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Obama Speaks To Middle East Reporters About Religious Pluralism

By Howard M. Friedman

After his speech in Cairo yesterday, President Obama met with Middle East reporters. JTA has a transcript of the session. While much of the Q&A focused on the Israeli-Palestinian question, one exchange allowed the President to expand on his notion of a religiously pluralistic society:

What I tried to communicate in the speech ... is that in an interdependent world like ours ... we have to have a mature faith that says "I believe with all my heart and all my soul in what I believe, but I respect the fact that somebody else believes their beliefs just as strongly." ... I can't force my religion on you.... Now, that doesn't mean that I can't make arguments that are based on my belief and my faith... If I'm a politician and I say I'm going to pass a law against murdering somebody, that's not me practicing my religious faith; that's me practicing morality that may be based in religious faith, but ... one that can translate into a principle that people of various faiths can agree on.

I think it's very important for Islam to wrestle with these issues.... [I]n Islam there's a debate about sharia and how strict an interpretation or how moderate an interpretation of that should be; or should that be something that is not part of the secular law. I don't presume to make that decision for any country or any groups of people. But I do think that if you start having rules that guarantee other faiths and other groups, or in the case of the United States, people with no faith at all, are somehow forced to abide by somebody else's faith, I think that is a violation of the spirit of democracy and I think that over the long term, that's going to breed conflict in some way. It will lead to some sort of instability and destructiveness in that society.

But, as I said, I think this is a important debate that has to take place inside Islam.... [T]he one thing I can say for certain is that people who justify killing other people based on faith are misreading their sacred texts. And I think they are out of alignment with God. Now, that's my belief. [T]hat ... is a debate that I think is settled for the vast majority of Muslims, but we have a very small minority that can be very destructive....

Full post as published by Religion Clause on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).