Cartoon Enemies

They are our friends and enemies.

It’s important not to jump to conclusions about the Muslims who have rioted for weeks after Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. First, we shouldn’t be too quick to denounce our friends. Muslim leaders have been among the Church’s best allies at U.N. conferences that sought to globalize the world’s most permissive abortion laws. Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have spoken admiringly about aspects of Islam.

Second, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions because it’s unwise to misjudge our enemies. Many Muslim leaders are certainly our enemies, whether we want them to be or not. They have declared war on our country, hounded Catholics out of Muslim areas, and denied non-Muslims the right to worship.

So we should look at the reaction by Muslims to the Danish cartoons objectively and carefully. After all, we expect the same from Muslims.

We don’t like it when they call us “the Great Satan” or call Christianity the religion of infidels. But the fruits of Christianity are obvious, they will say: In an 88% Christian country like the United States you find widespread abortion, pornography, crime-ridden urban centers, high suicide rates and coarsening moral standards. We know that this is a hasty judgment, and that none of these things is a result of Christian discipleship. We need to avoid making a hasty judgment of Islam, too.

First, we need to recognize what the protests were really about. They were not, in fact, a reaction to a single depiction of Mohammed with a bomb-like turban. Muslims protested because the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten basically dared them to. Muslims believe it is wrong to depict their founder. In order to “test the limits of free speech” and see what Muslims would do about it, the newspaper ran a contest challenging cartoonists to caricature their revered prophet.

Does provocation make a difference? Indeed it does. Think of an analogy. Christians know that Christ had no children with Mary Magdalene. Yet the claim that he did is central to the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code whose film version is set for May release. Christians will undoubtedly protest it. But how much greater would our protests be if The New York Times ran a contest asking artists to draw the most offensive depictions they could of the imaginary affair?

Certainly not violent, one might say. But were the Muslim protests violent? Some Muslims became violent as they were goaded by Muslim leaders who wanted to cause trouble. We’ve seen images of the protests. They were angry and intense, certainly, but it was only as a mob mentality broke out that they became violent in a few places, with tragic results.

Would Catholic protests mirror the cartoon protests? Probably not. But the truth is, most Catholics can hardly be bothered to give God the minimal honor of worshipping him at Sunday Mass, let alone muster any significant anger over his dishonor. In earlier days of the Church, theological disputes did cause widespread unrest among Christians, and a mob mentality did take hold here and there, with tragic results.

So we shouldn’t be too quick to denounce our Muslim friends based on these protests. But we should be just as clear about just what traits the incident reveals about those Muslims determined to be our enemies.

Anti-democratic. In Muslim countries, there are significant hurdles that will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for democracy to take root. We know they have a poor track record of respecting human rights. Now we know how they feel about the freedom of the press, too.

Anti-Christian. In Islam, Mohammed must never be depicted because it is his message, not his person, that is important. To depict him is to risk making him an idol. To say that this is at odds with Christian practices would be to put it mildly. We know that God became man. Thus, we venerate not only Christ’s image, but even the images of saints in order to grow closer to God. To Muslims, our practice of worshipping Christ is blasphemous. And blasphemy is a serious offense to Muslims.

Empowered by demographics. Notice that the riots over the cartoons were confined almost entirely to places where Muslims predominate in the population. There were large protests in European cities where Muslims are starting to become the majority, giant protests in the Middle East and hardly any protests at all in the United States, where they are a tiny minority. Muslim populations are growing by leaps and bounds, and are likely to take full advantage of the situation when demographics favor them.

Ultimately, the cartoon incident shouldn’t change our fundamental attitude toward Muslims at all. But it should convince us to redouble our efforts to re-evangelize the West. A robust Christianity will be the only thing capable of facing a robust Islam.