Syncretism and the Marranos of Iberia

I have been doing some reading on syncretism lately, that is, the combining of two religions such that the result is not identifiable as either of the two original religions. The reason I'm looking at this is because presently in the area of missiology in the Muslim world there is an understandable desire to avoid syncretism while being as conextualized and inculturated as possible.

Marranism is an almost extinct religion today, but grew out of the crypto-Judaism present in the Iberian peninsula after the completion of the Reconquista (1492). It is thus a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism, but is neither of the two. Here is an interesting quote from the book I'm reading on the topic:

[S]eemingly irreconcilable elements can always be reconciled by someone, somewhere. Dissimilar parents can raise a child they never anticipated. And something that is impure is often pure in someone else's eyes.

Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney, p. 41
London: SCM Press, 2006

Islam in Mexico

Historians are divided over when Islam came to Mexico and who brought it. Some claim it was introduced by Syrian immigrants, whereas others point to Turkish immigrants. One recent (2002) study estimated that 10 percent of the Syrian-Lebanese immigrant community were Muslim. Today this community is one of the richest and contains more than 250,000 people. The history of Islam in Mexico is largely undocumented, with the exception of a sixteenth-century book called Un Hereje y un Musulman. Written by Pascual Almazan, this recounts the exploits of Yusuf bin Alabaz, who came to Mexico after expulsion during the Reconquista in Spain. Today, Islam is a recognized entity following the establishment of the Muslim Center de Mexico in 1994 in Mexico City. There are also centers in Monterrey, Torreon, Guadalajara, and San Cristobal de las Casas.

--Wikipedia

Raymond Lully (Ramon Llull)

Raymund Lull (aka Raymond Lully, in Latin Raimundus or Raymundus Lullus, or in Spanish Raimundo Lulio) is one of my great heroes. There is much to read about him in terms of Christian missions, but due to his philosophical work he is considered to be a pioneer in information theory and also wrote the first novel in the Catalan language. Please read it all and gain courage from his example. In many ways his focus on preaching, conversation, debate, and the use of Islamic sources to reach Muslims, coupled with his disdain for the use of force, was and is the pattern found today among missionaries to Muslims. He was way ahead of his time.

From the Christian History Institute:

Raymond Lull would have seemed an unlikely person to remind the church of its missionary vision. A court gallant (that is, a fashionable ladies' man) and poet, he squandered his life in frivolity, romantic stories, love poems, and seduction. He was thirty before that changed.

But Jesus Christ, of his great clemency,
Five times upon the cross appeared to me,
That I might think upon him lovingly,
And cause his name proclaimed abroad to be...

It is reported that Lull's conversion was precipitated by a shock. He tried to lure a beautiful woman into a few moments of pleasure in bed with him. With quiet dignity, the woman revealed her breast to him--cancer-eaten. In a flash, he saw the futility of his lusts, and later transferred his love to the eternal Christ.

Born in Majorca, Spain, five years after the Island was freed from Saracen rule, Lull drank in Jewish and Islamic lore. He was the first Christian philosopher to study the Jewish Kabbalah (a book filled with mystical and occult knowledge) and one of the first to read the writings of the Islamic mystics known as Sufis. He developed a passion to win Moslems to Christ and took up the challenge of the Grand Mufti of Bugia: "If you hold that the law of Christ is true and that of Mohammed false, you must prove it by necessary reasons,"--that is, by air-tight logic.

Convinced that true reason could produce no results contradictory to true faith, Lull poured his intelligence into philosophy. The result was a philosophy of "combination" by which he thought all knowledge could be derived by combining every idea with every other idea. Although admired for centuries because it was clever, his Ars Magna ultimately proved to be a dead end. But Lull went beyond mere philosophy. His passion was too deep to stop with scholarly games.

The first crusades had failed. Lull crisscrossed Europe, urging kings, popes, and cardinals to develop mission schools and evangelize Islam. "Missionaries will convert the world by preaching, but also through the shedding of tears and blood and with great labor, and through a bitter death," he said. His three-point plan was simple. First, missionaries must obtain a comprehensive knowledge of Arabic and other mid-eastern languages. Then they must study Islamic literature until they could refute any Muslim argument. Finally they must give their lives in witness to Christ. He convinced the pope to allow Christian universities to teach the Jewish and Islamic languages and literature.

Lull followed this plan himself. He established a missionary school and personally studied Islamic lore. Three times he sailed to Islamic countries to reason with Islamic scholars. The first time he was exported just when he had won several Imams (Moslem religious leaders) to request baptism. The second time he was imprisoned for six months. On this day August 14, 1314, when he was in his eighties, he sailed a third time for Islamic North Africa. For a year he preached Christ and the Trinity openly but then was brutally stoned. Christian merchants carried the broken man aboard their ship. Probably he died in sight of Majorca.

The Logic of Islam

I found this interview to be quite fascinating, though it does contain some errors. Specifically:

"Warner: Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to. The total time for annihilation takes centuries, but once Islam is ascendant it never fails. The host culture disappears and becomes extinct."

Actually, Spain was entirely regained for Christendom upon the completion of the Reconquista in 1492 (special year, wasn't it?) Also, parts of the Balkans (like Greece) were purged of Islam--though both came at a great price. Also, both purgings were military in nature, so there are ethical questions involved. Finally, the loss of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was not due to a religiously-motivated jihaad, but to illegal infringements on commerce by the Christian governer of what is now Karak in Jordan. Saladin was protecting his commercial routes. (BTW, Saladin was not even an Arab.)

Nevertheless, the strongest section of the interview is about the two different kinds of logic at play in Islam and Western thought. Because of there are two kinds of logic dialogue is often entirely fruitless

Interview_with_Bill_Warner