In a speech at Guildford cathedral, Dr Williams criticised those who believed they had all the answers and treated non-Christians as if their traditions of reflection and imagination were of no interest to anyone. “God save us from that kind of approach,” he said.

Williams also took on the opposite issue: wimpy believers.

But he added: “God save us also from the nervousness about our own conviction that doesn’t allow us to say we speak about Jesus because we believe he matters, we believe he matters, because we believe that in him human beings find their peace, their destinies converge, and their dignities are fully honoured.”

The title of his speech, though, shows us the problematic position of pluralism (sorry about the alliteration!):

In his address, titled “The Finality of Christ in a Pluralist World”, Dr Williams addressed difficulties modern Christians have with Biblical texts which suggest that Christianity is the only path to salvation.

Here’s the link to the speech (on the website of The Archbishop of Canterbury).

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The minaret of the new Grand Mosque of Marseille, whose cornerstone will be laid here in April, will be silent — no muezzin, live or recorded, will disturb the neighborhood with the call to prayer. Instead, the minaret will flash a beam of light for a couple of minutes, five times a day.

Normally, the light would be green, for the color of Islam. But Marseille is a port, and green is reserved for signals to ships at sea. Red? No, the firefighters have reserved red.

Instead, said Noureddine Cheikh, the head of the Marseille Mosque Association, the light will almost surely be purple — a rather nightclubby look for such an elegant building.

…Youcef Mammeri, a writer on Islam in France and member of the Joint Council of Muslims of Marseille, says that the debates over minarets, burqas and national identity have angered many French-born Muslims and brought them together in a defensive circle.

This is a tough call. On the one hand, I’m all for religious tolerance. But on the other hand it seems that historical tradition should be respected, too. But then that also cuts both ways. Take Spain and its transformation from Islamic to Catholic rule. If we just go by “who was there first”, this would often thwart the natural flow of history, whether that “flow” came at the end of a sword or not. If Maryland had been settled by Muslims but over the past 50 years a vibrant Christian minority had flourished, should church towers and bells be banned in deference to the over 200 year history of a predominantly Muslim populace? Or if Maryland had been predominantly Catholic (which it was) but now Orthodox Jews were in the ascendancy, should synagogues and payos be banned?

The sad truth is that tensions between different cultures (even those that share the same religion) is practically inevitable especially when there’s a lack of sensitivity and understanding on both sides.

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A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies – and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.

More here. Another here looks at the economic malaise in many Islamic countries and their lack of religious pluralism.

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Most “everybody” knows that Jefferson (you can’t get more “founder-y” than Jefferson!) was a deist.

Well, it looks like deism is making a come back in American society. (Andrew Sullivan offers his views on this here.) It’s a fascinating development, really. Personally, I think it is evidence of two things. First, there’s a genuine lack of religious education among people who would consider themselves “religious” in the institutional sense that James avoids. Second, I think it speaks to an acceptance of the reasonableness of religious belief  among people who would not call themselves “institutional” believers. In other words, just a generic, non-religionist, “ordinary” (whatever that is!) American. [Sorry: a-MUR-can.] What this means is that a lot of folks who are not affiliated with any organized religion are not atheists. They’re actually deists.

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In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban Muslims in Indonesia are actually more likely to be drawn to more austere, fundamentalist versions of Islam than their rural counterparts. The rural Muslims prefer religious practices that blend Islam with elements of Hinduism and indigenous faiths that were practiced there prior to Islam.  No generalizable point here, just an interesting observation on how complex matters of religion and culture can be.

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