World Clergy Strangely Silent On "Satanic Verses" Firestorm: Faiths Urged to Explore the Rugged Issues Of Religious Sensitivity and Civil Liberties
World Clergy Strangely Silent On "Satanic Verses" Firestorm: Faiths Urged to Explore the Rugged Issues Of Religious Sensitivity and Civil Liberties On the one hand, as protectors of their own faith, most clerics empathize with the Muslim position that their prophet and religion have been d...
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| Published in: | Hinduism today 1989-04, Vol.11 (4), p.20 |
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| Format: | Magazinearticle |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | World Clergy Strangely Silent On "Satanic Verses" Firestorm: Faiths Urged to Explore the Rugged Issues Of Religious Sensitivity and Civil Liberties On the one hand, as protectors of their own faith, most clerics empathize with the Muslim position that their prophet and religion have been demandingly ridiculed. Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, chairman of the United States Section of the World Jewish Congress, in an interview with The New York Times stated, "More than any other religion, Jews can sympathize with the pain of devout Muslims" by what they perceive "as a distortion and caricature of their fundamental beliefs." And the rabbi goes on to capsulize the general abhorrence felt over the bounty-and-death threat on Rushdie, "Yet our experience has also taught us that the proper response to such perceived distortion or defamation is dialogue and education, not violence and assassination." One of the strangest reactions has been from the Christian fundamentalists-the same ones who fired up the protests over The Last Temptation of Christ film. As fundamentalists, they either completely ignored the Rushdie affair-which is being propelled by Muslim fundamentalists-or tried to distance their own fundamentalism from the Muslim version by saying they would never resort to violence or death threats. An editorial in Christianity Today, a US Christian conservative journal, contrasted the protest over the Last Temptation film with that over the Satanic Verses book, saying "no one died" and no one "put a bounty" on the film's creator. Richard Land, an executive director in the Baptist Church, stated, "It is inconceivable that conservative Christians of any stripe would call for the death of someone offending their religion." However, in reality, there were violent threats to the Last Temptation's producer/director, Martin Scorsese. And when it comes to the issue of abortion, Christian fundamentalists have been arrested for the bombings of clinics across the US. |
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| ISSN: | 0896-0801 2691-4220 |