Reflections on 9/11: The Essential Difference between Christianity and Islam

The key to resisting Islam is to hail the Christian truth about the superiority of celibacy and virginity.

In the dazed aftermath of 9/11, the desire to understand what motivated those heinous acts led many a Catholic on a search to learn more about Islam, the religion of the attackers. But those who tried this soon found what many had been saying for some time—that there is a lack of quality Catholic literature that meets the challenge of Islam.

While Catholic bookstores stock volumes answering every belief from Atheism to Zen, there's barely a pamphlet on the faith that once lopped off a huge portion of Christendom.

But there is a reason for this dearth of Catholic literature on this important and timely topic. For centuries now, Christian thinkers have struggled with a correct and effective way to combat the message of Muhammad. And in part it’s easy to see why. For any successful apologetic effort depends on illuminating the essential differences between the champion Catholic Faith and the challenger, be it Islam, Arianism, Protestantism or whatever. But it is hard to show the key differences between Christianity and Islam. Islam preaches almsgiving, prayer, and the goodness and mercy of God. Muslims even honor Mary and claim Jesus will judge mankind on the last day. Islam promises forgiveness, eternal salvation, and a high moral law. The layman might well ask, "What's the gripe against Islam?"

A notable answer to this question, and one of the few good treatments of Islam from a Catholic perspective, is The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc, the famed English Catholic historian. Belloc emphasizes that Islam is best seen as a Christian heresy, a deviant form of Catholicism whose key breach is the rejection the dogma of the Incarnation. All other differences can ultimately be linked to this fundamental issue.

Belloc is wise to look for a fundamental difference between the faiths. Again, whether trying to convert Muslims or to immunize believing Christians from Islamic claims, the first step is to clearly mark the difference between Christians and Muslims. For it goes without saying that the Christians who were lost to Islam either did not understand these differences or did not appreciate them.

But the problem with Belloc’s explanation is that, while completely correct, it is too theological and abstract a truth for making a case against Islam. After all, the Christians who apostatized and accepted Islam weren't won over by theological arguments about the nature of Christ. Rather, they saw how daily life would improve once slavery, interest-bearing debt, and social class were abolished. No, to meet the threat of Islam, the Church needs to show more concrete differences that touch on daily life. And few things touch daily life like sexuality.

In the area of sexuality we find that Christians already have good momentum against Islamic teaching. When asked to name the most undesirable thing about Islam, Christians on the street invariably reply, "Muslims can have four wives." Indeed, nothing grates against Christian sensibilities more than the notion of polygamy.

So it is somewhat obvious that Islam has a crack in its structure when it comes to sexual morality. We should illuminate key differences in this area that would serve as a place to drive home the chisel of distinction and shear Islam from Catholicism so clearly in the minds of our faithful that the two faiths stand apart like a finished sculpture from the marble chips on the studio floor. But polygamy isn’t the best place to do this, for Muslims will claim it is very rarely if ever practiced.

But there is another striking difference between Islam and Catholicism in the area of sexuality, it's just that, sadly, nobody on the Catholic side wants to mention it these days. This difference is apparent in the eternal reward offered by each religion. Whereas Islamic paradise offers its saints an eternity of carnal sex; the Christian heaven offers celibacy. "For in the resurrection,” Jesus says, “they shall neither marry nor be married.” Truly, the difference between Islam and Christianity is that between eternal sex and eternal celibacy! In light of this distinction it becomes immediately clear why ASJ thinks it is so crucial to end the current trends in Catholic theology that exalt sex, marriage, and biological family rather than celibacy, virginity, and the family of all Christians that our traditional theology emphasizes. These dangerous and misguided ideas actually promote a worldview that is more compatible with Islam. For if sex and marriage are such lofty goods, then why shouldn't they be a part of eternal paradise like Islam teaches? A society that exalts sex as divine will be ripe pickings for Muslim preachers. For who, believing that sexual activity is preferable to celibacy, would not prefer a religion that promises an abundance of such pleasure?

If the Christian Faith is to triumph in Muslim strongholds and border areas, the Church needs to make clear to people the superiority of celibacy. Yet, more and more these days Church "theologians" brazenly flaunt the Church's new "liberated" sexual attitude, acting as though sex and marriage are heaven on earth and as if celibacy were some burden the Church foolishly imposed on itself. If they keep touting sex and marriage as keystones of happiness and fulfillment, a view which has no root in Catholic tradition, it will only make people more open to the Islamic view that sex must persist into eternity—a stark contrast with the celibate paradise that Jesus promises.

But a culture that esteems celibacy more than marriage will always prefer Catholicism to Islam. Having seen the unparalleled fruits and excellences of celibacy, that culture will see Islam as lacking this indisputable good. Islam will never be able to get a foothold in any society that reveres celibacy and perpetual virginity. One of the most effective ways to advance Christianity in Muslim and pagan lands is to convince others that celibacy and virginity are essential parts of any society that reflects God’s glory. Then, claims by Muslims that an all-good God would leave celibacy out of paradise would appear absurd. It would be clear to all that a religion that places sex over celibacy cannot be divine.

It is no coincidence that the intercession of the Virgin Mary has been so instrumental in ages past when Christendom was being hard pressed by the advance of Islam. At the battle of Lepanto in 1517, for example, Christians invoked the aid of the Blessed Mother by making pilgrimage to her shrine in Loreto. The Christian armies then went on to rout the Turks on the Mediterranean. For while Islam may match the Christian in prayer and almsgiving, it has no room for answering Mary’s example of perpetual virginity without contradicting its own teachings.

When Christians have needed help against Islam, they have turned not to sex and married folk, who could never out-populate Islamic polygamists, but to a Virgin, who through celibacy gave birth to more greatness than all the Muslims and Christians who ever lived. It’s time we take note of this allegory and re-establish perpetual continence and virginity as cherished institutions within Christendom.

Islamic Sexual Morality

Living Heaven on Earth

 This article appeared in the September 15, 2004 issue of The Loyal Lion.