Reason & Revelation: Does Protestantism = Islam?

Pseudonymous poster The Friar comments on Jonah Goldberg’s USA Today column comparing the fall of the Islamic caliphate to the Protestant Reformation. It’s an interesting comparison, as R&R quotes from the Goldberg piece:

What might be called the Muslim Protestant Reformation began with the demise of the closest thing the Muslim world had to a Catholic Church: the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, unlike the church, which was strong enough to fight back, the “Sick Man of Europe” just up and died, ceding the battlefield to zealots. Without the push-and-pull that birthed Western social compromise, Islam simply replaced religious authoritarianism with religious totalitarianism. Tellingly, Lebanon, which endured years of religious civil war, is an exception to this dynamic in the Arab world.

Today, Islam is chockablock with Muslim Luthers claiming to have a monopoly on the Quran’s true meaning. Murderers can shop around for a fatwa endorsing the most horrific — and technically un-Islamic — barbarism like junkies searching for a corrupt doctor with a prescription pad for hire.

It is an excellent article focusing on the lack of leadership within the Muslim faith and how the fall of the Ottoman Empire contributed to the current state of affairs in the Middle East today — drawing comparisons to the series of wars within Christendom in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.

There are a few intersting ideas that spring forth from this op-ed, but it would take an amazing book to outline.

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