Billoblog ®

There has been a lot of criticism (including from me shortly after 9/11) of mainstream Islam for not loudly condemning the terrorist attacks done in the name of Allah. Many Moslems correctly note that they have been doing so, but the mainstream media has not been picking it up. Now it seems that a recent anti-terror fatwa is starting to get some legs in the press. Good for the mainstream Moslem leadership and, finally, good for at least some of the media.

Some years ago one of my Methodist pastors, knowing I was interested in mysticism, introduced me to Sufism — not as an alternative to Christianity, but in terms of mystical discipline. If you look at mystical variants of almost any tradition — Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. — one is struck by the similarities of the transcendent experience. I find that I find more agreement when talking to a Jewish mystic than a Christian fundamentalist, even though I am without question a conservative Christian (in fact, a conservative Christian conservative). It is no accident that the introduction to Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Prayer is written by a Buddhist. There’s nothing that says that we all can’t do fine in a pluralistic (but not multicultural) society.