Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:07 pm by Robert Hunt

Is Islam a Religion of Peace? 2015-03-13T20:07:53-06:00 Robert Hunt

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Is Islam a Religion of Peace? Yes and No. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and the other religions I know of all encourage peace, both personal and social.

Yet at this moment in time members of all of these religions are not peaceful. By the billions they are afflicted with inner turmoil, sleepless nights, and broken human relationships. And by the millions they are directly engaged as both victims and perpetrators of violence between all sorts of social groups.

How can we talk about a religion of peace when there is no peace?

At one level it is an easy distinction between the real and the ideal. Wanting peace and finding it are two different things. But this distinction is intellectually and spiritually trivial, and closing the gap lies is the realm of counseling, therapy, politics, and diplomacy.

These practical arts need to grasp a very different set of distinctions, theological distinctions that clearly differentiate the different religions. And these have to do with just what constitutes the conditions under which peace can be achieved, and the root problems that keep people from living in peace.

Christianity has typically seen conflict and violence as the outworking of separation between humans and God and humans and humans. This separation is a result Sin, a metaphysical force that controls human lives and continually divides people from themselves, their neighbors, and their God. Reconciliation, overcoming those divisions, requires that Sin be defeated. Without going into the details of how Christians believe this is achieved, we can at least say that the battle is almost entirely spiritual, taking place in the realm between the immanent and the transcendent where the human spirit meets God’s Spirit.

Islam on the other hand, sees conflict and violence as a result of human disobedience to God’s law, a disobedience created by ignorance or the refusal to rein in human desire. There is no metaphysical force involved here. Although Satan may be on hand to tempt people he is merely wily and proud; supernatural but not metaphysical. And this means that overcoming ignorance of God’s law and willfully controlling human desire is the solution to conflict and violence. And that in turn is theoretically simple. God has revealed God’s law to all humans in all times and places. They simply need to turn to what they have been taught and follow it. Peace will be the result.

Just looking at these two religions we can see how differently they understand the conditions for peace. (An examination of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Judaism would further broaden our knowledge and the number of differences.) Both begin with God’s revelation, in Christianity of the Christ, in Islam of the Qur’an. But from there they diverge substantially. Christians must ultimately seek inner transformation if they are to either have peace or create peace. Muslims must be obedient to the law to achieve peace.

And to go a bit further. For Christians governance of society is an adjunct activity in peacemaking. It is a secondary matter compared to the necessity of the transformation of the human heart. For Muslims governance of society is always the primary concern if there is to be peace, because governance is precisely the implementation of God’s law. For Christians baptism, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and visible grace” is the initiation into a life of peace. For Muslims a child simply needs to be born into a pious, law abiding and law teaching family and society to find peace.

Let me suggest that it is pretty much useless, even ridiculous, to talk about whether this religion or that religion is a religion of peace. Mars isn’t a god that any of them recognize. But we need to explore in much greater depth where our understandings and interest coincide so that we can work toward the practical goal of living with one another in peace. And that requires, no surprise, actual dialogue between religious people. Not the polemical BS that has created the present cesspool of religious discourse in which our society swims, or too often sinks.

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