even convert
but they they're not really converted
there's something irrational out of step
with who we are and who God is in the
use of violence it's not soon logon to
use the Greek term there it's not
according to the word now here's the
point that Pope Benedict made at
Regensburg I think was often overlooked
Christianity ident
fyz God with Lagos it's a very important
move identifies God with reason that
means we can appeal to reason when
looking at things like religion and we
can say something within your religion
expression right now is irrational
therefore it's opposed to God but here's
the trouble that Benedict put his finger
on within Islam and again not just Islam
you can find this a lot of different
philosophical traditions there's what we
call on the west of voluntaristic strain
that means a hyper stress on the divine
will over the divine reason so that what
matters is God's will if God willed it
adultery could be a virtue if God willed
it to bust who could be equal to five if
God willed it and this is Benedict draws
attention to a French Islamic scholar
who admits this if God willed it
idolatry could be a good thing it's a
bad thing because Allah has willed
otherwise the point here is volunteerism
places will so far above reason that
it's hard to appeal to reason in
critiquing religious extremism
volunteerism as such is the source of
enormous mischief within a religious
tradition look Christians have acted in
terrible ways over the centuries please
don't make comments and write me letters
about that I know of course they have
Christian with terrible things often in
the name of God but I think you can show
very clearly that when they do that they
are out of step with but God who's
defined as both logos and love here is
Benedict's challenge and it is a
challenge but I've yet to see it really
being taken up seriously can the same be
said of a very strong voluntarist ik
tradition when a Valtra sztyc religious
tradition does resort to violence can
you appeal to reason to show that
there's something problematic there that
was the challenge that Benedict offered
as far as I'm concerned it's not really
been certain or responded to what's the
bottom line in all this prayer prayer
for those who are persecuted and also
prayer for their persecutors as Jesus
himself taught us
because here's the bottom line from a
Christian standpoint the same God was
defined as Lagos reason is defined in in
the first letter of John as love love
and Lagos come together and so it's with
that idea clearly in mind that we pray
for those who are persecuted and we pray
for their persecutors
you