Robert Fowke: A European caliphate?
Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:
"A European caliphate?
Would Islam really manage to convince us Europeans to give up alcohol and segregate the sexes?
o Robert Fowke
What would happen if Islam manages to convert Europe? An improbable turn of events but not completely inconceivable.
The problem is that religions adapt and mutate as they cross cultural boundaries. For instance, when Catholic missionaries converted the Aztecs to Christianity they were obliged to tolerate a cult of death involving sugared skulls deriving from worship of the goddess Mictecacihuatl; this despite Jesus never saying anything at all about sugared skulls. And the Christianity of Catholic Europe was itself far removed from early Middle-Eastern Christianity. The practice of modern American evangelicals is even further removed from the source. Cultures get hold of a new religion and twist it into a shape which suits. If Islam were ever to take hold in the densely populated countries of Europe it would undergo a similar process of adaptation. It may be instructive to consider what this process might entail."
"A European caliphate?
Would Islam really manage to convince us Europeans to give up alcohol and segregate the sexes?
o Robert Fowke
What would happen if Islam manages to convert Europe? An improbable turn of events but not completely inconceivable.
The problem is that religions adapt and mutate as they cross cultural boundaries. For instance, when Catholic missionaries converted the Aztecs to Christianity they were obliged to tolerate a cult of death involving sugared skulls deriving from worship of the goddess Mictecacihuatl; this despite Jesus never saying anything at all about sugared skulls. And the Christianity of Catholic Europe was itself far removed from early Middle-Eastern Christianity. The practice of modern American evangelicals is even further removed from the source. Cultures get hold of a new religion and twist it into a shape which suits. If Islam were ever to take hold in the densely populated countries of Europe it would undergo a similar process of adaptation. It may be instructive to consider what this process might entail."
