Just Ethnicity?

In an article I was reading by Hagai Mazuz, I came across an interesting statement: “In our ‘post-modern’ age, most Western scholars, who are secular, find it difficult to accept the idea that medieval texts [like the Koran] can dictate the lives of, or even inspire, people today. They criticize those who see the conflict [between Muslims and Jews] as religious, arguing that scholars who see the conflict as religious, place too much emphasis on these ancient texts, as both the times and circumstances have changed. For them, these texts are outdated. In short, secular scholars find it difficult to believe that people even still regard religious ideas as relevant.”

It seems that many news outlets have difficulty calling religious violence as just that—violence motivated by religion.  It’s often labeled “ethnic violence.”  For example, when as many as 500 Christians were slaughtered in Nigeria back in March, the BBC reported that hundreds had died in “ethnic violence.”  As Compass Direct reported, however, the Muslims who attacked were chanting “Allah Akbar” as they murdered the Christians.  According to International Christian Concern, church leaders in Nigeria reported that Muslims were “bent on forcefully converting everyone in Plateau State to Islam.”  Is that ethnic violence?

Many “intellectuals” consider our Christian faith to be part of our ethnicity or culture.  They explain away our relationship with Jesus Christ as just a part of our heritage—something we inherited from our parents and our parents’ parents, like the ways we walk and talk and cook our food.  Similarly, Islamic violence is seen as ethnic—since intellectuals have already dismissed religion as part of ethnicity. 

But we know that the “intellectuals” are wrong.  Religion cannot be dismissed as part of ethnicity.  For many Greeks in the early church, Christian faith was not at all part of their heritage.  Yet they learned that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek.”  Their ethnicity did not determine their standing before God.  Many people today do pattern their lives after ancient texts.  The Bible is an old book—far older than the Koran—but its Author is ever living and has a relationship with His readers who follow Him.

Many Muslims take their religion and its texts seriously, including the Koranic verses of violence that abrogated the earlier “peaceful” verses.  If they take their religious motivation seriously, why do the intellectuals and scholars of the West ignore it?