Je ne suis pas Charlie

France suffered a horrible atrocity two weeks ago.  Eleven staffers of a satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, were systematically executed in a terrorist attack.  There is no excuse.  There is no understandable rationale.  The motive was revenge for the satirical portrayal of the prophet Mohammed.  As to the facts of the crime, the motive is quite irrelevant.  It was simply a mass murder by cowards.  End of story.

In response people all over France and indeed all over the world proclaimed their solidarity with these words—Je suis Charlie.  I am Charlie.  And as to the act of terrorism we have a moral obligation to stand with them.  Je suis Charlie.  The Church must stand against murder regardless of motive.  Nothing that Charlie Hebdo ever published justified this crime carried out in the name of religion.  Murder is a desecration of the image of God.  Murder in the name of God is a profound blasphemy.  Murder is murder.  No one bears responsibility for it except the murderers and their accomplices.

And while the satirical portrayal of Islam in no way shifts responsibility for what happened from the murderers to the victims, neither do the murders give justification for mocking what some people hold most dear because it is religious.  We protect the right to freedom of expression, even in the form of the mocking of religions.  That there is a right, however, is not the same thing as being right.

It is fashionable in our day to make fun of religion.  Indeed, we quite often deserve it.  I can think of many things in the Church that would justify satire.  Making fun of my own religions is one thing.  Making fun of someone else’s is quite another thing. 

For Episcopalians, indeed for Christians generally, to do so breaches a fundamental tenet of faith, to respect the dignity of every human being.  And religion goes very much to the core of human dignity, at least as the religious understand it.  That is something we must take not only seriously but faithfully. 

I have a moral responsibility to stand in solidarity with the victims of a terrorist crime in Paris.  Je suis Charlie.  But I also cannot condemn the murders at Charlie Hebdo two weeks ago without also acknowledging that I must stand against all affronts to human dignity, including those affronts that are aimed at demeaning what other human beings hold most dear.  The fact that what other human beings hold most dear is religious does not make it right.  The fact that what other human beings hold most dear is something I do not understand does not make it right.  The fact that what other human beings hold most dear is something with which I disagree does not make it right. 

That is all the more true in a secular world in which faith is seen as reason for ridicule.  That is all the more true in a culture in which one religion, Islam, takes the brunt of the ridicule for all of us who are religious.  I must proclaim my solidarity with the objects of ridicule, too.  And as to that, Je ne suis pas Charlie.  Je suis musulman.  I am not Charlie.  I am Muslim.

Peace,