Clive Davis

CURTAIN UP

"We in the audience went home feeling pleased with ourselves. Some might have been disappointed that 'nothing happened,' and others might have wished for some intellectual significance on such an important night.I somehow missed this over the holidays."  An unmistakeable sense of anti-climax hangs in the air, as Anne Applebaum attends a performance of that controversial Mozart-meets-Mohammed opera in Berlin.  [Via The Playgoer]

ISLAM VS THE WEST?

Yesterday I posted A.C. Grayling's thoughts on fundamentalism and modernity. American "Crunchy Con" Rod Dreher takes a much more pessimistic view:

I believe that we can only assimilate Islam to the extent that assimilated Muslims become significantly less devoted to the core doctrines of their faith. If I were a practicing Muslim, I would not be willing to trade the core truths of my faith for the sake of being a "tame" Westerner... What worries me is that I have not seen within Islam anything within its theological structure that says the Islamic fundamentalists -- are essentially wrong in what they say Islam requires of believers.

My gut feeling - and it's not much more than that - is that Rod over-states the appeal of the Islamists' sense of ideological purity. Am I wearing rose-tinted specs?

WORSHIP & THINGS TO COME

As a little footnote to Norm's comments on the Richard Dawkins-Rod Liddle encounter, I've just caught up with A.C. Grayling's observations about faith and society. He argues that what looks like a religious revival is actually a symptom of decline:

The fact is that only 10 per cent of the British population attend church, mosque, synagogue or temple every week, and this figure is declining in all but immigrant communities. This is hardly the stuff of religious resurgence. Yes, over half the population claim vaguely to believe in Something, which includes feng shui and crystals, and they may be "C of E" in the sense of "Christmas and Easter," but they are functionally secularist and would be horrified if asked to live according to the letter of (say) Christian morality: giving all one’s possessions to the poor, taking no thought for the morrow and so impracticably forth. Not even Christian clerics follow these injunctions. This picture is repeated everywhere in the west except the US, and there too the religious base is eroding.

The historical precedent of the counter-Reformation is instructive. For over a century after Luther nailed his theses to Wittenberg’s church door, Europe was engulfed in ferocious religious strife, because the church was losing its hitherto hegemonic grip and had no intention of doing so without a fight. Millions died, and Catholicism won some battles even as it lost the war. We are witnessing a repeat today, this time with Islamism resisting the encroachment of a way of life that threatens it, and as other religious groups join them in a (strictly temporary, given the exclusivity of faith) alliance for the cause of religion in general.

Speaking as a lukewarm believer (how typically British), I think he's right about organized religion. The disorganized kind may well have a brighter future. Trying to understand the universe is hard enough without having to grapple with the complexities of the Bishop of Southwark's account of what happened during his night on the razzle.

CHRISTIANITY IN A COLD CLIMATE

He may not be a fervent believer, yet Jeff Randall still can't stand being sent Christmas cards that don't mention Christmas. In the bin they go:

The paradox of the dreadful campaign to create a culture of resentment against conventional Christmases is that it's being led neither by ethnic minorities nor leaders from other religions. Quite the reverse. Many non-Christians seem genuinely baffled by our desire for self-abasement.

That said, the first time I ever became acquainted with the deeply irritating "Happy Holidays" mantra was in New York. Not that there's any shortage of demand for Bibles in the US. Sales are flourishing, and publishers have figured out more and more ways of targeting niche markets. Personally, I like the idea of an audio version of the New Testament read by Johnny Cash; he's the perfect voice for the Book of Revelation. But you can take these things too far, I suppose:

Bibles are becoming as much personal statements as fashion statements. "What people are saying is 'I want to find a Bible that is really me," noted Rodney Hatfield, a vice president of marketing at Thomas Nelson. "It's no different than with anything else in our culture."

Responding to such desires, publishers offer compact Old and New Testaments like Thomas Nelson's so-called checkbook Bible and Zondervan's Bible in a Bag, as well as myriad themed Bibles, among them archaeology, leadership and sports. "Sometimes what you have to work with seems quite inadequate," begins one section of the basketball edition. "Consider the plight of Rollie Massimino, the coach of the Villanova Wildcats . . . Villanova was ranked, well nowhere . . Several thousand years earlier there was another underdog group that didn't have much to work with. They were called the Israelites."

DRESS CODE

Christmas Day competition for the Queen from a woman in a niqab? I look forward to a lively debate on the pros and cons over at Pickled Politics. Perhaps someone should persuade Helen Mirren to address the nation as well?

UPDATE: Harry's Place thinks it's just a stunt.

NO SEASONAL CHEER

A question for religiously-minded film fans: why is the new movie, The Nativity Story doing so badly when Mel Gibson’s version of the Passion did so well?

With Christmas only a few weeks away, you'd think this was the perfect time to release a film that revolves around the birth of Jesus, right? Wrong. The film took in only $8 million, the second lowest total in history for a film debuting on over 3,100 screens. But why did it tank? Bad marketing? Poor reviews? Were people too busy Christmas shopping? Was it because Mel Gibson and the controversy were absent? And why are people so afraid to promote a film whose story inspired the holiday they're about to celebrate?

It’s just too dull, say many of the critics, although there are some notable exceptions.

HOT AIR

Somehow, I managed to read all the way through A. Sivanandan’s Guardian attack on the new ethnic manifesto launched by Pickled Politics blogger Sunny Hundal. Do I get a prize? Sivanandan, head of the far-Left Institute of Race Relations, has been turning out polemics like this for more years than I care to remember. I was always amazed that people took him seriously back in the Eighties. To discover he’s still around and still droning on is quite comical, really.

In case you didn’t get the gist, Sunny, the message of every Sivanandan essay is, and always has been:

(a) you other bourgeois bastards aren’t as left-wing as me

(b) up the revolution

(c) there isn't a (c)

"LEGAL PLURALISM"

Troubling news about the spread of sharia law in Britain:

The BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.

... Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton said this type of court had advantages for Muslims. "It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it's less awesome an environment than the English courts."

More here:

Former judge Gerald Butler QC says that while courts such as the Jewish Beth Din can work properly, it's essential that all of the involved parties "freely and voluntarily agree to the jurisdiction... and that they conduct their proceedings fairly and properly". He adds: "What they mustn't do - and this must never happen - is to stray into the field of criminal matters. That simply would never be acceptable."

...Cassandra Balchin, a convert to Islam and spokeswoman for the group Women Living Under Muslim Laws, is concerned about the growth of these minority legal systems. "Very often traditional forms of mediation can disadvantage vulnerable groups, such as women, within a community."

TRADITION VS CHANGE

Sunny Hundal reflects on an article about the dwindling number of practising Jews in Britain. Will intermarriage create the same problems for Hindus and Muslims one day? (And would that necessarily be a bad thing?)

Emel Abidin-Algan, former head of the Berlin-based Islamic Women's Association, has already taken a step away from communalism by taking off her headscarf:

How often since my unveiling have I looked men in the eye and thought: Hey, he's not even looking at me?! And to think I spent 30 years covering myself from the supposed harassment of men's eyes...

She also seems to think that Gemans could do with being a little less apathetic about her faith:

Out of consideration for so-called Muslim cultural characteristics, the majority of German society practices patience and reserve, instead of actively pursuing a confrontation with the Muslims out of curiosity or desire for knowledge. They retreat all too quickly when confronted with the answer that the Koran says so and so or that was how the Prophet did things.

Some more background in this interview:

Germans should show more interest in finding out about Islam, [she says.] "Even those in government circles hardly have any basic knowledge about the religion."

CHURCH BLOGGING

Damian Thompson, in an op-ed about the Church of England's latest crisis:

Clergymen spend a lot of time on the internet, mostly for innocent purposes, such as following ecclesiastical backstabbing.