Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

I honestly don’t know where to start with this one. But in the New York Times, Russ Douthat offers a rallying cry to Christians that seems to simultaneously suggest the Pope’s declared religious war against Muslims (in a column that manages to wrangle in the word “appeasement” amidst the holy warrior rhetoric). It’s just, well, weird, especially coming from a newspaper that’s supposed to be liberal and enlightened.

The occasion is Pope Benedict XVI’s outreach to Anglicans, of which I am one, but more specifically to Christian traditionalists who, let’s be blunt, aren’t so enamored with the actual words of scripture to take them to heart for gays or to believe that women’s civil rights actually matter and should include religious interaction with God. Though my faith is much more complex than simply stating my Episcopalian faith, as I long ago made daily meditations the main vein of my spiritual rejuvenation and outreach. Being that I’m a modern feminist, I’m sure you can figure that one out, but also because of my philosopher penchant, which just can’t reconcile some of the dogma of organized faith, no matter how much I’m drawn to ritual and still enjoy its theater. I always hunger for more. Anyway…

Segue to Douthat:

But in making the opening to Anglicanism, Benedict also may have a deeper conflict in mind — not the parochial Western struggle between conservative and liberal believers, but Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam.

Here Catholicism and Anglicanism share two fronts. In Europe, both are weakened players, caught between a secular majority and an expanding Muslim population. In Africa, increasingly the real heart of the Anglican Communion, both are facing an entrenched Islamic presence across a fault line running from Nigeria to Sudan.

I’m not going to argue about “an expanding Muslim population,” though I obviously don’t find that in the least scary, any more than I do the Catholic Church, whose male leaders long ago unleashed an unholy campaign against modern women and men on a scale that is unprecedented in what has manifested. Ignoring women’s rise, leaving them out of the inner circle, while not only continuing to preach against contraception, but holding the world’s poor women hostage through their dogma, acknowledging the good the Catholic Church charities do around the world. The buy up of hospitals in rural America is also something to worry about, as what comes with it is not full women’s health care.

Glenn Greenwald sees similar scary stuff in Douthat’s piece as well, taking it a step further to include Israelis. In American politics, where there are fundamentalist Christians it’s sure the cause of Israel is never too far behind.

Douthat leaves off the obvious in his analysis. That the Catholic Church is so morally, spiritually and financially bereft that it needs as many converts as possible, which happened when the so called leaders covered up unholy child abuse crimes that left the church pews and their coffers empty. The Catholic Church is a shadow of its former self, particularly in the U.S., so why is anyone surprised that they would reach out to Anglicans, especially after the fiery storm the support of gay marriage created? I say this even as they hold women hostage around the globe with their sanctimonious preaching that offers no answers for modern women and men.

But let’s say Douthat’s point is in there buried somewhere; take it and compile all the other obvious possibilities together and what do you get? What is the Pope actually thinking, according to Douthat? Don’t let a good culture war go un-waged.

By contrast, the Church of England’s leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.

There are an awful lot of Anglicans, in England and Africa alike, who would prefer a leader who takes Benedict’s approach to the Islamic challenge. Now they can have one, if they want him.

This could be the real significance of last week’s invitation. What’s being interpreted, for now, as an intra-Christian skirmish may eventually be remembered as the first step toward a united Anglican-Catholic front — not against liberalism or atheism, but against Christianity’s most enduring and impressive foe.