Luther's Preface to the Quran

Pastor James McConnell delivered a sermon at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast on 18th May 2014, in which he denounced Islam in language that seems, at least as first, reminiscent of the language of, e.g., the homily on the time and place of prayer in the second book of homilies. These old sermons and this new sermon have in common that they seek to commend the worship of the one true God by clearly refuting the error of Islam. But there are differences. Martin Luther was as clear as anyone on distinguishing between the Allah to which the Quran testifies and the true and living God we know from the Bible. (See also my earlier post on Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?) But he was not promoting ignorance. Indeed, he wrote a preface to a printed edition of the Quran:

"May there be none so infirm in the church of God that they do not have this conviction fixed in their mind, that, as certain as they know that they are alive as long as their senses and bodily motor functions are still vital, as certain as they know that it is day, as long as they see the sun passing above the earth in the middle of the sky, so certain should they be that it is patently impossible that any religion or doctrine about the worship or invocation of God be true that utterly rejects the prophetic and apostolic writings….
Muhammad acknowledges, however, that he is devising a new belief that dissents from the prophets and apostles. Therefore, as you firmly repudiate the beliefs of the Egyptians who worshipped cats and of the Arabians who worshipped dogs, so you shall denounce the new creation of Muhammad, because he himself openly admits that he does not embrace the teaching of the prophets and apostles. If there are any who are so without understanding that they do not have this conviction fixed in their mind that the only true religion is that which was from the beginning handed on by God, with clear testimonies, through the prophets and apostles, even if these persons do not now read the writings of Muhammad, but either only hear about the Turks or see them, how will they fortify themselves against their beliefs? Rather, it is a shameful and impious ignorance if they do not daily admonish themselves in intercession concerning this belief, if they do not separate themselves from the Jews, the Turks, and other nations in prayer; if they do not meditate on the fact that this one alone is the eternal and true God, the creator and sustainer of all things, who hears us and will grant life eternal, who revealed himself in the writings of the prophets and apostles, who willingly sent God’s Son to be a sacrifice for our sake. Those who meditate on these things in prayer will acknowledge that this stupidity is no light sin."

Source: http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/16-2_islam/16-2_boyce-henrich.pdf

The churchmen of the sixteenth century had virtually no contact with Muslims. Their knowledge of Islam was second-hand and shaped by the serious threat to Christendom presented by "the Turks".

Today we know, or ought to know, that the Islamic world, while maybe not as diverse as the Christian world, is nevertheless far from monochrome. We have many more means of getting to know Islam and, maybe even more importantly, many more opportunities to meet Muslims. When we preach, we are addressing people who know Muslims and maybe even speak to Muslims, especially if the sermon is streamed online. When we reproduce these old homilies today, we are not doing the same thing as the readers of them did in centuries gone by. Today's preachers ought to be better informed. They ought to speak differently. And they can. As Archbishop Cranmer points out, there is a better way.

What is a Church?

Our church is open to visitors. I am planning a little display to explain to casual visitors what a church is. I would like something which makes some sense to the Chinese students who visit with virtually no knowledge of the Christian faith without being patronising. The idea at present is to have an A4 sheet (landscape) in the middle, flanked by two A4 sheets (landscape) on either side. This would fill one of two available panels. The other might give  information about what to do if you would like to find out more about this, that or the other. The first draft has a key word for each sheet of A4. The central panel's is "church" because it is the starting point for the explanation.

The central panel: Church, from Greek kyriake "the Lord's" means "belonging to the Lord" and can refer to either a people or a building.

Upper left: Jesus of Nazareth lived in Roman occupied Israel some 2000 years ago. Both Christian writers and ancient non-Christian historians agree that Jesus was a teacher who performed healings and that he was crucified by the Roman authorities under Pontius Pilate. What happened next is the stuff of controversy. The reports that Jesus was raised from the dead were widely known, accepted by some and rejected by others. Those who have come to accept that Jesus is alive in a new body believe that he was thereby vindicated by God and made Lord over all. The affirmation that Jesus is Lord is the basic confession of Christian faith. The resurrection of Jesus happened on what was then counted as the first day of the week, a Sunday. This is why Christians, whenever possible, meet together on Sundays.

Upper right: Christ, from the Greek meaning "Anointed" (Hebrew: Messiah) refers to the king whom God promised to rule in God's kingdom of justice and peace. Christians (those who have pledged loyalty to this king and put their trust in him) believe that Jesus ushered in this kingdom not through military conquest or clever political machinations but by living a perfect life showing forth God's love, declaring God's truth and accepting the consequences of human wrongdoing in suffering and death. His death on the cross made the cross an important sign of Christians, reflected not least in the architecture of church buildings.

Lower left: A building which specifically belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ is called a church. It is the place where his people assemble together to worship, celebrating the wonderful things God has done and making themselves available afresh to his service. Important elements are listening to God's Word (the Bible) and sharing bread and wine in a symbolic meal whose pattern was given to us by Jesus and through which he has promised to meet us. The meal is known as the Eucharist (Greek for thanksgiving), Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper and the Mass (from the final words of the rite by which we are sent out into the world).

Lower right: The people who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ are called the church. Their allegiance to Christ is first marked in baptism, a water rite by which people are identified with Christ in his death and resurrection, acknowledging that Jesus died the death we deserve and gives us eternal life as a free gift. Those who belong to Christ, the Lord, also belong to each other as brothers and sisters. Christians affirm that they now belong together as members of one body by regularly meeting up to praise God and to encourage one another to live as those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Any suggestions for modifications or a completely different way of doing things are welcome - email Rector on the stmarymh.co.uk address.

Specific or Generic Cake

There has been much commentary on the Gareth Lee v Ashers Bakery law case, some links are provided on the TA website to which may be added Martin Salter's reflections on cake, conscience and commerce. Not having read all of these but a number, I am still not persuaded by the first part of the judgement claiming that the customer was (indirectly) discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation. Evidence for (direct) discrimination on the grounds of political belief, as argued in the second part, seems to me much stronger.

One point of the controversy deserves maybe more attention that it has received. It is the question what sort of product this cake is. The managers of the bakery considered it a vehicle for a political slogan with which they would be implicated by making the cake. That the cake expresses a political conviction can be granted but the Judge rightly observed that no consideration seems to have been given to alternatives which could have created the necessary distance between the bakery and the political conviction. While not mentioned in the judgement, use of neutral packaging might have been sufficient to prevent any association of the bakery with this political view.

The Judge seemed more inclined to consider the product just a cake, one in the generic category "cake with graphics and writing on it". To deny such a cake to one customer but not another is unlawful discrimination. This makes sense to me. If baguettes are sold to some customers but not to others we have a problem.

So the question really is whether one cake with writing on it is just like any other generic cake or whether a cake with the slogan "support equal marriage" on it is a specific cake, one which had never been sold before to any customer and which the bakery does not wish to make for Gareth Lee or indeed for any other customer under the sun. I do not think the answer to this question is obvious; I am surprised that apparently it has not been explored explicilty.

The situation would be similar, if a bakery offered "wedding cakes" with a groom and a bride figure on the top of the cake, saying this is our "wedding cake" - take it or leave it (or, if you are a gay couple hitching up, club together with a lesbian couple, buy two cakes and change the figures.)

A related question may be weather a bakery would be free to provide "baptism cakes" but not "bar mitzvah cakes" or "bar mitzvah cakes" but not "bat mitzvah cakes", or whether a bakery that offered Ramadan-themed cakes would be obliged to provide "baptism cakes" as well.

It is a fine line between the freedom of a baker to offer the products they like and the right of customers to buy whatever another customer has the right to buy and the line goes through the specifci/generic distinction, as far as I can see.

If Gareth Lee had come into the shop, saying I'd like this cake over there for an anti-homophobia event with my gay friends at QueerSpace and if he had been unable to purchase a cake, it would have been a clear case of illegal discrimination. The fact that a cake with a particular design had to be specifically produced prompts the question here.

Discrimination without Motive

The full transcript of the County Court judgement in the case Gareth Lee v Ashers Bakery illuminates an aspect of the Judge's reasoning which had eluded me when I reflected on the summary statement in my previous post.

The defendants argued that they did not discriminate against Gareth Lee because of his sexual orientation or political beliefs by pointing out that

• regardless of his sexual orientation or political beliefs they would have served Gareth Lee if he had ordered the cake without the message
• they would have refused to fulfill the order for a "Support Gay Marriage" cake, even if the order had been made by "a heterosexual customer".

The Judge did not consdier these fair comparisons "for the reason that it oversimplifies the enquiry" in that it does not take sufficiently into account that discrimination "may be subtle, insidiuous or hidden," even to the discriminator.

Asking for the grounds, the why of discrimination is ambiguous. The question may be about "what caused the treatment in question" or about what was "its motive and purpose." Citing an earlier case, the Judge observes that "the former is important, the latter is not." 

In other words, the question is not whether the bakers were and are happy to serve people of a particular "sexual orientation" or people holding particular political beliefs - we may grant that they are entirely happy to do so - but whether people like Gareth Lee are given unfavourable treatment. 

The comparison must therefore be between a heterosexual customer ordering a "Support Marriage" cake and a homosexual customer ordering a "Support Gay Marriage" cake. The former gets served, the latter does not. This constitutes discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The Judge then cites from Bull and another v Hall and another [2013] UKSC 73

"[37] To permit someone to discriminate on the ground that he did not believe that persons of homosexual orientation should be treated equally with persons of heterosexual orientation would be to create a class of people who were exempt from the discrimination legislation. We would not normally allow people to behave in a way which the law prohibits because they disagree with the law. But to allow discrimination against persons of homosexual orientation (or indeed heterosexual orientation) because of a belief, however sincerely held, and however based on the biblical text, would be to do just that."

The relevance of this is not immediately clear to me. Does this imply and allege that the people at Ashers Bakery do in fact "not believe that persons of homosexual orientation should be treated equally with persons of heterosexual orientation"? Up to this point, I thought the argument was that the claim that the bakers do not hold such a belief was granted but declared irrelevant because in spite of their best intentions "gay customers" (who can be assumed to be in favour of "gay marriage" and willing to promote this with cakes?) are in fact disadvantaged over "heterosexual customers" (who may be presumed to order cakes which say "Support Marriage"?) and hence indirectly discriminated against.

PS: In the second part the QC for the Plaintiff claims that it is possible to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their religious belief or political opinion even without knowing what these are. The Judge rejected the Defendant's claim that they did not know the customer's political opinion but agreed that even if this had been the case, the refusal to bake a cake with the message "Support Gay Marriage" would still have been a case of discrimination on the grounds of politic belief.

Ashers Bakery

I am not a legal expert nor the son of a legal expert. These notes are merely by way of digesting the judgement that the court delivered in the Ashers Bakery case, based on the published summary.

The defendants are not a religious organisation; they are conduction a business for profit notwithstanding their genuine religious beliefs and in accordance with Regulations 16(2) are not therefore exempted by the Regulations.

To me this opening gambit sounds somewhat prejudicial because it suggests that the oweners or managers of Ashers Bakery claimed exemption from anti-discrimination law which I am pretty sure they did not. (Reading the full statement it makes more sense, as it is in effect a comment on the decision by the law-makers not to include a conscience clause for businesses.)

Judge Brownlie agreed with "the plaintiff's submission that same-sex marriage is or should be regarded as a union between persons having a sexual orientation" which I read as implying that those who enter into a "same-sex marriage" should be considered to have a "same-sex orientation" although I am not sure where this leaves bisexuals and others. More importantly, Judge Brownlie also agreed that "if a person refused to provide a service on that ground then they were discriminating on grounds of sexual orientation."

This has a certain logic but is it relevant? No-one claims that this business transaction fell through because the customer is in a same-sex marriage (we don't know that he is) and the managers of the Bakery repeatedly stressed that they serve all customers without discrimination.

Judge Brownlie appears to grant that the managers did not actually know that the customer was gay. But they had "the knowledge or perception" that Gareth Lee either is gay or at least "associated with others who are gay." With this the Judge appears to insinuate that the Bakery discriminates against customers who associate with gays which would be remarkable.

The Judge explains that

the defendants must have known that the plaintiff supported gay marriage and/or associated with others who supported gay marriage as this was a cake for a special event the plaintiff was attending

I would have thought that the message "Support Gay Marriage" which was to be put on the cake would have given the game away without any knowlegde of the event for which the cake was requested. But Judge Brownlie recognises that supporters of "gay marriage" are not necessarily gay and hence settles for the lesser claim that supporters of "gay marriage" can be presumed to associate with gays. In addition, she concludes that Karen McArthur, who served Gareth Lee, knew that "the plaintiff was a member of a small volunteer group; he wanted his own graphics on the cake" etc. In other words, the customer was thought to be in agreement with the message he wanted to have put on the cake.

Fair enough, but what exactly is the relevance of that? Does the Judge want to argue that the cake was refused not so much for the message it was intended to bear but because the customer was thought to agree with that message? Indeed, this seems to be where this is going. The argument at this point appears to be that the Bakery refused to bake this cake not because they could not support the political message the cake was to convey but because the manager "must either consciously or unconsciously have had the knowledge or perception that the plaintiff was gay and/or was associated with others who are gay."

How so? The critical point, as far as the Judge is concerned, seems to be that "the graphics being lawful and not contrary to the terms and conditions of the company" cannot themselves be considerd the grounds for refusing the cake; the ground must therefore lie in the Bakery's perception of the customer. Hence the claim that the Bakery did not discriminate against a political belief only but against a customer and that on the grounds of his sexual orientation. On a first reading of the summary, the reasoning seems to me hostile and torturous.

That the refusal also constituted discrimination against a political belief can be shown more readily by making the fair assumption that the Bakery would have been happy to provide a cake that spells "support marriage". In refusing to add the word "gay" the Bakery was restricting Gareth's Lee freedom to manifest his beliefs. What the defendants were asked to do may put limits on the manifestation of their own religious beliefs but this is necessary to protect "the rights and freedoms of the plaintiff...To do otherwise would be to allow a religious belief to dictate what the law is."

Judge Brownlie held that what the defendants were asked to do did not require them to support, promote or endorse any viewpoint.

The defendants are welcome to their religious beliefs but must not "manifest them in the commercial sphere if it is contrary to the rights of others." To use an analogy I have employed earlier, bakers are printers, not publishers. A publisher may refuse to promote books of a certain political or ideological bent but a printer presumably is not permitted to refuse business on the grounds that they do not want to promote what is being printed.

The judgement has no direct application to charities. It concerns the commercial sphere and the rights of customers on providers. The decision implies that the conscience of providers must not interfere with the freedom of customers. The second part of the judgement is therefore arguably not so much a victory of "gay rights" over "religious rights" but of consumer rights over any other considerations. The owners and managers of Ashers Bakery are free to commission a Hindu printer for a booklet that proclaims that "Jesus Christ is Lord!" and may request a flower arrangement which spells "only mixed-sex marriages are genuine marriages" from a florist who happens to be a member of QueerSpace.

PS: The full statement by the Court is now also available

The Cruelty of Denying the Trinity

The exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity in The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 1994) begins with this observation: “The Christian teaching regarding the doctrine of the Trinity should not be as daunting and intimidating as many have made it appear…Christians can learn more about the Trinity without comprehending its mystery.” C. FitzSimon Allison observes that it is important to note to which problem or question the doctrine of the Trinity is the answer.

The problem is called “the one and the many.” It is not unique to Christianity. Everyone, everywhere and always, has had to struggle with this problem…simple solutions to the one and the many sacrifice the diversity and individuality of the many for an imposed and tyrannical unity of the one, or sacrifice the unity (family, nation, business, club, or church) for the sake of the pluralism and diversity of the many.

The author does recognise later on that the Trinity is not merely an answer to a philosophical question but also, maybe we should say first of all, to the way God has revealed himself.

The crucial question is not “Is there a God?” but “What kind of God do we have?” The faithful Christian answer is: the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whom we know by the Holy Spirit.
        Thus, the Trinity is essentially God’s name: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God…As it is clear that the New Testament teaches nothing of three gods, it is equally clear that there are significant distinctions between Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. They are distinct, they are related, and they are one. How can this be so?

In other words, God’s witness about himself demands that we think of God as tri-une and this leads to a doctrine which presents us also with an answer to the problem of “the one and the many” – an answer that claims that neither disunity nor uniformity has the (first or) last word. “The teaching concerning the Trinity does not proceed from philosophical concerns but from the saving experiences of God’s action as recorded in scripture.” 

The different ways in which this teaching has been denied or betrayed amount to stressing the unity at the expense of the distinctiveness. Most commonly the three-in-one paradox was resolved by merging the “three” as mere temporary modes into the “one.”

“Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God” is simply explained by them as the Father temporarily manifesting himself as the Son and at other times as the Holy Spirit. It is like one person being a spouse, mother, and insurance executive. One objection was noticed immediately….If it were the Father who was manifest as Jesus, then…it was in fact the Father who was crucified.

Because a person can take any number of roles, not merely three, an analogy which may better illustrate this heresy is the appearance of H2O as ice, water, and steam (although children who have not yet been cured of their curiosity by education may wonder where snow fits in here).

A second, and to my mind even more serious because inescapable, objection is that such teaching pretty much excludes serious reflection on the interrelationships of the three. If this teaching had won the day, we could think of Jesus Christ only as a temporary manifestation of God, a role he played for a while, rather than the eternal image of God.

If this were so, you or I may be so unlucky as to reach that judgment seat on a day that God has a headache and is playing a very different role from the one we’ve seen in Christ….
        To believe in a god whose action in Christ is not his everlasting divine nature is to be bereft of any final confidence that God is the same as God’s self-revelation in Christ.

“If God is known only in modes or roles…then we cannot know God or be known by God, on the deepest levels” but we would know that he is not Love because prior to the creation of the universe there would have been no love between persons.

Human Rights Law and Religion

I do not follow the BBC series The Big Questions. I don't think I have seen an episode before but the 10 May 2015 episode came recommended. It asked: "Has human rights' law achieved more for humankind than religion?" (The programme description puts "law" in the plural.)

The discussion was pretty pathetic - a lot more shouting than logic; watching it felt like a waste of time. The question is not well put. What is "religion"? Is it the sum of all "religions"? What would count as "a religion" in this broad sweep? Is belief in some sort of deity required? If yes, how do we think about Buddhism? If not, does the belief that every human being (excepting the unborn, usually) has human rights make you a religious person?

Even if one knew what "religion" was, how would one measure what it has achieved? By what standard? We cannot run experiments on societies with and without "religion". Peter Tatchell maybe sought a way through by distinguishing between "religious people" who may be good or bad, just like non-religious people, and "religious establishments" which, it seems, have always been bad - at least for human rights. To point out that some religious leaders have led governments that promoted justice and peace and that the record of atheist leaders can hardly be said to be inspiring would not wash with Peter Thatchell. "Hitler? Stalin? Mao? It wasn't their atheism that did it" would be the answer. But would it not be at least worth exploring how and to what extent particular religions have promoted oppression and how and to what extent they have been a restraint on oppression? Yes, "atheism" did not tell Hitler or Stalin what to do but was their lack of religion in any way related to a lack of restraint? Yes, "atheism" did not tell the Chinese to adopt single-child policies and to prefer baby boys to girls to the extent of murder but did the freedom from the shackles of religion promote gender equality in China?

The programme's question invites a comparison, albeit not a very sensible one because "religion" and legislation are rather different things. Here the rhetorical question asked by one of the participants along the lines of "Has Starbucks done more for humanity than coffee?" makes a fair point. But at least it should be comparatively easy to establish what human rights legislation has achieved.

There was surprisingly little attempt to establish even this. Iran was held up as a (bad) example for what "religion" does to deny people their human rights. This looks promising because it seems possible to link specific violations of human rights with particular interpretations of Islam and because one can compare the cultural situation before and after the revolution to get a broader perspective on the difference made by giving religion a greater role in the political life of a nation. But to move this forward it would also be helpful to ask specifically, "What has human rights legislation achieved for the people of Iran?"

The question could be put more pointedly. It was taken for granted by several participants that "equal marriage" is a human right. It was also allowed that if the question of "equal marriage" were put to a referendum in Afghanistan, the answer would be a fairly unequivocal "No." But, as Andrew Copson in answer to that question explained, "human rights guarantees [!] that even if 99% of the society voted that you should be tortured, you're not going to be tortured [!] because the rest of the world, if they are watching and available...are watching out for your rights." How does this work in practice? Does the CEO of the British Humanist Association believe that the UK has a moral obligation to invade Afghanistan and occupy it again until torture has been ended and marriage no longer requires a mix of sexes?

If it is not enough to ask what the aims of a religion are, if we also have to ask what a religion has actually achieved, the same goes for human rights law. Pointing this out is not meant to suggest that human rights legislation is merely an ideal - fcar from it. I believe that legislation can play an important role in securing people their human rights but arguably on its own it is not enough. There needs to be a willingness to grant and defend human rights in actual practice. Laws and declarations need to be internalised and/or defended by force.

For many the question whether on balance "religion" proves to be more of a help with this than a hindrance is critical here and this was probably the question behind the question, given that no thought was given to what "religion" has "achieved" in terms other than securing the human rights of individuals. Much was made of the potential for "religion" to differentiate between an in-group and outsiders with the latter being treated badly. But no-one wondered how this relates more broadly to the question of how we nurture community cohesion and identity without encouraging such arrogance. Securing the human rights of individuals cannot really happen without communities who share a common interpretation of human rights and commit to watch out for each other's rights.

If the practical effect of human rights legislation was barely addressed, neither was its foundation properly explored. Claims and counter-claims as to whether the concept of human rights arose (uniquely) within Judeo-Christian cultures are only a very small part of the discussion that needs to be had here. Andrew Copson seemed to defend the fact that "human rights" are a cultural construct as an advantage but towards the end of the discussion rejected the premise of a question that queried our right to impose this cultural construct on others with a riposte which assumed that human rights are self-evident. True, "the person who is being tortured in a prison in Bangladesh for exercising their right to free expression" is not asking to be colonised, that person may well have a right sense oif their human rights being violated but this is only part of the picture. What about the torturers? Why do they not acknowledge the prisoner's human rights? Do they lack a proper concept of human rights or do they violate prisoners, knowing full well that they deny human rights? If the former, how do we explain human rights to them? If the latter, is force the only reply available to us to counter their use of force?

No, all in all it was a very superficial discussion.