Pope Benedict and President Obama Endorse Islam

In the past few days, news headlines and feature stories in the mainstream media have led many to think that the Pope may have lost his mind and that Obama has discovered that America is a significantly Muslim nation. Neither is entirely true, although I have my suspicions that the misapprehension regarding Obama may suit his personal vision to some extent. A little detail and some clarification are in order.

Let's go with the Pope first. I like him better. Pope Benedict has been quoted in the Associated Press, the BBC, the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Times and Al-Jazeera as saying that he has "deep respect for Islam," according to Raymond Ibrahim of pajamasmedia. Given that this sounds a great deal more like Obama than Benedict, it's appropriate to look closer at what the Pope really said. The head of the Church that stopped the Muslim advance into Europe and sponsored the Crusades actually said "I have deep respect for Muslims," quite a different thing. One can have deep respect for a group, and even for their faithful adherence to their beliefs without endorsing, or even respecting the underlying religion. I'm sure he respects Lutherans too, but I don't expect him to be adopting the Augsburg Confession any time soon. I'm sure he respects Hindus, but don't expect a Papal homily on the wit and wisdom of Vishnu to come from the Vatican in the near future. In fact, I'm sure he respects atheists, but he won't be endorsing their view by telling the world from the Papal throne that "we were just kidding, there really is no God."

In order for the Pope to respect Islam, it would require that he believe that there is eternal truth in that religion's core belief that the Koran is the verbatim revealed word of God, that Jesus Christ was a mere prophet, and that Muhammad was God's sole messenger. The Pope may respect someone who believes that, but it's just plain silly to think that the Pope respects the belief itself. Even if all the politically-correct nonsense about Islam being the religion of peace were true, and jihadist mass murderers aside, the idea that the Vicar of Christ would even consider Muhammad to be the sole messenger of God is patently illogical. The Pope would never cede that position even to Luther, and Luther was at least a Christian. So relax all you Christians in general, and you Catholics in particular, Pope Benedict has not slipped his trolley.

On the other hand, President Obama's speech, prepared for delivery in Egypt (a Muslim nation, in case you had missed that juicy tidbit of news), will either be a foray into wishful thinking or an insidiously misleading description of Islam in America. After recently making it clear that he did not consider America a Christian nation, he has gone off on another tangent with his statements about Islam. His legally correct statement about America not being a Christian nation was phrased in such a way as to indicate that he believes that Christianity has little influence on government. I cannot look into the President's heart to know whether he really believes that, or whether he considers that a good thing, but I have no doubt that it was said to placate the raging Islamists and Jihadis. After going out of his way to downplay the influence of Christian thought in America, he now seeks to enhance his position with Islamic countries by inflating the influence of Islam in America. Today, Obama mused about his Muslim roots in Indonesia, and indicated he intended to "open the way for a better dialogue and the common ground between East and West." He reiterated this in an interview with Le Monde and hinted that he would advance the idea in his scheduled June 4 speech in Cairo.

I don't buy the idea that Obama is a secret Muslim, but it's hard to deny that he was raised in his early years in a Muslim household, and that by some Islamic thought, once a Muslim, always a Muslim. It is my humble opinion that in many ways the incorrect belief that the Pope "respects Islam" may very well be true of Obama. And in pursuit of that respect (as well as his diplomatic fortunes in the Middle East), the President's speech will cite a true statistic in an untrue manner. The President is expected to repeat that "The United States is one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet (he already stated that in his Le Monde interview)." This is not being reported by conservative sources only. The New York Times has even picked up on the story.

So what's wrong with that? Well, there are realistically about 4,140,000 Muslims in America (1.4% of the population) as cited by nationmaster.com and the CIA Factbook. That would make America number 41 in Muslim national populations. Muslims and their supporters have tended to inflate that number for political advantage, but even if the statistic is wrong by half, then the most that Muslims can claim in America is 2.8% of the population. I think that the Crips and the Bloods, combined with the many new Latino gangs can claim at least that many, but nobody is claiming that America is a great gang nation. Obama is truly describing the Muslim tail wagging the American dog.

In his Le Monde interview, Obama goes on to state that the "United States and the Western world must learn about Islam, and . . . there is now a real conflict between those who argue that Islam is irreconcilable with modern life and those who believe the contrary, Islam has always evolved along with the progress." In other words, he believes that the United States must learn from Islam rather than the reverse, that those who believe Islam is irreconcilable with modern life are wrong, and that Islam is actually progressive. That will come as a shock to those now suffering and dying in the gay holocaust in Iraq and to millions of women in most Islamic nations. Later, Obama revised his remarks to include instructing Muslims on how the United States and the West view Islam, but it didn't change the meaning of the original in any significant way.

I can only conclude that as to the Pope--he's sane. As to Obama--not entirely sure.