Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism

To meet the challenge of radical Islam and jihadism, the Christian West must return to its roots.

George Weigel | Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action | Doubleday | 208 pages
ISBN: 0385523785

George Weigel is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington DC and the author of many books exploring the relationship between faith and culture. Here he brings his voice to the urgent debate that has arisen since September 11, 2001 and the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York, asking: what are the right tools for winning the war against terror? In this thought-provoking brief survey he examines the history of jihadism and the weaknesses and strengths of the West in facing it. In this he leans heavily on the work of two scholars of modern Islam, Lawrence Wright and Bernard Lewis. His book is divided into three parts: understanding the enemy, rethinking realism and deserving victory. It should be read by, among others, all thoughtful atheists (not an oxymoron).

The war against jihadism itself reflects a more fundamental war: the war between a faith, Islam, followed by over a billion people around the world, that is usually seen as impervious to reason, and the West, which increasingly trumpets a reason divorced from faith. It is Weigel’s contention that the West cannot win the war against terror unless and until it resolves its own internal metaphysical conflicts. This is a battle of ideas as much as one of conventional weaponry. Here the author’s potent analogy is the West’s approach to Communism after 1945: we believed it was a bankrupt political system compared to ours and we believed that ordinary people behind the Iron Curtain would eventually come to know this if they did not do so already. Confidence, patience and diplomacy were to prove us right.

Critics of this analogy will state that a religion, especially one as ancient and formidable as Islam, cannot be approached like a political system. No, but important lessons can be learnt. At first we need to understand and respect it, which is difficult when the US Government is dominated, as Weigel says, by a “genteel secularity”. In the UK it is less genteel than aggressive; both are inadequate in facing the problem. “Islam has given meaning and purpose to hundreds of millions of lives that have been nobly and decently lived”, he states. What ideas of nobility and decency can we offer to Muslims when our Western societies seem increasingly dominated by secularism, consumerism and moral relativism and when we “do not take religious ideas seriously as a dynamic force in the world’s history”? Where we see “progress”, they are inclined to see decadence – and perhaps they are not entirely wrong.

On a personal note here, I take several Muslim pupils for private English tutoring. During Lent I happened to have my Bible open on my desk. My pupils all remarked on this with interest and approval; they were clearly comfortable in the company of a fellow believer in a transcendental view of life, although recognising the huge differences between Christianity and Islam.

Pope Benedict XVI, in what has come to be seen notoriously as his “Regensburg Address” but which, not insignificantly, was actually a lecture on “Faith, Reason and the University” pointedly remarked that “a reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering the dialogue of cultures.” It is not widely known that, after the immediate and immoderate reaction to his lecture in some Muslim quarters, the Pope received an “Open Letter” in response to his challenge to dialogue, signed by 38 prominent Islamic leaders around the globe, in which they distanced themselves from jihadism. Western diplomacy, contends Weigel, needs to follow the Pope’s lead.

To do this with confidence we need, as the author says, to “reclaim the history of the West”. We have allowed this history to be hijacked by vehement and articulate atheists who dominate the media and who have persuaded the uninformed both that the 18th century Enlightenment was the herald of all the modern democratic freedoms we take for granted and that it was preceded by a long “dark ages” of Christian superstition, religious bigotry and persecution. This is bias on a big scale. Freedom actually began with the coming of Christianity and its emphasis on the intrinsic worth and dignity of every human being. Enlightenment thinkers built on the foundations of Christianity even as they and their progeny were kicking away these foundations.

To appeal to Muslim moderates, of whom there are millions behind the 38 who wrote to the Pope, we have to demonstrate to them that the greatest achievements of the West are not merely technological or scientific, important though these are. They are, as Professor Roger Scruton says, “works of spiritual grace and high culture”.  Some of them, such as the magnificent Gothic cathedrals dotted around Europe, are detailed in the late Kenneth Clarke’s fine TV series, Civilisation. What Weigel describes as our “self-imposed dhimmitude”, that is, our self-abasement towards Muslims and our acquiescence to Muslim pressure, such that in the UK we have financed mosques and madrassas that preach contempt for our way of life, must be seen for what it is, moral cowardice, and rejected; we have to believe our culture worth preserving – or, as Churchill so pugnaciously put it during the last War, we have to “deserve” victory.

Weigel wryly observes that we are not going to “convert 1.2 billion Muslims into good secular liberals.” As should be obvious by now in Iraq and Afghanistan, we cannot also impose our own democratic systems on people who have never known them and who, at least in Afghanistan, are essentially tribal. What we can and must focus on is respect for pluralism and religious tolerance, respect for the rule of law and commitment to persuasion, not coercion.  In Islam the fusion of temporal and religious authority – the theocratic state – is an obstacle; there is no mention in the Qur’an of “rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and rendering unto God that which is God’s” which led in the West, albeit slowly, to an understanding of the distinctive roles of church and state.

And yet the jihadist tradition in Islam, the desire to compel worldwide submission to Allah, an impersonal God of absolute will, is not the only tradition. After 9/11 I was reminded by friends of Islam’s one-time intellectual creativity, openness to rational enquiry and to the influence of Greek philosophy. I would remind them that Avicenna and Averroes died over 800 years ago; and Weigel reminds us in these pages that a pitifully few Western books have been translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years; indeed, that the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment all passed without effect in the Islamic world. Nonetheless, he cites Bernard Lewis who points to a different Muslim history that existed before Arab authoritarianism developed momentum in the 18th century, hardening into jihad in the 20th: a tradition that allowed consultation, limited responsible authority and government under law.

Weigel’s book raises the possibility of the jihadists obtaining nuclear power; this alone makes the requirement of dialogue imperative. Commentators such as Alasdair Palmer, reviewing Philip Bobbit’s book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 21^st Century, take a depressingly conventional view of this subject: death, for jihadists, is the point of the struggle; their obtaining nuclear power within a decade is a terrifying certainty rather than a terrifying possibility; and therefore America and her allies must fight violence with (pre-emptive) violence. This book, though supporting the US invasion of Iraq (if not its chaotic, unthought out aftermath) describes an alternative strategy: to fight flawed and distorted ideas with stronger and more convincing ideas, ideas that do not separate reason from faith and that do not debase the proclamation “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” of the founding fathers of America into life for some but not others, moral licence and the pursuit of hedonism.

Francis Phillips writes from Bucks, in the UK.

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Comments (16)

Gail F said...

I have not read this book yet, but I've read numerous essays on the subject by George Weigel, and he is definitely on to something. The absolute refusal by U.S. and European intellectuals to discuss religious motivation in what is amounting to an immense clash between the West and Islam (a religion) never ceases to astonish me. My family and many of my friends are politically liberal, and they won't discuss it at all -- they seem to have a visceral reaction to mentioning the subject, as if even acknowledging that Islam is a religion that teaches that it should be universal and enforced by government is equivalent to shouting "Death to the infidel!" I tell these people over and over that we can't deal with and solve an issue that we won't acknowledge, and that we can't talk to people who take religion so seriously that they are willing to die for it if we think religion is too trivial to mention. But I find this falls on deaf ears.

United States | Saturday, 21 June 2008 at 9:33 pm

Fr. Larry Gearhart said...

Could George Weigel be developing a more nuanced political philosophy than the neo-conservatism with which he is most frequently associated?

United States | Sunday, 22 June 2008 at 3:45 am

Bruce said...

A very good review of this book: very positive outlook; may very well catch on.

Australia | Sunday, 22 June 2008 at 2:04 pm

David Page said...

Gail F said: "The absolute refusal by U.S. and European intellectuals to discuss religious motivation in what is amounting to an immense clash between the West and Islam (a religion) never ceases to astonish me."

I think religious motivation in the clash between Islam and the West is discussed all the time, just not in terms flattering to religion. I agree that everyone who is united in opposition to the present Muslim madness should have the courage of their convictions. They should say with pride that our way is the better way. Immigrants should be told that if they can't accept the ways of western democracy then they won't be allowed to come. And we should remember that oil is also one of the culprits. If it wasn't for oil we wouldn't care what the Muslims thought or did. That's why an aggressive energy policy is a matter of national security, of patriotism. We should drill for oil wherever we can and have much higher mileage standards for our automobiles. The American oil giants are sitting on leases for 63 million drillable acres, land and offshore. Drill ships are booked for the next five years. I don't know if any new ones are being built. We aren't even trying.

United States | Monday, 23 June 2008 at 12:35 pm

John James said...

"They should say with pride that our way is the best way" When we appeal to "our way" to what are we appealing? The Left-liberal "our way" is to insist that religion is opposed to reason, is fundamentally destructive and inimical to human flourishing. Radical Islam points to 'Blue America's' championing of official atheism, abortion, marital infidelity, repudiation of marriage as the foundation of the family, homosexuality and pornography as legitimate freedom of expression and it says that "you Americans" are using your cultural and economic hegemony to export this corruption to Muslim culture. This argument resonates even with moderate Muslims who, though they repudiate radical Islam's interpretation of 'Jihad', nevertheless share the radicals abhorrence for this "filth".
Michael Moore lamented that 9/11 happened in liberal (Blue ) New York, not (Red )Texas.
The way forward is to demonstrate to moderate Islam that the West is not represented by the relativism of liberal social doctrine. That's why Pope Benedict, who has repudiated the "tyranny of Relativism" may be best situated to carry this dialogue forward.

Australia | Monday, 23 June 2008 at 9:45 pm

Fr. Larry Gearhart said...

The secular mindset in Europe and in much of North America has all the earmarks of a new religion, perhaps even a New Age religion, although many of its practitioners would probably deny any religious affiliation at all. The closed nature of this new system of thought, however, is advanced more and more in the political and cultural arena, so much so that it has become entirely analogous to Islamic Sharia Law in its rigidity.

So on one side, the Islamic side, there is a deeply conscious awareness of participation in an all-embracing religion. On the other side, the side of neo-liberal/neo-conservative secularism, there is no such self awareness, and this in spite of the belief system being quite strongly held.

If it were not for the fact that this new western belief system leads to a disastrous decline in the birth rate (perhaps the most concrete evidence available of the real core differences in faith), with no sign yet of a possible turn around, the history of the next few hundred years would see the gradual development of a more conscious theology, as happens in every religion.

One of the more interesting, and for me, alarming, trends in western societies is the erosion of Christian and Jewish faith as young people, by default, adopt the secular mind set. The result is a kind of syncretism wherein the primary belief system is secularism and the secondary or tertiary belief system, as expressed almost entirely in ritual form, is Christianity or Judaism. This phenomenon is entirely analogous to the retention of animistic or other primitive practices among new Christians or Jews (as well as Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) in the third world. This allows secularists to retain a sense of identity as Christian, Jew, etc., long after they have given up or thrown over the core of their heritage.

The coming conflict with Islam will resemble the Crusades of the middle ages, with all of its attendant atrocities, but with Christianity replaced by secularism.

United States | Tuesday, 24 June 2008 at 1:01 am

David Page said...

The secular society you hate so much is the reason you have religious freedom. The idea that religious freedom is possible in a Theocracy is a fairy tale. The Muslims that you seem to admire kill people who don't believe as they do. There is nothing to admire about them. When I see Muslim men in a crowd shouting death to 'this' and 'that' I'm reminded of angry, unruly children. Moderate Muslims, when they speak out against radical Muslims, don't shout their condemnation, they whisper it. Islam is the Christianity of 600 years ago. The weakness of the West isn't Secularists, it's the weak minded, self effacing proponents of multiculturalism and the religious right which admires the control Muslims have over all aspects of their societies.

United States | Wednesday, 25 June 2008 at 10:20 am

Caius said...

The secular progressives have had their day. In some communities almost two thirds of the children are born out of wedlock. Abortion is rampant. The collapse of the family and godless schools have turned our inner cities into danger zones. Pornography is one of the few growth industries. The financial industry is in deep trouble because it is based on trust, and there no longer is any trust.

The children of Nietzsche gave us Communism, Nazism, the modern secularist state, the holocaust and the gulag. Without the notion of the transcendence of the human person as an image of God, the individual is like an ant in an anthill not worthy of dignity and having no claim on the right to exist.

The West has become the West because of the religion of Jerusalem, the reason of Greece and the temperance of Roman law. Without the law being tempered by faith and reason, the law becomes simply an instrument of power of those having the means to exercise that power.

United States | Thursday, 26 June 2008 at 2:17 am

Fr. Larry Gearhart said...

David, since I brought up the matter of secular religion, I assume you were referring to me by saying, "The secular society you hate so much..."

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not hate secularists, per se. I don't even hate secularism, per se. I do, of course, have a problem with certain forms of narrow mindedness that are self-characterized as secular humanism.

I happen to agree with you that theocracy is a bad idea. I also think other tyrannical ideas are bad, such as the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of any one branch of government. I have no interest, for example, in defending the perspective of Pope Boniface VIII, who believed that the Pope should be considered above all secular power. It took centuries to establish separate spheres of action in which Church and secular authorities exercise governance, and there will, no doubt, be continuing conflicts for the next several centuries.

It took further centuries to establish the separation of the powers of secular government, and this, too, retains an element of instability due to the conflicts that arise among the various personalities who assume these posts. In modern times, we have seen the abuse of the Executive and the Judiciary. Most of these conflicts are brought about through a combination of misunderstanding, jealousy, paranoia, narrow ideology and an addiction to power.

My prior piece was concerned about the establishment of a secular tyranny similar in some respects to the social and cultural tyranny of the Leninists, the Hitlerists and of the Maoists, and, like them, with pretenses to scientific and philosophical superiority over competing ideas and traditions. Unfortunately, as in times past, people of good will have yet to be alerted to the problem, and, probably also as in times past, by the time they see what's coming they may lack the guts and the vision to do anything about it.

United States | Thursday, 26 June 2008 at 3:54 am

David Page said...

Actually, father Gearhart, I wasn't referring to you specifically. Although we usually disagree, I find you to be quite reasonable. My problems with the Catholic Church are quite small compared to the difficulty I have with fundamentalist, conservative Christianity. I see in them a milder form of Muslim extremism.

Father Gearhart said: "My prior piece was concerned about the establishment of a secular tyranny similar in some respects to the social and cultural tyranny of the Leninists, the Hitlerists and of the Maoists, and, like them, with pretenses to scientific and philosophical superiority over competing ideas and traditions."

It's a legitimate concern, for liberals as well as conservatives. Tyranny can come in any guise. I see a similarity, for instance, between multiculturalism and the Soviet habit of of referring to the rights of peoples, rather than the rights of individual people. It seems a small distinction but the intent is to absorb the individual into a controlling group. This is very troubling for a lefty like me. I know that some Christians worry about modern society glorifying the individual. But I worry about the loss of that individuality to a movement or religion that tries to be more than the sum of its parts. The threat is always there but the red flag, for me, is any group that wants to bury the individual into the whole.

United States | Friday, 27 June 2008 at 12:31 pm

John James said...

I am surprised to see 'multiculturalism " being attacked from the Left. But stranger things happen!
I do not believe the argument with Islam is directly a Democracy vs Theocracy argument.At least, within Islam, that is not how the argument is cast. Kosovo has just attained independence from Greater Serbia because the majority Albanian population, predominantly Muslim, has voted to secede.Radical Hamas defeated Fatah in Gaza in a democratic election.The fastest growing segment of the population in Jerusalem are the Palestinians,largely Muslim, who reject the proposition that Jerusalem belongs only to Israel, and who may come to dominate local government positions shortly.In Europe,the fastest growing segment of the demographic is the Muslim. My point is that Islam has little to fear from the democratic process and I dont think it does it fear democracy.
The argument is whether the culture of the West is "corrupt". My point in my earlier posting is that there is a tremendous struggle underway within the West, sometimes referred to as "the Culture Wars" and on the outcome of this hangs much of the strategy for dialoging with Islam This is essentially a battle between the Christian culture and especially the anthropology that informed the notion of Universal Human Rights, Magna Carta and Jefferson's preamble. The left-liberal agenda must be defeated in order to defeat the radical Islamists. As others have noted, the foundations of the West are its Christian heritage and that foundation must be strong if we are to engage Islam.
That is why it is no surprise that the Pope has been best situated to commence that dialogue.

Australia | Friday, 27 June 2008 at 5:35 pm

David Page said...

John James, Kosovo is not a Theocracy. As far as Hamas defeating Fatah; one vote, one time, and then tyranny, does not constitute a functional democracy. England is a theocracy, but in name only. Turkey is an example of a Muslim country with secular government. There is a culture war going on there, also. Do you really want the Muslims to win? I think, as I've said before, that the Christian right-wing envies the control that Muslim theocracies have over their populations. I think the talk of 'engaging' Islam on their own terms is creepy and dangerous. It's your multiculturalism.

United States | Friday, 27 June 2008 at 10:22 pm

John James said...

(1)"Kosovo is not a theocracy" No, but that's my point! The Muslim position/view/concern, call it what you will, prevailed through the 'democratic' ballot box. There are many 'Kosovo's' on the horizon. Muslim interests can and probably will be addressed democratically. I would have preferred a different result. Kosovo is the cradle of Serb Christian culture. It has been part of Serbia for 1000 years. Autonomy rather that independence would have been preferable. The result will embitter many Serbs. One of the most common new-born baby boys names in Europe is Mohammed. Draw your own conclusions. Democracy is not an issue for Islam.
(2)"..talk of engaging Islam on their terms is creepy..". Islam must be confronted. We can shoot at them or we can dialogue. I'd rather do the latter, though I agree that for some sections of Islam there can only be shooting. If we are to dialogue then it makes sense to dialogue about issues which are COMMON to both Islam and Christian thought.That is why the Pope is so well situated to enter this dialogue. The Left-liberal position that religious conviction can have no role in public policy formulation is offensive to both Christian and Islamic thought and liberal understanding of freedom, defending such terrible assaults on human dignity as abortion,'lethal homicide' directed at the helpless, as legitimate expressions of personal autonomy, is also offensive to Christian and Islamic thought. This deformation of freedom is at the heart of Muslim concern.
(3)" Do you want the Muslims to win?" No. That's why I hope McCain prevails over your Left-liberal colleague Obama whose view of what should be done in Iraq is dangerous not to mention his appalling views relating to the unborn.
But the West must build bridges with moderate Islam otherwise we actually strengthen the hand of the Jihadists.

Australia | Sunday, 29 June 2008 at 7:05 pm

David Page said...

John James said: "I would have preferred a different result. Kosovo is the cradle of Serb Christian culture. It has been part of Serbia for 1000 years. Autonomy rather that independence would have been preferable."

Perhaps if the Serbian Christians weren't killing the Serbian Muslims you could have had a different result. What you got was the perfect secular solution. The Christians and Muslims weren't playing nice so they had to be separated. And where was this fabled dialogue between two religious populations you wanted to have? It certainly wasn't in Serbia. Where were the moderate Christians? Secular democracy is the only government that works. Show me the Theocracy that is not a tyranny.

United States | Monday, 30 June 2008 at 12:14 pm

David J. Webb said...

There have been some good comments made above. I strongly agree with John James of Australia in respect of fighting for the West's Christian heritage. The Christian West has become weaker and weaker as it has embraced secularism, unhindered by modernist Christianity. When I was serving as an Army officer in Iraq in OIF, I increasingly thought Pope John Paul II very wrong to have taken such a pacifist view of the war on Islamic terrorism, not just Iraq and Afghanistan but across the world. Whether the Church and other Christians realize it, we in the West are in a war for our survival, including that of our Faith. The kumbaya spirit of Vatican II has made the Church weak and all too keen to appease Islam. Grow up Christians - enough of this love and peace nonsense when dealing with Muslims. I only hope Pope Benedict XVI proves to be the German panzer pope.

Canada | Tuesday, 1 July 2008 at 9:38 am

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