{"id":7738,"date":"2004-03-12T08:32:40","date_gmt":"2004-03-12T08:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html"},"modified":"2004-03-12T08:32:40","modified_gmt":"2004-03-12T08:32:40","slug":"crescent_and_the_cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html","title":{"rendered":"Crescent and the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting article from the Tablet on how Islam might be more mainstreamed in Britain<\/a>. Written with an eye on the Catholic experience in England, giving credit to government support of religion for the assimiliation – quite a different perspective than ours would be, perhaps.<\/p>\n

\nHe has a plan for Islam in Britain. He does not want a title such as Grand Mufti. He wants to establish a council of British Muslim scholars, whose authority will exceed rival voices and prevent Islam being hijacked. He also wants to raise salaries for imams, so that cheaper imams imported from the sub-continent will cease to predominate. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want the Government to help me in training better imams,\u201d he says, mindful that ministers loathe giving money for religion. But my argument is that it is cheaper than having to combat the effect of bad imams. If you have good Islamic leadership, it would save the Government an enormous amount of money.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Dr Badawi is right and Catholics should support him. His ideas are counter-intuitive at a time when the French are banning Islamic scarves in schools. Yet, given the Irish Catholic precedent, it is an obvious step to take, alongside better support for Islamic schools.<\/p>\n

Islam is highly culturally adaptable, which explains why it has become established in such different societies. But to establish itself in an adapted British form, it needs proper support so that it can develop an indigenous intelligentsia. Failure will mean that young British Muslims will take their lead on what it means to be a modern Muslim from the powerful TV images they see in the Middle East, where political struggle and faith have become so interwoven and confused. <\/p>\n

It is time, this St Patrick\u2019s Day, to remember how very different the Irish experience in Britain might have been, had Catholicism not been successfully absorbed and some of the potency of Irish nationalism defused. It is not too late to recognise the vision that men like Dr Badawi offer of following in the footsteps of Catholic leaders like Cardinal Hume.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting article from the Tablet on how Islam might be more mainstreamed in Britain. Written with an eye on the Catholic experience in England, giving credit to government support of religion for the assimiliation – quite a different perspective than ours would be, perhaps. He has a plan for Islam in Britain. He does…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCrescent and the Cross - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crescent and the Cross - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An interesting article from the Tablet on how Islam might be more mainstreamed in Britain. Written with an eye on the Catholic experience in England, giving credit to government support of religion for the assimiliation – quite a different perspective than ours would be, perhaps. He has a plan for Islam in Britain. He does…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-03-12T08:32:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Crescent and the Cross - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Crescent and the Cross - Via Media","og_description":"An interesting article from the Tablet on how Islam might be more mainstreamed in Britain. Written with an eye on the Catholic experience in England, giving credit to government support of religion for the assimiliation – quite a different perspective than ours would be, perhaps. He has a plan for Islam in Britain. He does…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-03-12T08:32:40+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html","name":"Crescent and the Cross - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-03-12T08:32:40+00:00","dateModified":"2004-03-12T08:32:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/crescent_and_the_cross.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Crescent and the Cross"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}