In Beyond Dialogue, Rice University sociologist Considine offers the solution of interfaith dialogue to 14 centuries of Christian-Muslim conflict. He dubs this DEUCE, an acronym for Dialogue, Education, Understanding, Commitment, and Engagement, and seeks its application in a spirit of secularism, pluralism, and humanitarian civility.
In so doing, Considine proposes a set of values for peaceful coexistence, such as democracy and secularism, that he presents not as religious but as humanitarian and universal. In fact, these values have religious roots, grounded in a biblical heritage (for details, see Tom Holland’s Dominion).
Considine does not consider the possibility that Christianity and Islam project fundamentally different values. He argues that “the basic tenets of Islam suggest that it is a tolerant religion that seeks to integrate, understand, and support interfaith dialogue for the benefit of all.” He thus projects his (Christian) values onto Islam. In the same vein, he describes Islamic conquests not as bloody but as peaceful.
The author’s leaps of logic in locating historic instances of DEUCE can be mind-boggling and anachronistic. He makes the astounding claim that the Pact of Umar, an instrument of surrender of Syrian Christians to Islam, is an embodiment of DEUCE and a “positive story,” which “provides inspiration for modern changes.” Yet this pact, which came to have canonical status in Islamic law, was described by the renowned Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir as imposing conditions on conquered peoples that “ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace.”
Also, he characterizes Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I’s (d. 1861) promotion of road and canal building as the sultan pushing “for DEUCE facilitation by means of traveling.” So, if only governments had built better roads, Christians and Muslims would have gotten along better?
Considine avoids the realities of Islamic law and theology. For example, he expresses puzzlement about why so many Muslims hate Ahmadis, ignoring the evident theological explanation that they consider Ahmadis heretics and therefore subject to sharia penalties for apostasy.
The book contains many errors. The largest minority religion in Pakistan is Hinduism, not Christianity. Considine asserts that under the Ottomans, Christians could not marry Muslims. In reality, what was forbidden was Christian men marrying Muslim women. Christian women could marry Muslim men, and their children would be Muslims. This mechanism of demographic replacement is stock-standard sharia law.
Some pious Muslims will see Considine’s project as an attempt to impose Western values on the umma. But for Christians, it appears to be an eyes-wide-shut rejection of the biblical foundations of Western culture.
Mark Durie
Melbourne School of Theology and Australian University of Theology
