As an evangelical Christian, the question of Pope Benedict XVI's statements about Islam at Regensburg and his current visit to Turkey poses unique complications. As a matter of fact, this question raises issues that are already now centuries old. How should an evangelical answer this question?

In context, the Pope's statements about Islam at Regensburg were understandable and clear. He was citing a historical source in the context of a call for reason and understanding among persons of good will. At another level, the Pope was affirming the basic fact that Christianity and Islam offer very different understandings of reality. We may find common ground on some issues, but the Muslim worldview and the Christian worldview differ radically.

No informed person should be unaware of the basic incompatibility of Christianity and Islam. Of course, liberal Christians and liberal Muslims may find much commonality and little divergence, other than respective affinities for tradition. Yet in that case it is the shared commitment to a liberal approach to religion that binds them together, not the basic compatibility of Islam and Christianity. In the elite worlds of academia and global culture, a common commitment to the ethos of modernity causes this incompatibility to disappear. Speaking candidly about these differences and contending for a classic interpretation of either Islam or Christianity is not the route to tenure on the modern university campus.

Added to this, the postmodern worldview tends to collapse all differences into the category of cultural and social constructions. Who wants to get into an exhausting argument over what are seen as nothing more than socially constructed realities?

What should the Pope say in Turkey? Again, this is a very hard question for an evangelical Christian to answer. In the first place, this raises once again the issue of the papacy. The evangelical rejection of the papacy is not just a rejection of historic papal abuses. To the contrary, evangelicals oppose the papacy as an institution. It is an unbiblical office that, even in its current form, seeks to claim both a spiritual and a temporal authority. Both are rejected by evangelical Christians. The Pope is received in Turkey as a head of state. The papacy's response to the furor over the Regensburg remarks was typical of the practices of state diplomacy. By the time the Vatican was finished clarifying (without apologizing) the message was not clear at all.

Put simply, the Pope's visit to Turkey--along with the media attention and hype--is further evidence that the mixing of temporal and spiritual authority will not work. A minister of Christ should speak clearly about the Gospel and about the reality of Islam. The central Christian concern about Islam should not be the undeniable threat of Islamic violence but the fact that Islam is incompatible with the Gospel of Christ. Islam explicitly denies what Christians centrally affirm--that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God who came to save his people from their sins. Thus, the most significant challenge posed by Islam is not geopolitical (though this is real) but spiritual. I do not expect Benedict XVI to say this in Turkey.

Would he state this case in private? Probably so, but the Vatican is also responsible for confusing that issue. In the aftermath of Vatican II and documents such as Lumen Gentium, it is no longer clear that Roman Catholicism would call for the urgent evangelization of Muslims. When the Vatican speaks constantly of respect for other religions, it does so without being very clear about what this respect means. Does Benedict XVI see Islam as another legitimate way to approach God? A way that explicitly denies the deity of Christ and the centrality of the cross? I would not expect much clarity on this question while the Pope is in Turkey. Indeed, I do not expect much clarity on this issue while the Pope is in the Vatican.

The problems here involve both diplomacy and theology. I do not believe that the Christian church can do much to influence the Islamic world through diplomacy. We can hope for more extreme elements to transform themselves into something less violent, but this is not likely to come without more significant changes in Islam.

This Pope is a remarkable man--perhaps the most significant theologian elected to the papacy in centuries. I have studied his thought and his writings carefully for years and I am involved in serious academic conversations with Roman Catholic theologians about this Pope and his theological works. His indictment of Western secularism is brilliant and his defense of the reality of truth is stellar. His defense of the Culture of Life is courageous and his insight on so many moral issues is keen and clear. The problem is the papacy itself, and the fact that the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church has so confused the Gospel.

So what to advise the Pope to say in Turkey? An evangelical Christian cannot offer sagacious advice in this case. Evangelicals do not make state visits.