Catholic universities and the other culture war

by William Kilpatrick,

While the rest of America is wondering where Islamic jihadists will strike next, the biggest concern at Georgetown University is not with Islamic terrorism but with “Islamophobia.”

On April 30, the Jesuit university sponsored a “Conversation on Islamophobia.” It featured a lineup of Islamic apologists all testifying to the societal threat posed by anti-Muslim “hysteria.”

If you’re inclined to think that Islamic terrorism is a bigger threat than Islamophobia, Georgetown will set you straight.

While Georgetown is worrying about people who worry about Islam, over at John Carroll University in Ohio, retired Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald is teaching students about the wonders of the Koran. He urges Catholics to look for commonalities with their own religion, and he suggests that, in its own way, the Koran is a sacrament — “a sign of the presence of God.”

When Catholic schools, colleges, and seminaries teach about Islam, the main effort is to find common ground with Catholicism. Thus, Catholic students learn that Muslims revere Jesus, give alms, and go on pilgrimages. They’re less likely to learn that the Jesus Muslims revere is not the Jesus of the Gospels, that the alms are only meant for other Muslims, and that Christians are not allowed to enter Mecca, the main destination for Muslim pilgrims.

The same half-truth approach is used to teach about jihad. Catholic students are usually taught that jihad is an interior spiritual struggle. Although that definition resonates with Catholics and although it is one possible meaning of the word, it’s not the way that jihad is typically understood in the Muslim world. According to the vast majority of Islamic scholars, the primary meaning of jihad is “holy war against non-Muslims.”

One way to understand Islam today is to understand its history. But, even though Islam was one of the great imperial and slave-holding powers of all time, textbooks used in Catholic colleges tend to present a rose-colored picture of Islamic history. Thus, textbooks present a romanticized view of Islam’s “Golden Age,” and Islam’s brutal conquests are typically portrayed as little more than a peaceful “spread” or “expansion” into surrounding territories. Without a knowledge of Islam’s bloody past, students are easy prey to the notion that today’s violent jihad “has nothing to do with Islam.”

It’s not that Catholic students aren’t learning about Islam, it’s that they’re learning only a heavily edited, “Disneyfied” version of it. Why is that dangerous? Because it leaves them unprepared for the kind of persecution being suffered by Catholics and other Christians in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Libya, and other parts of the Muslim world. Catholics who think that Islam means “peace,” that jihad is a spiritual struggle, and that Islamophobia is the greatest threat to national security are in for a rude surprise.

The co-option of Georgetown by Islamic interests is an example of cultural jihad at work. But, unless you want to be branded as a hate-filled Islamophobe, it’s better not to mention it. Indeed, the concept of Islamophobia was invented in order to dissuade people from looking too closely at the phenomenon of cultural jihad.

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