Civil Discourse

There are very few people who have supported the Iraq War throughout whose opinions I still value. Dennis Prager is one exception because he civil and reasonable. He is not a party hack, and comes to conclusions on his own. We all get things wrong now and again.

Being a Jew, this year he is running a series of columns entitled "Explaining Jews". Knowing less than I should, I am glad to have a good teacher on the subject. His latest installment explaining why Jews are often secular was sound, except on one point.

Which brings us to the third reason. Along with their rejection of Jewish religiosity, Jews also feared and loathed their Christian neighbors' religiosity. European Jews had suffered for centuries from religion-based (especially European Christian) anti-Semitism. For example, Jews were tortured to death on a charge of "desecration of the host," which essentially meant being murdered for allegedly torturing a wafer. Christian anti-Semitism in Europe ensured that virtually no Jew would feel sympathetic to religion generally, let alone Christianity specifically. Therefore, when European culture began warring on Christianity, many Jews completely identified with the anti-religious warriors. Those warriors were the men of the Enlightenment, the self-righteous title the anti-Christians gave their movement.

Historically, this is valid, but I felt that the charge of desecration of the host was belittled. Although Prager probably understood, I felt it was important to remind him that there are some of us who feel that the Host should be capitalized being rather more than a wafer as we believe it to be the Body of Christ.

At this point I went to look for the email I sent, but I had sumbitted it from his site, and hence have no record of it. Then I went to locate his reply--yes he actually replied to me which strengthens the respect I have for him--but could not locate it. Forgive my absent-mindedness.
He essentially told me that while I could regard it as the Host to him and to Jews it was a wafer, which is true.

With Muslims going nuts over a series of Dutch cartoons of Allah, the parallel is clear. There are going to be disagreements when you have people who have different beliefs. But just as Christians should not have killed Jews for torturing what they believed to be a wafer, so too should the Muslims calm down just a bit. We can debate civilly over certain moral issues--abortion, euthanasia and the like--but in matters of faith it does no good to assume that other side agrees with us. The only oddity about this story is that while printing cartoons probably had some value in the public discourse, I can think of no reason to torture a wafer. Though imperfect, the commonality is evident.

Just as a fanatical Church needed to be purged now and again, Islam is in desperate need of a good bath. We can only pray that they are moderated quickly before Europe surrenders to their fanaticism. While it is unlikly a couple of satirical illustrations in a newspaper could spark a world war, the folks in the Middle East are angry an awful lot. Though they are morally right in publishing the cartoons, it is not a tactful or wise maneuver and doing so will only have negative consequences. These will be evident in the not too distant future. As Drudge likes to say, developing...