Sunday Sermon: Civic Religion Division
September 12, 2010, 9:56 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
Nicholas Kristof: “This is one of those times that test our values, a bit like the shameful interning of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the disgraceful refusal to accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
I thought Fridman’s piece should be a companion to this – a call to comunity and sacrifice in these daunting times -times exploited by poltical individualism and me first.
“Is this America?” Of course it is – both good and bad.
Analogies help us better understand new concepts or developments – and to make distinctions. Kristof uses most prominently the analogies of American treatment of Jewish refugees during World War II and the internment of Japanese Americans in campus during the same time frame. Yes, indeed: America has not always been the most welcoming or tolerant place. Of course, Catholics who know their history (and we have plenty here) could have told him that just as readily.
And the anti-Catholic analogy may be a better one – but even it is imperfect. As for Kristof’s WWII analogies – It’s hard to believe that even Kristoft believes that the rumpus over the location of Cordoba House is on an equal plane with the denial of European Jews (resulting in many of their deaths) or the Japanese-American internments. Not least because both of those acts were acts of the government (albeit no doubt supported by many Americans), not expressions of private individuals. Analogies are helpful, but left without qualification these risk overstating valid concerns about some of the opposition to the project.
And this creates larger difficulties for Kristof. Just as opposition to the project is not of all one sort or motivation – some of it simple unthinking bigotry, some of it not – neither is all support for it, since even some supporters think (though perhaps not all will say so) that Imam Rauf could have shown greater sensitivity and more consultation in pushing the project through. Unfortunately, the lines have been drawn and attitudes are hardening, and we’re down to the usual culture war talk-past-each-other mode of operation. Opponents are all bigots; supporters are all appeasenik elitists.
The Cordoba House leaders have every right to build their project there; to deny them this would be to risk denying the same right to Catholics (and Protestants and Jews, etc.) as well. I would still prefer that it be built somewhere else if it is to keep its current form, or be reshaped in a more modest form accommodating interreligious participation if it’s to stay where it is.
But compromise is becoming harder to come by as this scrum drags on.