Oct 14, 2014 05:11 AM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ore-154277
SNIP "...Christianity and Islam share the paradox of being religions that claim to be universal, while retaining particular dogmas and practices that are exclusive to them. There were times when pursuit of world empire led both religions to more universal claims. Their trajectories seem similar — a small, persecuted faith that acquired an imperial form and expression that led to its dominance across the world. Here both used orthodoxy to bolster the authority of the empire, and defined heterodoxy to deal with political dissent. One of the main differences that has always struck me concerns how orthodoxy was shaped and implemented. On the whole the Muslim world did not have the same mechanisms of central control — councils, creeds and inquisitions — to enforce matters. They sometimes tried to set up such mechanisms, but always failed. When people raise the problem of a crisis of authority in the Muslim world, they forget that this is not just a situation that arose in modernity. What is interesting, however, is that each of the two faiths has significant internal divisions on matters of political theology...."
SNIP "...Christianity and Islam share the paradox of being religions that claim to be universal, while retaining particular dogmas and practices that are exclusive to them. There were times when pursuit of world empire led both religions to more universal claims. Their trajectories seem similar — a small, persecuted faith that acquired an imperial form and expression that led to its dominance across the world. Here both used orthodoxy to bolster the authority of the empire, and defined heterodoxy to deal with political dissent. One of the main differences that has always struck me concerns how orthodoxy was shaped and implemented. On the whole the Muslim world did not have the same mechanisms of central control — councils, creeds and inquisitions — to enforce matters. They sometimes tried to set up such mechanisms, but always failed. When people raise the problem of a crisis of authority in the Muslim world, they forget that this is not just a situation that arose in modernity. What is interesting, however, is that each of the two faiths has significant internal divisions on matters of political theology...."