In my last post, I wrote about how American society and the American Academy of Religion both reflect and don't reflect the demise of cultural-Christendom, which is seen in the resentment of Christians about their loss of power and status and in the resentment of non-religious people when religious people retain power and status. It honestly wasn't clear to me who might resent the new AAR VP David Gushee more: conservative Christians, because Gushee is now LGBT affirming, or nonreligious scholars, because their scholarly guild will be led by a "professional Christian" (Gushee is a Christian theologian and ethicist). But frankly, with the elections over, whatever resentment existed was not very palpable. However, I mentioned that I clearly saw resentment in one group of scholars.

Just for kicks, I stopped in at a session of the “God Seminar” of the Westar Institute. The “God Seminar” is like the famous Jesus Seminar (also a Westar project) that voted on which sayings of Jesus from the Gospels were authentic. Following this model, the God Seminar scholars (16 white males and 2 white females, overwhelmingly American philosophical theologians) tinkered around with and then voted on a few propositions about God. At one point, one of them expressed resentful bewilderment regarding why their theological hero, Paul Tillich, didn’t have the same kind of long-term influence as the more evangelical theologian Karl Barth. One member of the panel suggested that it was at least partly due to a well-endowed center for Barthian studies (I assume he meant Princeton), a speculation that met some approval. It reminded me of baseball’s resentful/envious Yankees-haters and made me think that in America, maybe religious people, non-religious people, theologians, scholars of religion and baseball fans are one big mutual-resentment society. In America, we compromise, and nobody gets everything they want.

So what does this all mean? I’m not sure I know, but resentment is ugly, whether you see it on the news or in the mirror and mutual encouragement, appreciation and understanding are beautiful. Confronting my cynicism about the state of society, at the Temple University Department of Religion breakfast, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, non-religious, straight-people and LGBT-folks all ate a great meal, encouraged each other in their endeavors and caught up on each others’ kids and families. 
 
“The times they are a changin’” – Bob Dylan
 
“There is nothing new under the sun.”  - Ecclesiastes

The horrific events of this past weekend have more people looking for serious answers about ISIS. My point here is to offer a couple brief summary answers and mostly to direct people to some interesting resources for fuller answers.

First, at the most basic level, people need to know that ISIS arose in Iraq (or at least gained much of its momentum) in response to a paranoid crackdown on the majority Sunni population by the U.S.-backed Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Long story short: he created his worst nightmare. ISIS involvement in Syria is partly the result of similar Shia-leadership v. Sunni majority faultlines. In this sense, the conflict has vague similarities to the history of Catholic-Protestant violence in Ireland, and is part of the reason some commentators say the current conflict is "more political than religious."    Photo of IRA militants below is from dailymail.uk

However, and second, the rhetoric of ISIS is pervasively religious, a point made quite strongly by Graeme Woods article at the Atlantic, "What ISIS Really Wants" where he describes ISIS as "very Islamic." Tangential story: I remember a young couple who came over for dinner a few years ago and brought with them a delicious baking pan full of something they described as a "Lutheran dessert." I don't know if it was "very Lutheran" or not (or even what that would mean), but they clearly associated it with their Lutheran heritage. The question is, how would I, as an outsider, be able to judge the validity of this? In the case of 95+% of non-Muslims who are trying to figure ISIS out, here's what we've got: we know they are Muslims; we know they like to quote Islamic literature. Therefore, they are very Islamic. However, we have no idea about the contexts of the quotes we hear (textually, or historically) or the traditions of interpretations that surround or bracket such quotes in an Islamic cultural context. Have we ever considered the number of radical revolutionary groups who liked to quote the Declaration of Independence and admired George Washington? It's a lot. Would we therefore say that those groups are "very American" or even "very Republican"? Probably not. I think it is important to concede that ISIS is very "religious" and it seems logical to suggest that since their religion is Islam, that they are "very Islamic." But, once again, if we looked at various violent "Christian" armies throughout history that have done horrible things while flinging around Bible verses, singing hymns and having daily "church services" would we concede that those groups were "very Christian"? Very religious? Maybe. Very Christ-like? No. So, is ISIS very religious? Maybe. Very submitted to God? In any mainstream Islamic sense? I don't think so.

I recommend Woods' Atlantic article. Read it. It's helpful. But if you're willing to make that commitment, go the extra mile and read two more. I can't recommend Woods' article without recommending a couple of others.
First, read John A. Azumah's article "Challenging Radical Islam" from the Christian journal First Things. Azumah does a great job of placing ISIS in (or outside of, as the case may be) the very particular traditions of Sunni Islamic law. He indirectly raises a question for Christians: Do we WANT Islam to be fundamentally and uncontrollably violent because that makes us feel religiously superior? I often find that atheists dialoguing with Christians insist on maintaining the most literalistic fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and Christianity and I think Christians do something similar with Islam sometimes.
Second, read "What is Islamic?" by Haqiqatjou and Qadhi over at MuslimMatters.org. I don't agree with everything they have to say (they have 21 points of response to Woods), but they expand on the details of Islamic jurisprudence, offer some helpful insights (and links) and ask additional helpful questions.