It is almost understandable that Pope Benedict XVI could be surprised at the overreaction to his September 12, 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg. After all there is a several hundred year tradition of disregard for papal views. Luther burning a copy of a papal bull comes to mind. And Benedict might have thought the speech would drift by as anonymously as some of his landmark documents as Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith. Some of them made good press releases, but the full import of such items as “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past” and the “Declaration ‘Dominus Iesus:’ On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church” seem to have slipped by most commentators.

But everything has a context and this speech sat conspicuously close to September 11 memorials and the growing dialog about the real Islam. In fact the Pope had already opined that Turkey might not share the same values as the rest of Europe and be culturally incompatible with the European Union it hoped to join. His comments led directly to a rejection of the developing European constitution and the sure exclusion of Turkey.

France, like other European nations, has an increasingly restive immigrant, mostly Islamic, population; and not too long before had been overwhelmed by days of rioting. Once tolerant Holland is writhing in protectionist ire after a series of religious assassinations, and the Danish cartoon fracas had barely died down. No, the context would scream caution in mentioning Islam or the prophet Muhammad.

Most of the news clips do just that and clip the whole speech down to the Pope quoting a discussion between Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian in 1391, during the Siege of Constantinople. The news and the resulting outrage focused on the comment of the Emperor: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.” Predictably that inflamed the Islamic world—and for most of Islam they became the pope’s words not the emperor’s.

One website commentary I looked up was written by Rosemary Radford Ruether, a prominent Catholic theologian and leading scholar in feminist theology and Palestinian issues. She faults the pope for ignoring the fact that “the Fourth Crusade (1201-4), called by Pope Innocent III, was diverted into an assault on the capital of the Byzantine empire, Constantinople. The Crusaders pillaged and occupied the city, leading to a weakening of the Byzantine world and its eventual fall to the Moslems.”¹ Perhaps both the author and the Pope forgot that John Paul II had apologized for the sack of Constantinople in a till-now futile attempt to reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The real issue of the speech is farther reaching than language obviously designed to get attention, if not make offence. Early on he states the issue of violent conversion. Or, as Manuel II said “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.”

What the Pope was dissecting was the relationship between faith and reason. Obviously he knows the dark history of Roman persecution and the various battles of faith. He chose to use the negative to outmaneuver his opposition theologically. Under the guise of acknowledging the apparent Greek origin of a reasonable Christianity, he at once sanctified its better part and acknowledged the Greek and Roman stamp to Christianity. That is, the authority of Rome.

There are many trenchant passages in the speech. While Pope Benedict made a valid point in critiquing the underlying “pathology” of religion abroad in the world, I find his statement dismissing when “the subjective ‘conscience’ becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical” as preparing the way to require that individuals obey the dictates of a rational church authority, namely Rome.

It is certain that Rome has begun a pushback against Islam. The initial call is for “reciprocity.” And that is a reasonable point for an Islamic worldview that will not allow adherents to change faith and at best severely restricts the ability of other religions to dialog with them. But I think the real approach is more far-reaching.

First, in somewhat ambiguous terms Benedict puts on the table, without an itemized rejection, the dehellenizing views of Adolf von Harnack. “Harnack’s goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ’s divinity and the triune God.” By not specifically reaffirming Christ’s divinity and the Trinity, Benedict, by my analysis, must have been throwing an olive branch to Islam—for the Koran is most specific on many occasion in condemning Christians for the primary error of elevating Jesus to Godhood—“God has no son,” the Koran says specifically. In fact Sura V, verses 75, 76 says “They do blaspheme who say: ‘God is Christ the son of Mary”. . . They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity.”

Now, months after the speech, it seems obvious that Rome is determined to stake out a position on not only the issue of violence, but more particularly its role as the critical center of what it is to be Western. I heard a long report on the BBC in mid November which documented the cultural rift in Europe between the Europeans and mostly Islamic immigrants. France was of particular focus. The program ended with a Catholic priest intoning the mass in Latin and then lecturing his audience on how Christianity defines what it is to be European. The call was to reclaim Europe. Not so different from what we are seeing in the United States, is it?

After the shouting dies down, there remains for us the same challenge as the Pope is tackling on behalf of Rome. Are we ready to be condemned as dangerous literalists if our faith position is seen as too extreme or out of sync with the civilized world I seem to remember Ellen White’s narrative of the time of trouble recounting just such a charge against us from the Sunday-keeping majority. It may be that violence is not the real issue at all, but a view of Christ and ultimate authority.