Horror in Paris

Reacting to today's horrific murder at a satirical magazine office in Paris, Andrew McCarthy has an article at National Review Online making the case that this sort of violence is not extreme in Islam, it is mainstream. To illustrate his point he quotes excerpts from the Koran and a manual on sharia that most of us, and most Muslims, would find medieval and cruel. Well, the texts are medieval and parts of them if taken literally, cruel. But most modern Muslims don't necessarily take isolated excerpts from the Koran literally and as near as I can tell those who would willingly go back to a medieval version of sharia are a distinct minority. The Muslims I know would be deeply offended at any satirical depiction of their faith or their prophet, but they are uniformly horrified at the sort of atrocities on display today in Paris. To be sure modern Muslims have more than their share of extremists and their number has been growing in recent decades. I'm not going to opine about why that is. I would like to hear a knowledgable Muslim address it but Andrew McCarthy is wrong. They are not mainstream. I would however like to address this issue of interpreting scripture. Last spring I completed a four year program of bible study at the University of Dallas. I will offend some when I say this but more than one of the Catholic scholars I studied said flatly that literal interpretation of scripture is a form of intellectual suicide. It is easy to see why. Some of it is myth (the creation story), some of it poetry (the Psalms), some of it apocalyptic symbolism (Revelation). There are many contradictions. None of this is to say that it isn't true. It is the inspired Word of God and absolutely true, just not necessarily factual. Vatican II issued the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Verbum Dei) which, for Catholics is the authoritative guide to understanding God's Word. It is a lengthy document that describes a serious process of putting things in context. Who wrote it? When? For whom? Why? What did it mean to the people of the day? What different meaning might it have in the context of our own day? And not least what does church tradition have to say? It is a complex undertaking not to be approached lightly. I think something like that is true of Muslim understanding of the Koran and the Hadith, the teachings, deeds, and sayings of Muhammad and his companions. I know that scholarship is highly prized. The Islamic Association of Collin County has a resident scholar with national stature on staff at the mosque in Plano. You can't just pick a passage from the Koran, point to it and say, see. I certainly can't. For one thing I don't know Arabic and for a Muslim, if it isn't Arabic it isn't scripture, I don't mean to suggest that pundits like Andrew McCarthy and others who share their view shouldn't criticize Islam. They have their opinions and if they don't express them we will not have the public dialog that we need to have if we aren't going to end up afraid of our neighbors. But I mostly see only one side of this, and mostly only on the Internet. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow's Dallas Morning News fails to mention that the Paris assassins were Muslims. We need a serious discussion about this and we won't get anywhere ignoring it. Andrew McCarthy should have his say. I would like to hear what the resident scholar at IACC has to say in response.