Fitna and Faith: Pursuing A Christian Response – Part 3 – Roman Catholic and Protestant Responses

Having introduced Geert Wilder’s Fitna film and surveyed its political repercussions over the past few days, in part 3 I will examine how the Christian world is officially responding to Fitna. First up, the Roman Catholic response; then, we’ll look at the Protestant response.

Roman Catholic Response

Silence So Far on Fitna

So far I have not found any official statements from the Vatican or other Roman Catholic sources regarding Fitna. If the Vatican’s past action of condemning the offensive Danish cartoons is any indicator, perhaps we should expect an official Vatican condemnation of Fitna soon. However, Vatican’s slow response may involve continued tensions in Vatican-Muslim relations due to Magdi Allam’s Easter baptism.

Ongoing Natural Law Tensions Perhaps Slowing Positive Momentum

The recent conversion and Easter baptism by Pope Benedict of Magdi Allam may have slowed the positive momentum in Christian-Muslim relations, evidenced most recently by the scheduled Vatican forum to discuss A Common Word in November and the Vatican’s negotiations toward opening a Catholic church in Saudi Arabia. In spite of the official Vatican preemptive press release about Allam’s baptism, Professor Aref Ali Nayed, a signer of the A Common Word letter, strongly condemned the Pope’s baptizing of Allam, claiming the Easter baptism to be a political spectacle.

Nayed’s condemnation received a rebuttal by Father Federico Lombardi, who reiterated the Vatican’s commitment to continuing the A Common Word dialog while at the same time re-stating the Pope’s arguments regarding Islam’s failure to navigate the church-state relationship in a post-Enlightenment world. (See Pope Benedict’s 2006 speech for his Enlightenment critique of Islam.) Speaking of the Vatican’s response to Nayed, Jeff Israely writes for Time.com:

Nonetheless, Allam’s public conversion is another reminder that the Vatican is not shying away from the more prickly questions in its complicated relations with Islam. Benedict has made what he calls a “frank” public conversation with the Muslim world a high priority of his papacy, arguing that Islam should address the violent minority within its ranks by incorporating the theories of “natural law” the way Christianity did with the Western ideas of the Enlightenment (A Muslim Critic Turns Catholic by Jeff Israely).

Thus, the differences between Roman Catholicism’s view of human rights as grounded in the Thomistic nature-grace dichotomy (and natural law theory) and Islam’s failure to distinguish church and state is thrust once again to the forefront of the Vatican’s relations with Islam.

Official Protestant Responses

Protestant Churches in the Netherlands

On 17 March 2008, ten days before the Internet premier of Fitna, the following groups issues a joint declaration against Fitna entitled, Declaration of Churches and Muslim Organizations in the Netherlands (PDF):

• Contact Committee Muslims and Government (CMO),
• Contact Group Islam (CGI),
• Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN), and
• Council of Churches in the Netherlands.

In addition to publishing the Declaration, the Protestant groups sent a delegation to various Muslim countries to ensure Muslim leaders that Wildres does not speak for the Protestant church in the Netherlands:

In view of the situation that has arisen because of the film of Mr. Wilders, the executive leaders of the CMO, CGI and PCN felt it necessary to again meet and come to further agreements. The general secretary of the Council of Churches in the Netherlands also attended this consultation. The outcome of this consultation was the decision to jointly visit a number of Islamic countries, to show that the relations between Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands are good, and to explain that the churches strongly reject contempt for another person’s religion. The statements of Mr. Wilders show that his intention is to drive a wedge between the Islamic community and the rest of Dutch society.

As Muslims and Christians, we are convinced that, in these complex times, we have the task of building bridges, overcoming distrust and combining our efforts for justice and peace. The chief purpose of the visit is to draw attention to the fact that the majority of the Dutch people reject the insulting of Islam. (Quoted from the Declaration.)

Protestant Responses Outside the Netherlands

Netherlands churches were not the only Protestant groups to issue official statements condemning Fitna as bigoted propaganda. In another preemptive Protestant effort, the Council of Churches in Indonesia sought a ban on Wilders’ film. Likewise, in February of this year the World Council of Churches (WCC) issued a brief statement echoing “concern expressed in the Netherlands and in other parts of the world following rumours of the release of a film against the Qur’an by a Dutch member of parliament.” These statements make clear that the worldwide Christian community is starting to distinguish, at least on paper (if not yet in practice in local communities), between political propaganda (i.e. blatant attempts to stir up “Islamophobia”) and the actual faith and practice of the Muslims who live next door.

WCC’s Press Release Regarding A Common Word

Although not directly related to the Fitna film, the March 26 press release explaining the WCC’s response to A Common Word–just one day before Fitna was released–could be seen as as well-timed “political” move by the WCC, as if to prove its robust commitment to interfaith dialog amidst the Fitna fiasco. (See the Reuters report on the WCC’s A Common Word response.)

More to the Protestant Picture

By reporting these official responses from the likes of the WCC I do not intend to give an unqualified affirmation that either (a) the WCC speaks for all Protestants (i.e. the WCC is not the “Protestant Pope”) or (b) that the WCC response represents a monolithic Protestant stance. The full spectrum of the Christian response needs to be filled out a little more.

As I mentioned in the introduction to part 2, I surveyed briefly international political responses to Fitna in order to draw a comparison between the ambivalent political response and the Christian world’s response. Accordingly, in my next post I will examine a bit of the “unofficial” Protestant response with the goal of filling out the Christian response picture more completely before drawing the concluding comparison.

Fitna and Faith: Pursuing A Christian Response – Part 2 – International Political Responses

In part 1 I simply set the context for discussing Geert Wilders’ Fitna film by briefly explaining its origins and purpose. Now in part 2 I will briefly survey Fitna’s international political fallout in order to set up a comparison between political and religious responses to Fitna in part 3.

Ambivalent International Political Reaction to Fitna

Media attention prior to Fitna‘s release expected a violent aftermath upon the film’s debut. For example, this pre-Fitna CNN interview with Wilders anticipates international outrage:

Since Fitna’s internet debut last Thursday, two general responses are apparent among both political laymen and leaders: (a) either downplaying the film as insignificant, or (b) strongly condemning the film as a bigoted straw man.

(a) Downplaying Fitna

Those who seek to downplay Fitna claim that the pressurized hype has deflated into a collective political shrug, as if to say, “Yeah, yeah, Wilders, we’ve seen this all before.” This general “shrug feeling” among both Muslims and non-Muslims can be seen in reports such as:

• LA Times: Dutch film ‘Fitna’ draws muted response from Muslims
• Time.com: Dutch Shrug for Anti-Muslim Film
• NRC Handelsblad: Fitna the Movie: not hyperbole or metaphor but repetition
• NIS News: Churches, Muslims in Joint Statement against MP Wilders

(b) Deriding Finta

These “shrug” reports make Fitna out to be just one more of the same old tired argument against radical Islam. And perhaps this is the general feeling among more progressive Muslims and Westerners living in countries which are not experiencing Islamization to as high a degree as Europeans. However, not everyone is shrugging, and the strong worldwide political condemnations against the Fitna film along with anti-Fitna protests should not go unnoticed. For example:

• Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende strongly repudiates Wilder’s film.
• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Fitna, issuing a terse official statement against Fitna.
• Spiegel: Interview with Dutch Populist Geert Wilders: ‘Moderate Islam Is a Contradiction’
• Fox News: Controversial Anti-Muslim Film Sparks Worldwide Condemnation
• AFP: Anger continues over Dutch film on Islam

For a further sampling of the disparate political responses to Fitna, listen to three international journalists debate the political fallout of Fitna in the Netherlands and Europe:

Download MP3

And Mid-East Strategy at Harvard blogger Josef Joffee writes a cautious “so far so good,” pointing out that historical precedent should inform us that we are not yet free from the threat of violent reactions against Fitna.

Ambivalence Reveals Continued Underlying Cultural and Political Tension in Europe over Islamization

The distance between the “shrug” responses and the strong condemnations is evidence of the continuing underlying tension in Europe’s political reaction to Islamization. Project Fikra director J. Scott Carpenter describes this tension as “a deep ambivalence about the cultural drift taking place within Dutch and broader European society, and the fact that too few people are reflecting on what it means.” Carpenter continues:

Whether it’s the Dutch foreign minister stating explicitly that Islamic culture will become part of Dutch culture, or the Archbishop of Canterbury stating that Sharia should be made part of British common law, there is the sense that European leaders are simply surrendering to political correctness without asking basic questions about what it is to be Dutch, British, European or—for that matter—Muslim. (Source: “Overcoming ‘Fitna‘” by Scott Carpenter.)

But the Tensions Run Deeper: Human Dignity and Metaphysics

Carpenter’s astute political observations lead into more profound, fundamental (dare I say “religious”) questions surrounding Fitna specifically and Christian-Muslim relations broadly, questions that go beyond the immanent realm of politics to the transcendent realm of human dignity and, ultimately, metaphysics.

This overlapping between the metaphysical (religious) realm and the political realm is unavoidable. Notice, for example, when Carpenter observes that underlying questions of identity are involved with Europe’s Islamization tensions (i.e. What does it mean to be Dutch, British, European), the religious question cannot be avoided (What does it mean to be Muslim?). Further, when one begins down the road of identity questioning, one cannot help but to arrive at the ultimate destination of human dignity: What does it mean to be human?

I want to unpack this overlapping realms idea further, but first, in part 3, we need to survey the religious responses to Fitna.

Fitna and Faith: Pursuing A Christian Response To Geert Wilders’ Controversial Film – Part 1

What Is Fitna?

Fitna, the Arabic word loosely translated “division,” “strife,” or “dissension” (with a religious connotation) is the title of Dutch politician Geert Wilder’s extremely controversial film which antagonizes against European islamization, especially in the Netherlands. See the International Herald Tribune’s Dutch lawmaker releases anti-Quran film for a brief news-media report about the film and the ensuing international response.

Fitna and Christian-Muslim Relations

I am not a political blogger, and I do not write this post for political purposes. Rather, my interest in Fitna arises from my current research into Christian-Muslim relations, especially the recent A Common Word initiative. Accordingly, I’m exploring this issue from the perspective that American Christians need to consider how political films such as Fitna (and media portrayals of Islam in general) impact both individual Christians’ and the institutional church’s views of Muslims in America.

Watch Geert Wilders’ Film

Fitna was published online on 27 March 2008. Due to death threats, the film was removed from its original sources. However, Fitna is now available on multiple servers such as the following two:

(Warning! This film is very graphic in nature.)

What Has Fitna to do with Christian Faith?

Stay tuned as I plan on following up with further posts, including:

• a brief overview of the international political reaction to Fitna,
• with an eye to how such political reactions influence the international religious response to Fitna,
• and suggestions on what ethical factors American Christians ought to be thinking about in pursuit of a thoroughly Christian response to Fitna in our American context.