Pope Benedict XVI Criticized for Thinking

I know that Pope Benedict XVI's widely criticized statement about Islam is old news already. However, my brain sometimes works like the Church's thought process - slowly and carefully - and I don't always get in my two cents in a timely manner. I hope my comments are worth the wait, but on this topic I'm not sure I offer anything new. Still, it has to be said.

It seemed that everyone needed to jump on the bandwagon to criticize Pope Benedict XVI for his apparent criticisms of Islam. The editors of my home newspaper even felt the need to chime in.

But as the leader of the world's largest Christian denomination, the pope represents all of Christianity in the eyes of many.

He intended only to start a dialog with Muslims, Pope Benedict has said, but inflaming anit-Christian fervor in an area of the world that already feels itself beseiged by teh United States, which has waged wars and now occupies Iraq and Afghanistan, both Islamic nations, isn't the way to begin.

And although the threats of violence are an extreme overreaction, substitute the name "Jesus" for "Mohammed" in the text the pope quoted -- calling him "evil and inhuman" and think about how Christians would react.

Excuse me? We seemed to have missed a couple of key factors regarding this whole situation. First of all, Pope Benedict was not giving some run-of-the-mill political speech. He was talking to intellectuals, offering an intellectual discourse. While politicians and newspaper editors may be unable to handle the truth of history, intellectuals tend to examine (not ignore or shy away from) historical documents and react to them. Just because an intellectual quotes an historical source doesn't mean he is promoting the idea therein. He is much more likely examining the idea. In the case of Pope Benedict, he was examining the idea of coercing people in to a faith. His conculsion was that coercion is opposed to true faith for any religion - Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.

Finally, how would Christians respond to remarks about Christ? We don't even have to ak that question because we know. Christians have to endure downright slander and lies about their faith nearly daily. The crusades, the Inquisition, Galileo, "Hitler's Pope," the Davinci Code, The Last Temptation of Christ, and the list goes on. How do Christians respond? We whine. We write letters. We boycott. Yeah. That's pretty close to "We will break up the cross, spill the liquor, impose the tax, then the only thing accepable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword." Do I sound bitter? I guess I do. I'm just tired of our anti-intellectual media taking potshots at what they don't understand. We need to learn how to think, and we need to let those who already know how to think do it.

Read the Pope's Actual Text

Read an excellent response to the media's criticism by George Weigel