Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
The Conflict of Iconoclasts

The Conflict of Iconoclasts

Last updated on: January 16, 2015 at 5:55 am by Gene Veith

0 Comments

The Conflict of Iconoclasts 2015-01-15T10:14:29-05:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

France is holding huge rallies for free speech after the Charlie Hebdo murders, but they have arrested a comedian for his antisemitic speech. Now the Pope, while condemning the terrorist attack, is underscoring that mocking religion is wrong in itself. Issues of free speech are apparently more complicated than is often assumed.

Meanwhile, the sold-out new issue of the satirical magazine that was attacked makes clear its distinct ideological position, namely, a militant atheism. The editors say how they laughed when the bells of Notre Dame would be rung in their honor, and that those who say “‘I am Charlie’ need to also know that that means, ‘I am secularism.'” The point is, both the terrorists and their victims are iconoclasts.

After the jump, Stephen Richert, while condemning the killings and insisting that he is not blaming the victim, argues that freedom of speech is NOT the primary value of civilization and that leftist iconoclasts and Islamic iconoclasts have more in common than either of them realize.

From Scott P. Richert, Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo | Chronicles Magazine:

Was the murder of 11 members of the staff of a French “satirical” magazine a civilized act? Even to ask that question seems absurd.

Was the weekly output of the staff of that magazine a contribution to civilization? Even to ask that question seems brutish at best, and invites cries of “blaming the victim” and “moral equivalency” between “medieval barbarians” and “heroic defenders of freedom of speech.”

Yet the second question may be even more important than the first, if only because everyone outside of the confines of the putative “religion of peace” knows the proper answer to the first, but few understand why the proper answer to the second may very well be the same.

I do not wish to make too much of the rapid embrace of the phrase Je suis Charlie Hebdo by good people horrified by the meticulously planned and surgically performed strike by militant Muslims on the Paris offices of the “irreverent” weekly. Few who posted those words on Twitter and Facebook and every other form of social media this week know much at all about the actual content of Charlie Hebdo (as the all-too-frequent use of the line “It’s the French version of The Onion” makes clear). Most would undoubtedly be horrified had they seen the viciously antisemitic and anti-Christian cartoons that Charlie Hebdo routinely ran alongside the anti-Muslim images that have been widely circulated. Few (I trust) would be willing to defend, for instance, the cover that depicted the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity sodomizing one another, as a show of support for homosexual “marriage.”

Yet even among those exposed to the truth about the vile content that Charlie Hebdo routinely published, many continue to stand behind the slogan, because as a society we have become so beguiled by the words “freedom of speech” that we regard the quotation routinely and wrongly attributed to Voltaire—“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”—as the very foundation of civilization.

Of course, we don’t act like we believe that. Je suis Charlie Hebdo, cry those on the left, who normally spend their days screaming “Racist!” at those on the right. Would they defend to the death the right of someone to question affirmative action, much less the right to call someone a “nigger”? Of course not, nor should they.

Je suis Charlie Hebdo, shout those on the right, who routinely denounce the antisemitic ravings of Muslim clerics. Would they defend to the death the right of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to call Jews “swines,” or even the right of President Obama to call Islam a “religion of peace”? Of course not, nor should they.

And the good news is that they don’t have to. Civilization, thankfully, does not depend upon the right of freedom of speech, neither the concrete right guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution nor the abstract version ripped from the historical circumstance of that amendment by activist jurists and honed to a weapon lethal to civilized discourse first by leftists in the 1960’s and then by “conservatives” in the 1980’s.

Indeed, in its abstract form, elevated above all other principles and above the complex realities of actual human society, “free speech” has largely become cover for the behavior of those who either do not wish to conform to the norms of civilized society or who wish to undermine those norms with the ultimate intention of destroying civilization itself. It has become, in other words, an ideology, a distortion of reality.

In this, the partisans of free speech and the evangelists of Allah are much closer together than they or we tend to think. A few years after the pseudonymous S.G. Tallentyre Evelyn Beatrice Hall inserted her high-sounding words into the mouth of Voltaire, another English writer pointed out the parallels between the beliefs of Islam and those of modern liberalism. In G.K. Chesterton’s The Flying Inn, we see Islam not as the “medieval religion” of atheist and neoconservative screeds, but a thoroughly modern ideology, sibling to liberalism in an iconoclasm that doesn’t simply ignore reality but tries to destroy it. Unlike the Triune God of Christianity Who deigned to become man to save His Creation, Allah is an abstract principle—like “free speech”—to which all of human society must submit, by force if necessary, and through which it must be violently transformed. And just as the most radical proponents of “free speech” can justify anything under its banner, the most radical acolytes of Allah can insist that any action they take in his name is demanded by Islam.

That Islam does not merely prohibit images of Allah or images of Muhammad but all images of creation is telling, because through this prohibition it reveals a fundamental hatred of the created world, and not simply a fear of blasphemy in the case of images of Allah or sacrilege in the case of images of Muhammad. But the iconoclasm of modern liberalism is the same. The promotion of vile obscenity à la Charlie Hebdo isn’t “courageous”; it is a rage against reality, a desire not only to destroy the norms of civilized life but to strike at the very roots of the created order that gives rise to those norms and makes civilization possible.

[Keep reading. . .]

HT: Paul McCain

Previous Post

January 16, 2015

We now have a ray gun

Next Post

January 16, 2015 Symposium on Vocation

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"I know wired earbuds are making a comeback (I never stopped using them as I ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"VCRs, tape decks, and cassette players are all having a revival among a segment of ..."

Tom Hering

Luther on Tools

"As a (retired) lawyer I see potential liability from sharing things like power or sharp ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"I am not sure the items you mentioned, though disused, discontinued, discarded, could be considered ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Proverbs 23:4-5 warn against pursuing too much?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Status Power Wealth Knowledge

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »