Faith and Politics Are Both About Choice

Response to This Week's On Faith Question:

How would you respond to radical Muslim clerics in northwest Pakistan -- now under Islamic law -- who are calling for expansion of Islamic law across the entire federal republic of Pakistan. Should any nation be governed by religious rules.

The real debate here is about who decides what's right for people, people themselves or God. That's the difference between the democracies in which we all want to live and the theocracies which some hope to create both in Pakistan and right here at home. Yes, that's right, I said in which we all want to live, even the theocrats. They just hate to admit it.

The irony is that even for the theocrats it's a matter of choice - they choose to hear the call of God in a particular way and therefore would like to establish a government which accords with their hearing. I appreciate that desire. I even sympathize with it, since I assume that all well-meaning people aspire to use their most deeply held values to establish what they deem to be the best form of government.

The problem I have with the theocrats is not simply the many conclusions they reach with which I disagree. After all, they have the same problem with me! And it's not that I am certain I am right and they are wrong, either. Were that the case I would be guilty of the same arrogance which I find so noxious in them.

The problem I have, and we should all have, is with any group, religious or secular, which seeks to strip from others the very rights and liberties which they themselves hold dear. And no matter how often someone thumps their Bible, Torah, or Qur'an, telling us that they are only doing "what God says", the bottom line is that they have chosen to follow that path.

I know of no contemporary theocrat who reports being coerced into their particular theo-political posture. They should admit that and then accord the rest of the same freedom. Failing to do otherwise marks them as mean-spirited hypocrites who would do to others precisely what they experience being unfairly done to them. And that politics of revenge is something which no healthy political system can tolerate. Not to mention it being a deeply sick twist on the notion of doing unto others....

By Brad Hirschfield  |  April 22, 2009; 2:32 AM ET
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