Comments on George Weigel’s Book (2007) Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism

By Razie Mah

In Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism (2007), religious journalist George Weigel discusses al Banna’s and Qutb’s Islam and how it confronts the West. The world separates into the House of Islam and the House of War.
But, what is the West?
Big Government Liberalism, the victor of the Cold War, dominates the West. BGL divides its civilization into two Houses, the House of BGL and the House of Religion.
Weigel writes for a Christian audience. Christians belong to both the House of War and the House of Religion.
The category-based nested form is used to model these two religions: Al B-Q Islam and BGL. These models are compared to a model for old-fashioned pre-Reformation Christianity. The comparison illuminates qualities in all three religions and highlights the theology beneath Weigel’s policy-oriented assessments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Jan 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942824282

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

Book preview

Comments on George Weigel’s Book (2007) Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2017

Notes on Text

This 19,200 word essay examines a decade old book by a journalist of religion, George Weigel. Weigel typically writes about Catholicism. His book follows the famous Regensberg lecture by Pope Benedict XVI and conforms to its appraisal.

Weigel’s book was first published in 2007, when the U.S. expedition in Iraq had temporarily achieved a kind of victory. In the following decade, these military and political gains were abandoned.

Even more disturbing, Western elites began to act as if they did not deserve victory.

They shifted the language. The awkward sounding (yet, perhaps, more precise) term sharia supremacism replaced the word jihadism. So Weigel’s title became an anachronism.

However, as these comments show, Weigel’s book intimates what was about to happen, even though the author could not have predicted future events.

The category-based nested form drives my interest in this particular work. These relational structures open a path to an alternate and postmodern definition of the word religion. What better text to reflect upon than one with the title words: faith, reason and war?

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Table of Contents

Introduction 0001

Lesson 1 0030

Lesson 2 0067

Lesson 3 0098

Lesson 4 0121

Lessons 5, 6 and 7 0165

Lessons 8, 9 and 10 0224

Lessons 11 through 15 0271

The Concept of Circulation 0338

Comparing Circulations 0359

Conclusion 0403

Introduction

0001 George Weigel’s book may be classified as rhetoric. The work addresses Christians in the West, calling his audience to appreciate the nature of sharia supremacism as a particular manifestation of jihad (Arabic for struggle).

Rhetoric aims to persuade. Unfortunately, for Weigel’s audience, there is a stumbling block.

0002 Western elites assume secularization theory. The theory goes like this: Religion should disappear in the face of modern technical and social advances.

Secularization theory is supposed to be scientific.

So, Weigel argues that the theory fails to predict the globe-spanning religious revivals responding to modern Western society and technology. The theory must be false. Experience invalidates the hypothesis.

0003 But, what if this theory is a religious claim?

If so, then it reveals the beliefs of modern elites in education, government, media and so on. It demonstrates the Will of the Self-Anointed.

Secularization theory resides in the cognitive space created by the meanings underlying the so-called enlightenment religions of the (post)modern West.

0004 The terrorist event of September 11, 2001, compelled modern elites to address a potential enemy. This enemy violated secularization theory. How were the elites going to respond?

Comments on the Introduction

0005 Here, I develop a category-based nested form.

The basics can be found in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

0006 First, I look for actuality. I see two items. Both concern secularization theory. One is modernism. The other is religion.

Actuality is dyadic. In general, at least two elements in actuality, say, A and B, are contiguous. This can be written as: Actuality A (contiguity) actuality B.

The most familiar type of actuality is cause and effect. This may be written so the dyad is explicit: Cause A2 (accounts for) effect B2.

I add the subscript 2 in order to indicate that this actuality belongs to secondness. Secondness is one of Peirce’s three categories.

Cause and effect is not the only type of dyad.

0007 OK, back to secularization theory. I see two actualities, modernism and religion. Are they contiguous? What is their contiguity?

To me, the elements and contiguity go like this: modernism2 (annuls) religion2.

0008 Next, I wonder what potential1 underlies this actuality.

Secularization theory gives a clue. The contiguity is historically inevitable1.

0009 So, what is secularization theory?

It is the normal context3 for the following nested form.

0010 Secularization theory3 (triadic relation) brings modern ways2 (annulling) religious ways2 (dyadic actuality) into relation with the possibility of ‘historical inevitablity’1 (monadic potential).

0011 This triadic relation poses a stumbling block to many readers of George Weigel, especially those under the influence of Western (post)modern elites.

Who are these elites?

I will call them big government liberals (BGL).

America’s big government liberalism (also BGL) won the so-called Cold War against Soviet communism. During and after the Cold War, BGL was adopted throughout the world, with the exception of the Islamic and Slavic (Eurasian) civilizations.

This is discussed in Comments on Alexander Dugan’s (2012) Fourth Political Theory.

0012 What about the actuality of those practicing religious ways?

If secularization theory is valid, these people should be disappearing. Instead, they are Weigel’s audience. Religious folk do not care about the secularization theory, even though it is the normal context of their doom. Christians have faced similar theories before, starting with the French Revolution.

0013 Weigel has written extensively about secular movements, addressing (as far as secularization theory goes) those belonging to the wrong side of history.

This makes me wonder: Does he realize that secularization theory is not a scientific hypothesis?

0014 Instead, it is a deeply held conviction.

The Christian religions are historical, visible and present, despite the current modern overlay. Secularization theory reduces Christianity to a straw man (a figure that one sets up in order to easily knock down).

Christianity hosts its own nested forms. One nested form answers the question: What is the nature of the individual human? Another answers the question: What is the nature of the angel? Another answers the question: What is the nature of the one true God?

0015 Should not these answers come before the solutions provided by Western modernism?

Historically, they do. But what modernist would say so?

0016 Secular theory3 projects something2 with the potential of historical inevitability1 onto the actuality of the already-there