Reason and Regensburg: Pope Benedict and the Dialogue of Cultures

At the Dialogue of Cultures’ conference, Jean Elshtain’s paper (title above) suggested that it was easy to predict a winner in a battle between the hard extremism found in some elements of Islam and the soft nihilism (and hedonism) found culturally rooted in the West.  She agreed with the pope that the situation needs to be addressed at both ends.  Having exhausted the faith of Jerusalem (and Athens), the West has lost the ability to defend human dignity.  To be culturally viable, there is an urgent need to reestablish the mutually reinforcing dialogue between faith and reason in the West. 

As for Islam, Elshtain argues that we should take the jihadists at face value – this war is about religion and not economics or politics.  Those of us in the West can contribute to the project of peace by supporting (standing in solidarity with?) moderate Muslim scholars who are attempting to retrieve a non-voluntarist interpretation of Islam, often at risk to their own lives.  Elshtain also pointed out that West suffers from some of the effects of voluntarism within its own tradition, suggesting that the seeds of modern notions of self-sovereignty were sown in the 14^th and 15 centuries by theologians who replaced God as logos with God as will.

She said much more and more eloquently than I have captured here, but I think this short couple of paragraphs gives a sense of her thought provoking paper.