Stop abusing religion.

Back in the 1960s Americans were deeply divided on matters of war and race-with Christians in America on both sides of the divide. While Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and religious leaders associated with his Southern Christian Leadership Conference led protests and committed acts of civil disobedience demanding civil rights, they were countered by white Christian preachers in the south who warned of the dangers of violating God's will by ignoring the punishment God had meted out to the 'sons of Ham.' And while New York's Catholic Cardinal Francis Spellman travelled to Vietnam to bless US troops as they battled 'godless Communism,' a Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan led fellow clergymen and women in protests against the war, often resulting in their arrest and imprisonment.

During this entire period, I do not recall Christianity being described as a warlike or racist faith. Nor do I recall King and Berrigan being referred to as 'Christian protesters.' We did not engage in drawn-out theological debates to determine which interpretation of Christianity was correct. Rather we defined these individuals by what they did: 'segregationists' or 'civil rights leaders,' not 'Christian segregationists' or 'Christian civil rights leaders'-'supporters of the war' or 'peace activists,' not 'Christian supporters of the war' or 'Christian peace activists.'

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What we may have understood, at least implicitly, was that just because a person or institution uses religious language to validate certain behaviours that do not make their behaviour 'religious.' Nor does this behaviour define, by itself, the religion to which the person or institution adheres. This is something that many in the West still understand, at least when it comes to Christianity. Despite President George W Bush indicating that America was carrying out God's will in the Iraq war, we knew not to refer to that conflict as a 'Christian' war. This understanding, however, has not carried over to our discussion of Islam. For reasons beyond the scope of this short piece, when dealing with Islam, political leaders, media commentators, and ordinary folk here in the West appear intent on using religious language to describe every aspect of life and all forms of behaviour, both good and bad, as 'Muslim.' In doing so, we create confusion, leading to incoherence and some very strange policies.

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