Humanitarian Islam - Evangelical Christianity - and The Clash of Civilizations

Are Muslims and Christians locked in mortal combat forever? Will ever-continuing Thomas K.
Johnson
Thomas K. Johnson Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and the Clash of Civilazation
jihads and crusades continue to cost the lives of millions and destroy once-beautiful
cities? Must the Muslim-Christian clash of civilizations, which started almost 1,500
years ago, continue into the future?
Humanitarian Islam,
Not necessarily, argues Dr. Johnson. Within Islam, a serious reconsideration is under-
way, broadly parallel to the reconsideration of church-state relations that happened
during the early and mid-twentieth century within Christianity. This is leading to a
new form of orthodox Islam that is fully compatible with multi-religious global so-
ciety and that can move beyond conflict toward real cooperation with Christians and
Evangelical Christianity, and the
adherents of other religions. But this reconsideration, called “Humanitarian Islam,”
is still mostly found in Indonesia and is not yet well known in the rest of the world. It
Clash of Civilizations
is time for Christians to develop extensive interaction and cooperation with Huma- A New Partnership for Peace and Religious Freedom
nitarian Islam.
“Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, yet the country and its
forms of Islam, especially Humanitarian Islam, are too little known. This is especially
tragic since this may be the most important movement in the Islamic world, and it is
engaged in active alliance with Christians and others. Here, Thomas K. Johnson gives
us a clear, cogent, and crisp overview of its meaning and importance.”
—Paul Marshall, Wilson Distinguished Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University
and senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute and the Hudson Institute
Thomas K. Johnson, Research Vice President of Martin

Bucer Seminary, serves the World Evangelical Alliance
as senior theological advisor and is Co-chair of the
Humanitarian Islam/World Evangelical Alliance Joint
Working Group. He is a widely published author on
theology, ethics, and human rights and has edited or
translated several books and essays about Islam.
World of Theology Series 20
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9 783862 692163 Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher World of Theology Series 20
Thomas K. Johnson
Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity,
and the Clash of Civilizations
To the cover motif: Sri Ayati’s Legacy depicts a slain Catholic freedom fighter,
whose lifeless body lies cradled in the arms of Indonesia’s first president, Soekarno.
The painting vividly illustrates why the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation
and democracy was established as a multi-religious/pluralistic state, with a con-
stitutional guarantee of equal rights for all its citizens, and has been adopted by
Gerakan Pemuda Ansor as a symbol of the Humanitarian Islam movement.
(https://libforall.org/what-we-do/)
World of Theology Series
Published by the Theological Commission
of the World Evangelical Alliance
Volume 20
Vol 1 Thomas K. Johnson: The First Step in Missions Training: How our
Neighbors are Wrestling with God’s General Revelation
Vol 2 Thomas K. Johnson: Christian Ethics in Secular Cultures
Vol 3 David Parker: Discerning the Obedience of Faith: A Short History of
the World Evangelical Alliance Theological Commission
Vol 4 Thomas Schirrmacher (Ed.): William Carey: Theologian – Linguist –
Social Reformer
Vol 5 Thomas Schirrmacher: Advocate of Love – Martin Bucer as Theolo-
gian and Pastor
Vol 6 Thomas Schirrmacher: Culture of Shame / Culture of Guilt
Vol 7 Thomas Schirrmacher: The Koran and the Bible
Vol 8 Thomas Schirrmacher (Ed.): The Humanisation of Slavery in the Old
Testament
Vol 9 Jim Harries: New Foundations for Appreciating Africa: Beyond Re-
ligious and Secular Deceptions
Vol 10 Thomas Schirrmacher: Missio Dei – God’s Missional Nature
Vol 11 Thomas Schirrmacher: Biblical Foundations for 21st Century
World Mission
Vol 12 William Wagner, Mark Wagner: Can Evangelicals Truly Change the
World? How Seven Philosophical and Religious Movements Are
Growing
Vol 13 Thomas Schirrmacher: Modern Fathers
Vol 14 Jim Harries: Jarida juu ya Maisha ya MwAfrika katika huduma ya
Ukristo
Vol 15 Peter Lawrence: Fellow Travellers – A Comparative Study on the
Identity Formation of Jesus Followers from Jewish, Christian and
Muslim Backgrounds in The Holy Land
Vol 16 William Wagner: From Classroom Dummy to University President
– Serving God in the Land of Sound of Music
Vol 17 Thomas K. Johnson, David Parker, Thomas Schirrmacher (ed.): In the
Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Teaching the Trinity from
the Creeds to Modern Discussion
Vol 18 Mark Wagner and William Wagner (Ed.): Halfway Up the Mountain
Vol 19 Thomas K. Johnson: The Protester, the Dissident,
and the Christian – Essays on Human Rights and Religion
Vol 20 Thomas K. Johnson: Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity,
and the Clash of Civilizations
Thomas K. Johnson
Humanitarian Islam,
Evangelical Christianity,
and the Clash of Civilizations:
A New Partnership for Peace
and Religious Freedom
Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft

Culture and Science Publ.
Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher
Bonn 2021
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Contents
Death When Religions Collide ............................................................................. 7

Partial Muslim Responses to Religious Violence ...........................................11
A Comprehensive Muslim Solution to Religious Violence ...........................15
Humanitarian Islam: A New Muslim Orthodoxy............................................17
Theological Method ............................................................................................21
1. Eternal norms versus contingent norms ...........................................21
2. A transcendental definition of sharia .................................................22
3. Humanitarian Islam and Nusantara civilization ...............................25
4. Faith and reason .....................................................................................26
5. Constructive political developments ..................................................29
6. Tyranny and the will to power ............................................................30
7. An assessment.........................................................................................30
Evangelical Ethics in the West ..........................................................................33
1. The relationship between law and grace ...........................................33
2. God’s moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws .......................................34
3. The natural moral law ...........................................................................36
4. Ethical standards and human goods ...................................................42
From Clash to Cooperation ................................................................................47
Appendix I: Beyond Freedom of Religion .......................................................49
Appendix II: Christian Milestones on Religion and War ..............................53
Appendix III: Selections from the Sources of the Humanitarian Islam
Movement ............................................................................................................59
1. Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam.........60
2. The Nusantara Manifesto......................................................................65
Bibliography on Humanitarian Islam ..............................................................73
Foundational documents in chronological order: ................................73
Additional primary sources in chronological order: ............................73
Background and context in chronological order: .................................75
Death When Religions Collide1
In spring 2007, I was scheduled to teach a theology class for a low-visibility
Evangelical seminary in Turkey. I had just received a list of students. On
April 19, 2007, I opened my email and felt as if I had been kicked in the
stomach. Terrorists had slit the throat of one of our seminary students;
two other people had suffered similar fates. Three men were dead: two
Turkish converts from Islam to Christianity, one German missionary. Two
wives were suddenly widows; four young children lost their fathers. They
died because they were Christians; their place of death was a Bible publish-
ing house in Malatya, Turkey. The motives of their murderers were a sin-
ister mix of nationalist ideology and the desire to enforce an inhumane
version of sharia, or Muslim law. A type of Turkish nationalism says that
Christians may no longer be good Turks, especially if they have converted
from Islam. It was a terrible mess of religious and political motives. Bad
ideas had led to disaster. 2
I soon learned that most Muslims are sickened to see their religion used
to justify violence. The average Muslim is neither a terrorist nor a mur-
derer. However, the three murders in Malatya took their place in a long
line of war, death, and destruction centered in Turkey and the broader
Middle East and in which the warring parties were sometimes described as
Islam versus Christianity and sometimes as Islam versus the West. One his-
torian entitled a chapter “Islam Takes Christendom by Storm: The Battle
of Yarmuk, 636” at the outset of 300 pages on Fourteen Centuries of War be-
tween Islam and the West. 3 In the fateful event of 636 CE, two Christian ar-
mies, representing the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Ghassan,
faced a Muslim army sent by the Rashidun Caliphate. The death toll
reached the tens of thousands during the battle east of the Sea of Galilee,
today the borderlands of Israel, Jordan, and Syria. 4 The Muslim victory was
1
The opinions expressed in this report are those of Dr. Johnson. They are offered for discus-
sion and study by the World Evangelical Alliance.
2
For more on this tragedy, see “Commemorations of the 10th Anniversary of the
Martyrs of Malatya,” Bonn Profiles 11/2017, available here: https://www.bucer.de/
ressource/details/bonner-querschnitte-112017-ausgabe-472-eng.html.
3
Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the
West (Hachette Books: Kindle Edition, 2018).
4
Philip Jenkins notes, “The battle of Yarmuk in 636, which gave the Muslims con-
trol of Syria, was one of the great military massacres of antiquity, costing the lives
of perhaps fifty thousand soldiers of the Christian Byzantine Empire.” The Lost His-
tory of Christianity (Harper One: Kindle Edition, 2009), 101.
8 Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and the Clash of Civilizations
a milestone in their conquest of the Levant and north Africa from the 630s
to the 730s, which had long been the center from which Christianity had
extended east into Asia, south into Africa, and north toward Europe. In
2007, many in the Middle East perceived the murder of our seminary stu-
dent as the continuation of the wars started 1,400 years before.
The end of the era of jihads and crusades is difficult to define. Did the
crusades end with the fall of Acre in 1291, as Western Christians have usu-
ally claimed? 5 Or did this era continue till the fall of Constantinople in
1453? Till the battle of Vienna in 1683? Till the destruction of the Ottoman
Caliphate in 1924? Or has this era never ended? In the twenty-first century,
addressing the present situation and speaking in the present tense, Prince-
ton University professor Bernard Lewis noted, “The Crusades figure very
prominently in modern Middle Eastern consciousness and discourse.” 6
These wars have continuing significance, even if the West no longer
calls itself Christian and if Christians in the West have largely forgotten
this history. After the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, Islam did not
have a caliphate, and therefore Islam did not appear to be a global political
force. In the West it seemed justified to forget that wars with Islam once
played a defining role in our history. Those who became Muslim extrem-
ists did not forget. “When the Islamic State declares that ‘American blood
is best, and we will taste it soon,’ or ‘We love death as you love life,’ or ‘We
will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,’ vir-
tually no one in the West understands that they are quoting the verbatim
words — and placing themselves within the footsteps — of their jihadi for-
bears as recounted in the preceding history.” 7 Though one might not know
the ideology of the murderers in Turkey in detail, Muslim extremists of the
twenty-first century are continuing the wars started in the 630s. 8
5
For an overview, dating, and assessment of the crusades from a standard Western
Christian perspective, see Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity: Vol. 1,
Beginnings to 1500 (Harper & Row, 1975), 408-415. “Here was an effort to achieve the
kingdom of God on earth by the methods of the world which the New Testament
declares to be at enmity with the Gospel” (p. 414).
6
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random
House, 2003), 47.
7
Ibrahim, 296.
8
Bernard Lewis comments, “Much of the anger in the Islamic world is directed
against the Westerner, seen as the ancient and immemorial enemy of Islam since
the first clashes between the Muslim caliphs and the Christian emperors, and
against the Westernizer, seen as a tool or accomplice of the West and as a traitor
to his own faith and people” (p. 132). To cite Lewis again, “For them [Muslim fun-
damentalists] the remedy is a return to true Islam, including the abolition of all
the laws and other social borrowings from the West and the restoration of the
Death When Religions Collide0F 9
During the last decade, diplomats, senior religious leaders, parliamen-

tarians, and retired heads of state have shared their concern since 2001
that a new world war could break out between Islam and the West. In small
gatherings we have all worried that an undeclared and undefined world
war was already starting; many wondered if Samuel Huntington might be
right regarding a “Clash of Civilizations,” though everyone hoped he was
wrong. 9 This formed the background for the 2019 Human Fraternity Doc-
ument signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, assessed
below. That text described “what might be referred to as signs of a ‘third
world war being fought piecemeal’. In several parts of the world and in
many tragic circumstances these signs have begun to be painfully appar-
ent, as in those situations where the precise number of victims, widows
and orphans is unknown.” Such concerns provide context for the murder
of my future seminary student: was his death one of a thousand on the way
to a world war? 10
Shari’a as the effective law of the land. From their point of view, the ultimate
struggle is not against the Western intruder but against the Westernizing traitor
at home” (p. 134).
9
In his 1993 essay “The Clash of Civilizations?” Huntington argued, “Conflict be-
tween civilizations will be the latest phase of the evolution of conflict in the mod-
ern world” (p. 1). “Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, lan-
guage, culture, tradition, and most important, religion” (p. 4). “This centuries-old
military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline” (p. 9). “On
both sides the interaction between Islam and the West is seen as a clash of civili-
zations” (p. 10). Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), 22-49. This essay,
along with several critical responses, was republished as a book, The Clash of Civili-
zations? The Debate (New York: Foreign Affairs, 1966). Page numbers are from the
second publication. One of the better criticisms of Huntington’s perspective
claimed that he overemphasized political culture and underemphasized sexuality.
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Policy,
November 4, 2009; available here: https://www.bucer.de/ressource/details/bon
ner-querschnitte-112017-ausgabe-472-eng.html.
10
In his 1996 book, Huntington expanded and perhaps modified his explanation of
the clash between Islam and the West. “The causes of this ongoing pattern of con-
flict lie not in transitory phenomena such as twelfth-century Christian passion or
twentieth-century Muslim fundamentalism. They flow from the nature of the two
religions and the civilizations based on them. Conflict was, on the one hand, a
product of difference, particularly the Muslim concept of Islam as a way of life
transcending and uniting religion and politics versus the Western Christian con-
cept of the separate realms of God and Caesar. The conflict also stemmed, how-
ever, from their similarities. Both are monotheistic religions, which, unlike poly-
theistic ones, cannot easily assimilate additional deities, and which see the world
in dualistic, us-and-them terms. Both are universalistic, claiming to be the one
true faith to which all humans can adhere. Both are missionary religions believing
Students of history know that Malatya, where our student was killed,
is in Eastern Anatolia. Eastern Anatolia was called Western Armenia until
the Ottoman Empire outlawed the word “Armenia” to refer to this region
in 1880. This was the center of the Armenian genocide. Ottoman religious
authorities declared a jihad against the Christian minorities within their
empire, beginning on April 24, 1915. This came after the Ottoman Empire
under the leadership of the “Young Turks,” who had just seized power, en-
tered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire. The jihad cost the lives of some 1.5 million Armenian Christians, along
with an estimated 300,000 Greek-speaking Christians and 300,000 Aramaic-
speaking Christians. It was part of a broader pattern within the Muslim
world. Phillip Jenkins writes, “From the First World War onward, Christian
communities were systematically eliminated across the Muslim world, and
the Armenian horrors of 1915 are only the most glaring of a series of such
atrocities that reached their peak between 1915 and 1925. Although these
instances of massacre and persecution have no historical resonance for
most Westerners today, they count among the worst examples of their
kind.” 11
A solution to the deaths at the point where Islam and Christianity col-
lide should involve theological development and interfaith cooperation.
At times, both religions included notions of religiously defined nations
within their ethics; this contributed to involving religions in the conflicts
among nations. Such religious doctrines also weakened religious re-
sistance to atrocities within religiously defined nations. An ideal theologi-
cal development would place Islam and Christianity on the same side, out-
side and above the normal conflicts among nations, offering a universal
ethical compass for all. Such a radical step is, I believe, possible via a part-
nership between Evangelical Christianity and Humanitarian Islam.
that their adherents have an obligation to convert nonbelievers to that one true
faith. From its origins Islam expanded by conquest and when the opportunity ex-
isted Christianity did also.” Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 210, 211.
11
Jenkins, Lost History, 156.
Partial Muslim Responses to Religious
Violence
In recent years, many Muslim theologians have been working to convince
extremists to turn from violence while explaining to the watching world
why violence does not represent Islam. Such Muslim theologians perceive
their urgent intellectual debt, knowing their religious community and the
rest of the world need a well-articulated perspective on Islam that opposes
violence. Since there existed no statement with wide public support from
Muslim religious officials rejecting the violent Islamist agenda, the rest of
the world was rightfully asking if Muslim religious authorities were indif-
ferent to the behavior of violent Muslims who claim religious motivation,
whether they are a local group of thugs (such as in Turkey), ISIS, Al-Qaeda,
Boko Haram, or others. 12
The notoriety gained by ISIS, especially by their proclamation of them-
selves as the Caliphate in 2014, increased the urgency felt by Muslim intel-
lectuals who oppose extremism. Three prominent responses have been:
1) the “Open Letter to Dr. Ibrahim Awwad Al-Badri, alias ‘Abu Bakr Al-
Baghdadi,’ and to the fighters and followers of the self-declared ‘Islamic
State’” published by 126 Sunni leaders in September 2014; 2) the Marra-
kesh Declaration of 2016; and 3) the 2019 Human Fraternity Document
(HFD) signed in Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-
Azhar, mentioned above. 13
These documents directly confront and condemn violence in the name
of Islam; were these principles followed, our world would be safer.
12
Abdurrahman Wahid, one-time president of Indonesia, began to address this
problem earlier than some other governmental leaders. See his “Right Islam vs.
Wrong Islam: Muslims and Non-Muslims Must Unite to Defeat the Wahhabi Ideol-
ogy,” The Wall Street Journal, 30 December 2005, available here: https://www.wsj.
com/articles/SB113590649048834335. Confirmed 1 April 2020. See also James M.
Dorsey, “Reforming the Faith: Indonesia’s Battle for the Soul of Islam,” Horizons:
Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development Winter 2019 No. 13, 150-
171, available here: https://www.cirsd.org/files/000/000/006/37/b645306043a5
a372d10f9cdc65146d3fccc9e778.pdf.
13
Muslim leaders from around the world have openly condemned violence commit-
ted in the name of Islam on many occasions in recent years, but their condemna-
tions have not been so widely reported in the media as the more prominent ex-
amples mentioned here. The Islamic Networks Group, based in California,
maintains a list of Muslim denunciations of violence committed in the name of
Islam. See https://ing.org/global-condemnations-of-isis-isil/.
However, these recent Muslim statements perpetuate some convictions

that undermine their potential to reduce tragedies. For example, the Open
Letter of 2014 (paragraph 22) affirms the obligation of Muslims to form a
new caliphate, though rejecting ISIS’s use of morally repugnant means to
establish a caliphate. The desire to restore a caliphate is a central cause of
conflicts among Muslims as well as between Islam and other cultures; this
problem is perpetuated by the Open Letter. Moreover, the moral argumen-
tation used to condemn the atrocities committed by ISIS is predominantly
an exegesis of the contents of Islam, without extensive reference to stand-
ards of behavior that are understandable by people of other religions or no
religion. Even if not intentional, this approach communicates that these
spokesmen had not appreciated the need of the Muslim community to give
a moral account to humanity. A moral account to humanity must refer to
standards known to all of humanity, not only standards known to Muslims,
unless they wish to communicate that one has to be a Muslim to distin-
guish between right and wrong.
Likewise, the Marrakesh Declaration of 2016, though rejecting violence
in the name of Islam and calling for the development of a Muslim doctrine
of citizenship that applies to people of other religions, clearly affirms the
notion of “Muslim countries.” In a Muslim country as defined by the dec-
laration, minorities may be tolerated, and citizenship may increase their
level of toleration, but non-Muslims will always be regarded and treated
as something less than full stakeholders. It seems as if the Marrakesh doc-
trine of a Muslim country is a smaller version of the Muslim doctrine of
which the Caliphate is the larger version. The Marrakesh Declaration lacks
a sense that justice requires the equal treatment of individuals and com-
munities who adhere to various religions in such a manner that a country
should no longer be officially described as a Muslim country. The Marra-
kesh Declaration does not affirm comprehensive freedom of religion; de-
spite its rejection of religiously motivated violence, it affirms one of the
key ideas that leads to religiously motivated violence and war, to repeat,
the doctrine of a religiously defined country. The murderers of our semi-
nary student thought Turkey should be a Muslim country, and Boko Haram
is using atrocities to turn parts of Nigeria into a Muslim state. 14
14
The best alternative to a religiously defined nation is not secularism. The best al-
ternative is a multi-religious state that allows and expects multiple religions to be
active within a nation with equivalent rights, while also recognizing the full rights
of people without a defined religion. Multiple religions can even contribute to cul-
ture and politics within the same country in a peaceful and constructive manner,
if the roles of religions in society are configured wisely.
Partial Muslim Responses to Religious Violence 13
The previously mentioned Human Fraternity Document of 2019 (HFD)

blends important themes in Roman Catholic and Sunni Muslim ethical
teaching in a manner that is designed to be understood by followers of ei-
ther religion or of no religion. It begins to address the problems related to
minority religions and citizenship which were identified in the Marrakesh
Declaration. The HFD could be a valuable tool for moral instruction in some
circumstances; it has the added value of clarifying international and inter-
faith ethical standards for many areas of public life, though some will won-
der if this text implies an undue ultimate equivalence of religious beliefs. 15
Despite these significant steps forward, the HFD does not explicitly address
the problem of the religiously defined state, whether one has a Christian
country or a Muslim country in view. By ignoring this topic, the text may
unintentionally perpetuate second-class citizenship for adherents of mi-
nority religions. And the HFD does not address the issue of how to treat
people who convert from one religion to another. The reality of people
changing religions, along with the philosophical and emotional discus-
sions of religions that surround such conversions, is explosive. Seemingly
as a dimension of globalization, people from around the world are chang-
ing their religious affiliations; there is no way to stop such conversions
short of extreme levels of censorship and force. As the story from Turkey
illustrates, such conversions are flashpoints for extremism in any social
context in which religious identity, and especially a change of religious
identity, can exclude people from being perceived as full and proper citi-
zens. The closest the HFD comes to addressing violence related to conver-
sions is the claim that “the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain
religion or culture must be rejected.” A convincing statement on reli-
giously motivated violence must explain a position on conversion between
religions that is convincing to people of all religions or no religion.
Some recent Muslim statements on public life, such as those just dis-
cussed, make passing reference to the 1948 United Nations’ Universal Dec-
laration of Human Rights (UDHR). However, UDHR article 18, which is
painfully explicit about the freedom to convert to a different religion, is
seldom quoted. It states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion
15
For example, the HFD claims, “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour,
sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created
human beings.” Many Christians hold exclusive truth claims that would make
them hesitate to say without qualification that “God willed the diversity of reli-
gions.” Recognition of the similarities of ethical teaching across faith traditions
should be balanced by a recognition of the ultimate incompatibility of some claims
of those traditions.
or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in

public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance.” If UDHR 18 were fully understood, affirmed, and
practiced, it would not only end the persecution of converts; it would also
mean the gradual end of the religious definition of countries (whether
Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist). No country that consistently pro-
tects the freedom to change religions, including freedom to develop the
institutions of newly adopted religions, can consistently affirm its
long-term identity as a state belonging to one religion.
A Comprehensive Muslim Solution to
Religious Violence
One Muslim movement addressing religious extremism is qualitatively dif-
ferent from most such efforts; the difference is immediately evident not
only by the movement’s robust affirmation of the UDHR (including article
18), but also by the rejection of the notion of a Muslim country or cali-
phate. Their representatives go far beyond saying that Muslims should not
murder people who convert to another religion. They address founda-
tional religious doctrines and contextualize their theory of ethics in rela-
tion to religiously pluralistic societies, in view of the history of religiously
motivated conflict. This movement, with the advantage of long historical
roots in Indonesia, has been articulated by official representatives of the
massive Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Their perspective is
now called “Humanitarian Islam” and has spawned many publications in
English for the international community, especially since ISIS declared its
caliphate in 2014.
A careful examination of the ethics of Humanitarian Islam finds that
Muslims of this type support religious freedom and human rights for
Christians and people of other faiths. But this ethic goes much farther.
Though presented as a Muslim alternative to extremist violence, Humani-
tarian Islam contains a serious assessment of universal moral norms, the
relation between faith and reason, fundamental human goods, the laws
(both civil and religious) needed to protect those human goods, and the
role of religions in societies. 16 A comparison of Humanitarian Muslim phi-
losophy and ethics with Christian ethics and philosophy of law reveals
that, amidst the great global threats, Christians and Humanitarian Mus-
lims are ideological allies and should treat each other as such. There are
major theological differences between Christians and Muslims, such as the
Christian knowledge of God as a Trinity, that may never be resolved, but
the level of agreement in the spheres of ethics and law calls for global co-
operation in the public square. Rather than being in opposing armies in a
potential clash of civilizations, Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian
Muslims should protect each other’s religious communities while articu-
lating and embodying a global moral compass.
16
I am using the term “human goods” in a specialized manner. In this text it refers
to the several values, institutions, and practices that promote flourishing for in-
dividuals and communities.
Humanitarian Islam: A New Muslim
Orthodoxy
Within the spectrum of varieties of Islam, the Humanitarians represent the
opposite end from the violent extremists. They present themselves as fully
orthodox Muslims, not secularized half-Muslims. Precisely as such, they
fully endorse classical human rights, religious freedom for other religions,
and constitutional democracy, while openly naming and repudiating “ob-
solete and problematic tenets” of Muslim orthodoxy which, they claim,
have been misused to promote extremism. 17
To grasp the Humanitarians’ doctrinal development, one should start
with their reason for reforming or re-contextualizing Muslim orthodoxy.
Humanitarian Islam believes that Islamic extremists — from ISIS to the
Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia — have been misusing Islam for their own pur-
poses and that this misuse of religion has been supported by versions of
Muslim doctrine which were contextualized many centuries ago in a radi-
cally different situation. In the Declaration on Humanitarian Islam (May 2017)
they write, “The Islamic world is in the midst of a rapidly metastasizing
crisis, with no apparent sign of remission. Among the most obvious mani-
festations of this crisis are the brutal conflicts now raging across a huge
swath of territory inhabited by Muslims, from Africa and the Middle East
to the borders of India; rampant social turbulence throughout the Islamic
world; the unchecked spread of religious extremism and terror; and a ris-
ing tide of Islamophobia among non-Muslim populations, in direct re-
sponse to these developments” (para 25). 18 They add, “the crisis that
17
For example, in February 2019, NU leaders decreed that the term “infidel” may no
longer be used to describe people who are not Muslims, suggesting that the term
“citizen” be used as a replacement. For the political context, see “NU calls for end
to word ‘infidels’ to describe non-Muslims,” Jakarta Post, March 1, 2019, available
here: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/03/01/nu-calls-for-end-to-
word-infidels-to-describe-non-muslims.html. Confirmed 1 April 2020. The decree
itself is found here: https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2019/2019-Munas_
Findings-of-Bahtsul-Masa%E2%80%99il-Maudluiyyah.pdf. An explanation of the
significance of this action is found here: https://baytarrahmah.org/2019_10_
16_world-first-nahdlatul-ulama-abolishes-the-legal-category-of-infidel-within-
islamic-law/.
18
“Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam: Towards the Recon-
textualization of Islamic Teachings for the Sake of World Peace and Harmony Be-
tween Civilizations” (Jombang, East Java, Indonesia: Bayt ar-Rahmah, 2017), avail-
able here: https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2017/Gerakan-Pemuda-
engulfs the Islamic world is not limited to armed conflicts raging in various
and sundry regions” (para 27). “Various actors — including but not limited
to Iran, Saudi Arabia, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Qatar, the Muslim Broth-
erhood, the Taliban and Pakistan — cynically manipulate religious senti-
ment in their struggle to maintain or acquire political, economic and mil-
itary power, and to destroy their enemies. They do so by drawing upon key
elements of classical Islamic law (fiqh), to which they ascribe divine au-
thority, in order to mobilize support for their worldly goals” (para 28). Ex-
tremists manipulate religion to gain power by means of ascribing divine
authority to a distinctive interpretation of Islamic law which the extrem-
ists describe as orthodox.
This crisis of the Islamic world, as the Humanitarians see it, is not lim-
ited to the conflicts among Muslims. It includes religious terrorism prac-
ticed against non-Muslims, which promotes Islamophobia and the result-
ing attacks on Islam. They use the term “weaponization of Islam” to
describe the way in which particular themes of Muslim doctrine, especially
certain elements in classical Islamic law, have become a tool of war. For
example, the declaration of a Caliphate was used by ISIS to mobilize sup-
port for their attacks on Muslims who did not support ISIS and to mobilize
support for attacks on people of other religions. In response, people from
various countries began to describe Islam or all Muslim people as enemies,
using religion, especially the fear of Islam, as a weapon to increase their
power in their own countries.
According to Ansor Chairman H. Yaqut Qoumas, “No progress can be
made towards neutralizing a threat, unless it is understood and identified.
It is false and counterproductive to claim that the actions of al-Qaeda, ISIS,
Boko Haram and other such groups have nothing to do with Islam, or
merely represent a perversion of Islamic teachings. They are, in fact, out-
growths of Wahhabism and other fundamentalist streams of Sunni Islam.”
He continues, “Muslims face a choice between starkly different visions of
the future. Will they strive to recreate the long-lost ideal of religious, po-
litical and territorial unity beneath the banner of a Caliphate … ? Or will
they strive to develop a new religious sensibility that reflects the actual
circumstances of our modern civilization, and contributes to the
Ansor_Declaration-on-Humanitarian-Islam.pdf. Confirmed 1 April 2020. For con-

text, see the Bayt ar-Rahmah political communiqué of May 22, 2017, available
here: https://baytarrahmah.org/2017_05_22_ansor-declaration-on-humanitar
ian-islam/.
Humanitarian Islam: A New Muslim Orthodoxy 19
emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon re-
spect for the equal dignity and rights of every human being?” 19
Therefore, the Declaration on Humanitarian Islam says, “If Muslims do not
address the key tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that authorize and explicitly
enjoin such violence, anyone — at any time — may harness the orthodox
teachings of Islam to defy what they claim to be the illegitimate laws and
authority of an infidel state and butcher their fellow citizens, regardless of
whether they live in the Islamic world or the West. This is the bloody
thread that links so many current events, from Egypt, Syria and Yemen to
the streets of Mumbai, Jakarta, Berlin, Nice, Stockholm and Westminster”
(para 13). Therefore, they are developing a new Islamic orthodoxy, a “new
religious sensibility,” that addresses the problematic tenets of medieval Is-
lamic teaching which extremists claim are orthodox.
Precisely as Muslims, the Humanitarians claim that the extremists do
not reflect Islam at its best. The core of their argument is that Islam has a
tradition of developing the application of Muslim ethics and law by means
of interaction with changing cultures but that this process stopped several
centuries ago; this has left many Muslims bound to an ossified and conflict-
producing version of sharia that is not tenable in a global, pluralistic soci-
ety. In contrast, truly orthodox Islam contains within itself its own proper
theological and legal method for developing its teaching; this method
leads to a humanitarian, pro-democracy position, including promoting re-
ligious freedom for all, signaling the end of religiously defined countries.
Humanitarian Islam seeks to reactivate this authentically Muslim theolog-
ical method to develop a truly new and yet more fully orthodox Islam, dis-
placing the Wahhabi Islam that is fueling many conflicts and a global clash
of civilizations.
In their words, “As the majority of ‘ulamā’ [Muslim scholars] have tra-
ditionally recognized, Islamic orthodoxy consists of both transcendent
(i.e., immutable) elements (thawābit) and contingent responses to histori-
cal reality (mutaghayyirāt), which may be adapted to address and reflect
the ever-changing circumstances of life” (Nusantara Manifesto para 102).
“Islamic orthodoxy contains internal mechanisms, including the science
of uṣūl al-fiqh — the methodology of independent legal reasoning employed
to create Islamic law, or fiqh (often conflated with sharī‘ah) — that allow
Muslim scholars to adjust the temporal elements of religious orthodoxy in
response to the ever-changing circumstances of life. These internal mech-
anisms entail a process of independent legal reasoning known as ijtihād,
which fell into disuse among Sunni Muslim scholars approximately five
19
As quoted in the Bayt ar-Rahmah political communiqué of May 22, 2017.
centuries ago” (Nusantara Manifesto para 106). As they see it, for 500 years
the proper Muslim theological method, the “internal mechanism” for the
unfolding of Muslim orthodoxy, has not been properly implemented, lead-
ing to the debacle of the role of Islam on the global stage. This situation
leaves their thought leaders with a lot of unfinished homework.
To quote their manifesto:
“To date, there has been no systematic effort by Muslim authorities to adapt
the temporal elements — i.e., the historically-determined ‘operational val-
ues’ — of Islamic orthodoxy to reflect and address these changes. The cur-
rent crisis of the Muslim world may be largely attributed to this failure, as
evidenced by extremist efforts to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate; abolish
nation states; reject laws derived from modern political processes; and re-
vivify obsolete elements of fiqh (which they invariably conflate with
sharī‘ah), such as offensive jihād, slavery, the subordination of infidels, ston-
ing adulterers, executing homosexuals and amputating the hands of
thieves” (Nusantara Manifesto para 109).
Theological Method
Six themes characterize the theological method used by Humanitarian Is-
lam in its systematic effort to define a new Islamic ethics and theory of law.
1. Eternal norms versus contingent norms

Humanitarian Muslims have clarified the hermeneutic they use to work
with classical Muslim texts and principles. In the Declaration on Humanitar-
ian Islam they write, “Religious norms may be universal and unchanging —
e.g., the imperative that one strive to attain moral and spiritual perfection
— or they may be ‘contingent,’ if they address a specific issue that arises
within the ever-changing circumstances of time and place. As reality
changes, contingent — as opposed to universal — religious norms should
also change to reflect the constantly shifting circumstances of life on
earth” (paras 3 and 4). The contrast between eternal norms and contingent
norms is the key to their hermeneutic.
The crisis of Islam arises, they claim, from taking contingent norms
from previous centuries, whether it is the seventh century or the Middle
Ages, and then applying them in the twenty-first century as if they are
eternal, unchanging norms. This leads to a horrendous misperception of
Islamic religious rules, both by Islamist extremists and by the enemies of
Islam. “Horrors of the past such as slavery, crucifixion and the public exe-
cution of alleged homosexuals, adulterers, infidels, apostates and magi-
cians are resurrected, reinstituted as valid components of an Islamic social
order and broadcast to a disgusted global audience” (Nusantara Manifesto
para 80). Regardless of how one evaluates past criminal law requiring, for
example, amputation as punishment for theft, exactly how theft should be
punished is not an eternal norm. Different punishments are suitable today.
This is their hermeneutic at work.
The eternal norms cited by Humanitarian Islam are general principles
of morally sensitive behavior. For example, they emphasize the need “to
revitalize the understanding and practice of religion as raḥmah (universal
love and compassion)” in contrast with hatred and violence (Manifesto para
7). They continue, “Noble behavior entails acting with compassion and
treating others with respect” (para 61). As a dimension of respect for oth-
ers, they repeatedly mention the UDHR (for example, para 132).
The way in which the Muslim community should recognize and re-con-
textualize eternal norms into religious norms suitable for our era has to do
with attaining defined fundamental human goods which are central com-
ponents of human flourishing. “The purpose of religious norms (maqasid
al-shari‘ah) is to ensure the spiritual and material well-being of humanity”
(Declaration para 1). They add, “The authoritative Sunni jurists, Imam al-
Ghazali and Imam al-Shatibi, identified five primary components of
maqasid al-shari‘ah, viz., the preservation of faith, life, progeny, reason and
property” (para 2). This strikingly teleological way of reasoning about re-
ligious and civil norms also appears within Christian ethics, meriting fur-
ther discussion below. Properly formulated contingent norms must be ar-
ticulated by religious authorities in a manner that promotes and protects
human flourishing and especially these five defined primary human
goods. 20
2. A transcendental definition of sharia

The definition of “sharia” (with different spellings in various languages) is
important when one considers the varieties of Islam. Humanitarian Islam
is distinguished from some other types of Islam by the way it applies the
term “sharia” to eternal norms, not to specific, contingent civil laws or
criminal punishments.
Because of the complex origin of sharia in the Koran, in the early Mus-
lim tradition, and in the interpretations of classical Muslim theology, sha-
ria does not have an historically given source or definition found in one
text. Some describe it as an orientation or a set of expectations, not a pre-
cise code of laws as found in modern jurisprudence; nor should one com-
pare sharia too closely with a particular biblical text, such as the Ten Com-
mandments, which is often called “the law” in Christian ethics. Christine
Schirrmacher notes the problem within Sunni Islam of the existence of
“six extensive collections by various authors taken to be authoritative and
containing tens of thousands of individual texts on numerous topics.
20
In some Muslim discussions, the terminology of “five basic human needs” is used.
For example, Mujiburrahman writes, “One of the examples of how Islam pays se-
rious attention to human dignity is manifest in the principle of Islamic law known
as the protection of five basic human needs (daruriyyat), namely (1) the protection
of self (hifz al-nafs) from any violation; (2) the protection of religion (hifz al-diri)
from any enforced conversion; (3) the protection of family and next generation
(hifz al-nasl); (4) the protection of personal property (hifz al-mal); and (5) the pro-
tection of profession or intellect (hifz al-aql).” Mujiburrahman, “Islam and Politics
in Indonesia: the Political Thought of Abdurrahman Wahid,” Islam and Christian—
Muslim Relations, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999; 342.
Theological Method 23
These, in turn, have differences among themselves and even indicate con-
tradictory differences with respect to legal statements.” 21
Despite the complicated textual basis of sharia, there is within some
varieties of Islam a perception of considerable unity of content. It is this
view of sharia which Humanitarian Islam brings under systematic cri-
tique. This perceived unity is great enough that several countries have
attempted to fully implement a specific set of laws that they call “the
sharia,” even if the historical claim that this is the true sharia is ques-
tionable. For example, Sudan, Pakistan, Libya, parts of Nigeria, the Aceh
province of Indonesia, some regions in the Philippines, and Yemen have,
in the twentieth or twenty-first century, implemented sharia law to
strictly enforce such matters as women’s dress, punishment for blas-
phemy or apostasy, corporal punishment, stoning for adultery, and even
cutting off limbs. 22
Humanitarian Islam decries this practice as the false application of con-
tingent religious norms from a previous era to the current situation. In-
stead, the term “sharia,” which the Humanitarians use sparingly, is applied
to eternal principles that exist outside time and space. They see sharia as
transcendent moral values leading to God (and protecting creation) that
must be newly applied in every situation, not as specific laws that can be
enforced by a police officer. The Nusantara Manifesto (2018) included an es-
say by Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid (1940–2009), President of Indonesia
from 1999 to 2001, called “God Needs No Defense,” as an official appendix.
Wahid wrote, “In its original Qur’anic sense, the word shari’a refers to ‘the
way,’ the path to God, and not to formally codified Islamic law, which only
emerged in the centuries following Muhammad’s death.” Wahid contin-
ued, “Shari’a, properly understood, expresses and embodies perennial val-
ues. Islamic law, on the other hand, is the product of ijtihad (interpretation)
which depends on circumstances (al-hukm yadur ma’a al-’illah wujudan wa
‘adaman) and needs to be continuously reviewed in accordance with ever-
changing circumstances, to prevent Islamic law from becoming out of
date, rigid and non-correlative — not only with Muslims’ contemporary
lives and conditions, but also with the underlying perennial values of
shari’a itself.” 23 In other words, “the way” cannot merely copy a law code
21
Christine Schirrmacher, The Sharia: Law and Order in Islam, trans. Richard McClary,
ed. Thomas K. Johnson (Bonn: World Evangelical Alliance, 2013), 17; online here:
https://iirf.eu/journal-books/global-issues-series/the-sharia-law-and-order-in-
islam.
22
Schirrmacher, The Sharia, 24.
23
These and subsequent quotations of President Wahid are taken from pages 30 to
32 of the Nusantara Manifesto.
from a previous era; perennial and eternal values have to be applied in

every generation, for which a clear theological and legal method is needed.
Wahid assumed that in some instances, religious law as taught today,
based on contingent interpretations from a previous era, would contradict
a proper contingent interpretation or application of the perennial values
of the eternal, higher sharia to our era. For example, anti-blasphemy or
anti-apostasy laws, which may have been proper applications of the eter-
nal sharia in a previous socio-political situation, might themselves become
blasphemous in our era because they attempt to defend God in ways that
are inappropriate in a multi-religious society.
Wahid argued that punishment for apostasy (which intends to defend
God) dated back to a time “when apostasy generally coincided with desertion
from the Caliph’s army and/or rejection of his authority, and thus consti-
tuted treason or rebellion.” Accordingly, the punishment was contingent on
a particular historical context and should not be applied to all contexts.
As used by Humanitarian Islam, the sharia is a transcendent set of prin-
ciples that must be discerned in a process of moral reflection. Such princi-
ples can become contemporary religious norms when articulated by the
scholars representing a religious community; these principles are de-
signed to protect and promote the primary human goods of life, faith,
progeny, reason, and property, in a particular time and place. 24
Such a definition of sharia, if followed by the global Muslim movement,
would undermine most reasons for Islamophobia, since it would shift the
discussion of the religious ethics of public life away from, for example, the
proper way to execute blasphemers and toward a principled discussion of
what human goods are primary and what types of religious and civil laws
would protect those human goods. People from different religious commu-
nities and cultures might have different opinions, but the discussion of hu-
man goods and the proper ways to protect human flourishing would con-
stitute civil public discourse, not an endless war.
24
On the varieties of understandings of sharia in Indonesia, Bernard Adeney-Risa-
kotta commented, “In Indonesia the concern with morality is not confined to the
private sphere. Public law is meant to incorporate morality and guide the society
toward goodness. Muslims view Sharia (the way of God) as absolute truth which
must be obeyed. However, there are great differences in Muslim interpretations
of how ‘the way of God’ should be applied in society. For example, some Muslims
view the essence of Sharia as justice, peace, human rights, and responsibilities
which can be formulated differently in different places and times. Others under-
stand Sharia as an ancient law code that grew up in the centuries after prophet,
detailing dress for women and specific punishments for various crimes.” Living in
a Sacred Cosmos: Indonesia and the Future of Islam (Yale University, 2018), 67.
3. Humanitarian Islam and Nusantara civilization

Humanitarian Islam claims that important moral and political principles
that have long existed in Nusantara civilization (the historical culture of
the Malay Archipelago) merit new application today. These principles
have been foundational for their society, including the manner in which
new religions are accepted and the relationships established among differ-
ent religious communities. They have no desire to replace the pre-existing
culture with something that supposedly arises purely from Islam.
The Nusantara Manifesto explains, “For thousands of years, Nusantara
(the Malay Archipelago) has been a civilizational crossroads and home to
a wide array of peoples, cultures and religious beliefs” (para 87). “This dis-
tinguishing characteristic of Nusantara society — i.e., the impulse to posi-
tion wisdom, rather than dogma, as the central pillar of socio-cultural, re-
ligious and political life — enabled Nusantara civilization to embrace the
essence of newly arrived religions; neutralize their potentially divisive ef-
fects; and transform religious pluralism into a source of social unity and
strength, by cultivating humility, compassion and respect for others, ra-
ther than fear and hatred” (para 89).
This is a strong religious endorsement of a cultural tradition that did
not arise from that religion. Religious endorsements of cultural traditions
frequently include a claim that the culture is partly the result of that reli-
gion; nothing of that sort is mentioned here. Quite the opposite, these
statements suggest that Nusantara culture positioned the pursuit of wis-
dom as the key to religion in a manner that contributed to their herme-
neutic. Nusantara culture provides the filter through which Islam and
other religions can be understood, evaluated, and applied. Anyone who
takes such a stance is already committed to accepting religious pluralism
as a social reality.
The Nusantara Manifesto includes a ringing endorsement of the Indone-
sian constitutional principle of Pancasila, which is seen as the political ap-
plication of these principles of Nusantara civilization. 25 Pancasila includes
officially recognizing several religions, which is a specific rejection of
25
Pancasila has been a foundational principle of the Republic of Indonesia since its
beginning in 1945. In includes five points. According to the Preamble to the Con-
stitution, “the Republic of Indonesia which shall be built into a sovereign state
based on [1] a belief in the One and Only God, [2] just and civilized humanity, [3]
the unity of Indonesia, and [4] democratic life led by wisdom of thoughts in delib-
eration amongst representatives of the people, and [5] achieving social justice for
all the people of Indonesia.”
Muslim theocratic visions (whether described as a caliphate or a Muslim

country) such as those found in the Pakistani legal code or in the ideology
of ISIS. 26 The Humanitarian Muslims affirm “the Republic of Indonesia as a
multi-religious and pluralistic nation state, based on the principles of Pan-
casila and Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity amid Diversity).” 27
Humanitarian Muslims are not shy about recommending Nusantara cul-
ture to the world. “As heirs to this noble civilization, which is under siege
by an array of powerful forces — including the globalization of culture, geo-
political instability and the weaponization of religion for political purposes
— it is time for Indonesians to awaken and reclaim our ancient heritage, not
merely for ourselves but humanity at large. For the profound wisdom that
lies at the heart of Nusantara civilization is desperately needed in a world
where ethnic, political and religious differences so often lead to enmity and
violence” (Nusantara Manifesto para 90). Indeed, in the Proclamation of Hu-
manitarian Islam they even suggest that their experience can serve as a “pi-
lot project” for a multi-religious nation-state (para 19).
4. Faith and reason

The Declaration on Humanitarian Islam quotes K. H. A. Mustofa Bisri, former
Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council: “People often claim
that reason and religion cannot be reconciled. That is completely untrue,
and ridiculous. … As I understand things, ulama [interpreters of Islam]
should be intellectuals, and intellectuals should be spiritual. They must
work shoulder-to-shoulder, seeking to revive, in our present day and age,
the values exemplified by the Messenger of God (saw.)” (para 91).
Humanitarian Muslims do not define reason as the abstract thinking of
the European Enlightenment proving the existence of the human self or
the existence of God. They have two types of reason in view, one of which
26
Indonesian law recognizes Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hindu-
ism, and Confucianism as officially accepted religions. Other world religions have
a right to meet, but with a lower level of recognition, including Judaism, Jainism,
Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. Tribal and indigenous religions are usually
tolerated as cultural practices, though not recognized as religions. The situation
is more difficult for groups that are often perceived to be heretical movements
within a world religion, such as the Ahmadiyya and Bahai. See Adeney-Risakotta,
209-211. See also Paul Marshall, “The Ambiguities of Religious Freedom in Indone-
sia,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs, Institute for Global Engagement
(March, 2018), available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/
15570274.2018.1433588.
27
This quotation is from the concluding “Call to Action” of the Nusantara Manifesto.
is well-defined and the second of which may not yet be so well-defined.

The first is an expansive definition of the academic work — really a vast
research, publication, and educational program — which is needed to de-
velop and communicate the new Muslim orthodoxy.
“Ulama, scholars, academic institutions and other intellectual commu-
nities should be encouraged to mobilize all available resources to address
the most crucial issues associated with the crisis posed by the enormous
disjunct that exists between the insights contained within classical Islamic
orthodoxy and the context of modern civilization” (Declaration on Humani-
tarian Islam para 86). They go on to describe the needed work in such fields
as the science of hadith interpretation, the development of new religious
norms, and the assessment of contemporary civilization with its socio-po-
litical structures.
A second type of reason the Humanitarian Muslims emphasize in their
ethics is the human capacity for civilization building by means of develop-
ing human potential; the unity of faith with this type of moral reason helps
individuals and communities to flourish. The Nusantara Manifesto quotes
President Wahid: “The greatness of traditional Islamic art and architecture
— from the wonders of Fes and Grenada, to Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarkand
and Agra — bears testimony to the long line of Sufi masters, guilds and
individual artists who strove to ennoble matter, so as to transform our
man-made environment into ‘the veritable counterpart of nature, a mo-
saic of “Divine portents” revealing everywhere the handiwork of man as
God’s vice-regent.’” He continued, “The greatness of classical Islamic civi-
lization — which incorporated a humane and cosmopolitan universalism
— stemmed largely from the intellectual and spiritual maturity that grew
from the amalgamation of Arab, Greek, Jewish, Christian and Persian influ-
ences.” 28
Wahid then added an astonishing comment that may be obscure to
those not familiar with ancient Greek philosophy: “That is why I wept
upon seeing Ibn Rushd’s [also known as Averroes, 1126–1198] commentary
on the Nicomachean Ethics [written by Aristotle, 384–322 BC] lovingly pre-
served and displayed, during a visit some years ago to Fes, Morocco. For if
not for Aristotle and his great treatise, I might have become a Muslim fun-
damentalist myself” (para 148). Humanitarian Islam has not only con-
sciously appropriated principles from Nusantara civilization; the move-
ment has explicitly appropriated themes from the ethics of Aristotle as
part of their understanding of what reason is.
28
President Wahid is citing Seyyed Hossein Nasr as quoted in Roloff Beny, Persia:
Bridge of Turquoise (New York Graphic Society, 1975), np.
In Aristotle’s ethics, humanity is portrayed as poised between two

poles, humankind as it is and humankind as it may become if individuals
and communities develop as they can and should. For humanity to reach
its built-in goal (telos) and meaning, human potentialities must be actual-
ized. An actualized potential becomes a virtue, such as courage, wisdom,
or the pursuit of justice. What makes humans different from other entities
is their capacity for reason and their social (sometimes called “political”)
nature; humans are rational and social creatures. For individuals and soci-
ety to reach a condition of comprehensive flourishing (eudaimonia in
Greek, sometimes poorly translated as “happiness”), people must learn to
practice intellectual, social, and professional virtues. 29 The virtues are
learned by practice in community, which is usually related to imitating
role models. Many virtues can be described as the “golden mean” between
two opposite vices; the proper use of reason enables individuals and com-
munities to learn the way of virtue. 30
By means of writing about Aristotle’s ethics, Ibn Rushd helped introduce
Aristotle to Muslim, Jewish, and Christian educators in the Mediterranean
and European cultures. Aristotle offered an approach to ethics and life in
society that was mostly acceptable to non-extremist versions of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, as well as to people without defined religious be-
liefs.31 It offered an ethically responsible perspective on the development of
people, professions, and entire societies, designed to lead toward human
flourishing. This approach to ethics was widely seen as an approach to
moral reason that was compatible with faith among the theistic religions.
With such ideas in mind, President Wahid could weep tears of joy at
seeing Ibn Rushd’s book on Aristotle in a museum in Morocco. That book
symbolized the unity of Islam with moral reason in such a manner that
leads to civilization building and stands in stark conflict with all forms of
religious extremism. This approach to the compatibility between faith and
reason sets Humanitarian Islam apart from violent versions of Islam.
29
Christian theologians have frequently mentioned the similarity between the
Greek notion of eudaimonia and the notion of shalom found in the Bible.
30
This brief summary of Aristotle’s ethics is not derived from Ibn Rushd; it is from
the primary sources interpreted in light of the books by Alasdair MacIntyre such
as After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (University of Notre Dame Press; 2nd edition;
1984), Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (University of Notre Dame Press; 1988), and
A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twen-
tieth Century (University of Notre Dame Press; 1998).
31
Religious authorities often expressed concerns and cautions regarding Aristote-
lian ethics. For example, within Christianity one hears the concern that the people
who pursue virtue might become proud before God and not recognize their sin.
5. Constructive political developments

Humanitarian Islam is distinguished from extremist versions of Islam by
its acceptance of selected socio-political developments of the last two cen-
turies. This principle flows from the view of practical reason already de-
scribed, but the topic merits distinct attention.
The Nusantara Manifesto identified four key social and political develop-
ments which make our world different from that of previous centuries: “i)
A complete transformation of the global political order; ii) fundamental
changes in demography; iii) evolving societal norms; and iv) globalization,
driven by scientific and technological developments that enable mass
communications, travel and the emergence of a tightly integrated world
economy” (para 108).
Until 200 years ago, and to a large extent even 100 years ago, much of
the world’s population lived in kingdoms or empires in which there was a
supposed unity of a majority religion and the ruling power, though minor-
ity religions may have been tolerated. Within Europe, this was described
as the “unity of throne and altar.” Today most empires have passed away,
replaced by nation-states that contain millions of immigrants of all reli-
gions and cultures, with those populations and states connected by inter-
governmental organizations (such as the UN) and international busi-
nesses. The age of religiously defined empires, whether in Asia, Europe,
Turkey, or the Middle East, is long gone.
Therefore, according to Humanitarian Islam, any desire to return to a
Caliphate or to perpetuate a religiously defined nation, as displayed by
Muslim extremism and also by some critics of Muslim extremism, is an im-
possible desire to return to a previous era which leads only to conflict, de-
struction, and death. Instead, Muslims should fully accept a different rela-
tionship between religion and society, including a critical endorsement of
some societal transitions.
Recall that Humanitarian Islam accepts selected socio-political develop-
ments of modern global society. It does not endorse atheism, moral rela-
tivism, or hyper-individualism. Though religious pluralism is endorsed as
morally legitimate, Humanitarian Islam does not call on governments or
schools to ignore religious values, practices, and communities. Rather, it
believes that people’s lives should be shaped by the teachings of their re-
ligious communities. Their adherents fully accept the existence of multi-
ple religious communities within one country, with the hope that those
communities and their members can flourish together.
6. Tyranny and the will to power

The Nusantara Manifesto says, “In the absence of self-discipline, the innate
human drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain — whether physical, emo-
tional or psychological — fosters egotism, injustice and a relentless pursuit
of power for the sake of personal gratification. From an Islamic perspective
this is the root of tyranny, whether it manifests on an individual or collec-
tive scale” (para 50).
More succinctly, the desire for power creates tyranny, and tyranny is
the most serious threat to society. The will to power is demonstrated in
many religious movements. “Again and again, those who crave worldly
power have manipulated religious sentiment in their struggle to maintain
or acquire political, economic and military supremacy, and to dominate
their rivals. This has led to untold suffering and loss of life, and precipi-
tated the ruin of entire civilizations” (Manifesto para 68).
In personal communication, the representatives of Humanitarian Islam
have promised to more fully explain their response to the desire for power.
They intend to do so by articulating how people can instead pursue a path
to achieving nobility of character. I am eager for them to make good on
this promise.
7. An assessment
The Humanitarian Islam movement is addressing in a systematic manner
some of the deep theological issues that have contributed to conflicts
among religions and cultures. Their efforts constitute a major payment on
the intellectual debt owed by Islam to the watching world. To do this, their
thought leaders are utilizing a theological method which they see as in-
trinsic to classical Islam, even if that method has not been effectively used
for some centuries. The movement is retrievalist in the sense of seeking to
retrieve an ancient intellectual and religious heritage to develop orthodox
Islam in a manner that correlates with a new era. 32
32
In this sense, Humanitarian Islam can be compared with retrievalist movements
in other religions and intellectual traditions in our time. In all the branches of
Christianity in the twenty-first century one can see movements that seek to re-
trieve a spiritual heritage that was lost via a serious cultural or political misstep,
whether that misstep was modernity, secularism, colonialism, theological liberal-
ism, or faulty church/state relations. These religious retrievalist movements are
interacting with intellectual retrievalist movements that seek to recover a lost
philosophical heritage, such as that of Aristotle, Jan Amos Comenius, or “the clas-
sics” more generally.
This recovery of a classical theological method has, at its center, a clar-

ification of the difference between eternal norms and historically contin-
gent applications of those norms. The key word, “sharia,” as they use the
word, refers primarily to the higher sharia, the eternal norms, not to the
contingent application of those norms. The continued use by Muslim ex-
tremists of contingent norms from a previous era, such as blasphemy laws
and the corporal punishment of criminals, fails to use a proper Muslim
theological method, leading to needless suffering and loss of life, conflict
among Muslims and with non-Muslims, and the resulting Islamophobia.
The desire for a new caliphate does not arise from an eternal norm, and
the several attempts to form new caliphates have led to death and destruc-
tion. The proper application of eternal norms in our era includes the sup-
port of multi-religious states and freedom of religion.
The theological method and hermeneutic of Humanitarian Islam are
organically tied to their positive assessment of Nusantara civilization,
which, as they see it, posited the pursuit of wisdom and religious tolerance
as keys to societal flourishing and true spirituality. Their theological
method includes a strong endorsement of rationality for civilization build-
ing, for perceiving eternal moral norms, and for using this perception of
moral norms to distinguish between positive and negative directions in
the social and political developments of the last two centuries. This ap-
proach to rationality is understood in an openly Aristotelian manner aris-
ing from the endorsement and use of themes from Aristotle’s ethics in me-
dieval Sunni thought. Such an approach is radically different from those
approaches to Islamic ethics that view the exegesis of the contents of Islam
as the only way to know right and wrong, such as seen in the Open Letter
of 2014. Given their simultaneous affirmation of classical human rights
principles, the ethics of Humanitarian Islam are largely understandable,
and potentially even acceptable, to many people who do not share their
Muslim religious beliefs.
The theological synthesis of Humanitarian Islam is poised to promote
societal and individual development in their communities, along with con-
structive relationships with other religions and cultures. The theological
component of their movement could be strengthened by interaction with
other retrievalist religious and intellectual movements, especially those
seeking to reactivate Aristotelian or other elements of medieval thought
and culture. I wish that in 2007 our seminary student and his religious
brothers had fallen into the hands of Humanitarian Muslims, not those of
extremists. The result would have been stimulating discussion leading to
new intellectual and economic initiatives, not tragedy.
Evangelical Ethics in the West
There are parallels between certain themes in Christian ethics and key is-
sues addressed by Humanitarian Islam. An elucidation will promote com-
munication and future cooperation. We can begin with hermeneutics.
1. The relationship between law and grace

The apostle John summarized the key to the Christian hermeneutic poign-
antly under the headings of law and grace: “For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). This can be
regarded as central for how Evangelical Christians should interpret and
apply the contents of their faith.
John wrote “law and grace”; others use the terms “law and gospel” as a
synonym, assuming that grace is communicated and applied via the gospel
and the related promises of God. There are nuances in the law/grace rela-
tionship. For example, John quoted Jesus in confrontation with religious
leaders as saying, “Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your
accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you
would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:45-46). According to
John, Moses brings the accusations of the law, but Moses also promised
someone who brought grace, namely Jesus.
The contrast between law and grace is not primarily about the time of
origin of a text, such as Old Testament versus New Testament. “Law” is
God’s command about what to do or not to do; “grace” is his provision of
undeserved acceptance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ as proclaimed in
the gospel. Moses gave the law and promised a future grace given in Jesus;
Jesus assumed the law given by Moses and fulfilled the promises given by
Moses. The Bible (and all Christian teaching) is a combination of com-
mands and promises; therefore, to echo Martin Luther (1483-1545), it is al-
ways urgent that Christians distinguish commands and promises, law and
gospel.
The apostle Paul summarized the gospel: “God was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he
has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Regarding law, Paul wrote, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this
one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14). Later he
added, “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall
not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other
command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is
the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:9-10).
The complexity of how God communicates his law and accomplishes
his grace provides the hermeneutic to interpret and apply Scripture and
Christian teaching. 33 I invite Humanitarian Muslims to tell us if there is
something comparable within their hermeneutic. At times in Christian his-
tory, God’s moral law has been described as the expression of God’s holi-
ness, justice, or wrath, while the gospel has been described as an expres-
sion of God’s grace and mercy; one could ask how this is similar to and
different from the well-known saying of Mohammed that God’s throne
bears the inscription, “My mercy precedes My wrath.”
In a similar manner, some Christian theologians have claimed that the
relation between law and gospel is the same as the relation between letter
and spirit, quoting 2 Corinthians 3:6, which states that God “has made us
competent as ministers of a new covenant — not of the letter but of the
Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” It would be worthwhile
to inquire if there are similarities to President Wahid’s claim that Islamic
mysticism “recognized the need to balance the letter with the spirit of the
law.” 34
2. God’s moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws

Christianity distinguishes among God’s moral, ceremonial, and judicial (or
civil) laws as they are found in the Old Testament part of the Bible. This is
33
Distinguishing law and grace (or law and gospel) has been a distinctive rediscov-
ery of Evangelicalism since the Reformation. For example, Martin Luther claimed,
“You will not find anything about this distinction between the law and the gospel
in the books of the monks, the canonists, and the recent and ancient theologians.
Augustine taught and expressed it to some extent. Jerome and others like him
knew nothing at all about it. In other words, for many centuries there has been a
remarkable silence about this in all the schools and churches. This situation has
produced a very dangerous condition for consciences.” Martin Luther, Luther’s
Works, ed. and trans. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 26: Lectures on Galatians, 1535 (St. Louis:
Concordia, 1963), 313. Luther also wrote, “Let every Christian learn diligently to
distinguish between the law and the gospel” Galatians, 120. For more on the Evan-
gelical rediscovery of the relationship between law and gospel, see Thomas K.
Johnson, “Law and Gospel: The Hermeneutical and Homiletical Key to Refor-
mation Theology and Ethics,” The Evangelical Review of Theology (2019) 43:1, availa-
ble here: https://www.academia.edu/38262994/Law_and_Gospel_How_the_Re
formation_Applied_the_Bible.
34
In “God Needs No Defense,” p. 32 in the Nusantara Manifesto.
Evangelical Ethics in the West 35
both similar to and different from the distinction made by Humanitarian

Islam between eternal norms and contingent norms.
In the classical words of the Westminster Confession (1646):
“Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the peo-
ple of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typ-
ical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions,
sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of
moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new
testament. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws,
which expired together with the State of that people.” 35
Some Christians question this threefold hermeneutic, claiming it is not

found in the Bible. However, this distinction was not only characteristic
of the Puritan Westminster documents. With slight variations, it was
used during the Reformation by John Calvin (1509–1564) and in medieval
Christian ethics by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), both of whom regarded
it as a common distinction long known to Christians. Calvin and Aquinas
assumed the similar distinctions used by Augustine (354–430) and Justin
Martyr (circa 100–165); indeed, one of the earliest Christian books after
the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, sharply contrasts the moral
and ceremonial laws (compare chapters 2 and 19). Jonathan Bayes ar-
gues that this hermeneutic was already used in some Old Testament pas-
sages, such as Proverbs 21:3: “To do righteousness and justice is more
acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” “Righteousness” refers to the de-
mands of the moral law, whereas “justice” refers to the demands of the
judicial law. 36
35
Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 19, paragraphs 3 and 4, emphasis added,
available here: https://www.pcaac.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WCFScrip
tureProofs.pdf.
36
Jonathan F. Bayes, “The Threefold Division of the Law,” The Christian Institute,
2017, available here: https://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/the-
threefold-division-of-the-law.pdf.
Bayes illustrates how this same distinction is used within Jewish theology. His es-
say is excellent. The threefold hermeneutic found in the earliest sources of Chris-
tian ethics points to the way in which Christian ethics has long taken the relation
between eternal norms and changing situations into account. Some recent books
on Christian ethics have given more prominence to the relation between norm
and situation, for example, Thomas Schirrmacher, Leadership and Ethical Responsi-
bility: The Three Aspects of Every Decision (Bonn: World Evangelical Alliance, 2013),
available here: https://iirf.eu/journal-books/global-issues-series/leadership-
and-ethical-responsibility/.
This three-part hermeneutic enables Christians to regard commands

such as “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not steal” as parts
of God’s eternal and unchanging moral law that all must obey. Ceremonial
laws are clearly different, not to be directly applied in our time; for exam-
ple, Leviticus 2:1–2: “When anyone brings a grain offering to the Lord, their
offering is to be of the finest flour. They are to pour olive oil on it, put
incense on it and take it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a
handful of the flour and oil, together with all the incense, and burn this as
a memorial portion on the altar, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the
Lord.” Judicial laws are also obviously different in content and directly in-
tended only for ancient Israel. For example, Exodus 21:15–17 says, “Anyone
who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death. Anyone who kid-
naps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is
still in the kidnapper’s possession. Anyone who curses their father or
mother is to be put to death.” Cursing one’s parents is always wrong; exe-
cution for this sin was only for a limited time and place.
In ancient Israel, a strict anti-blasphemy law was enforced, on occa-
sion, by the death penalty. “Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘Take the blas-
phemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands
on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. Say to the Israelites:
“Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; anyone who blas-
phemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly
must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme
the Name they are to be put to death”’” (Leviticus 24:13–16).
At times, Christians have enforced anti-blasphemy laws, even to the
point of execution. This was wrong. An improper hermeneutic was applied
to the Bible. Almost all Christians have repented of this sin, even if not all
are conscious of a better hermeneutic. There is much to learn from ancient
ceremonial and judicial laws, but we do not teach Christians to obey them
directly. The biblical ceremonial and judicial laws were contingent, in the
sense of being directly applicable to a certain time in history. In contrast,
not stealing, not committing adultery, not committing murder, not bear-
ing false witness, not coveting are eternal principles to be taught today.
3. The natural moral law

The entire undertaking of Humanitarian Islam is an appeal to a universal
ethical standard which their leaders expect both Muslims and non-Mus-
lims to recognize, even if the source and nature of this standard are not
always fully articulated. This appeal sets Humanitarian Islam apart from
the types of Islam that can only exegete the contents of their religion to
explicate claims of ethical truth. The standard to which such an ethical

appeal is made has been called the “natural moral law” in Western Chris-
tian ethics.
When people argue, there is inevitably an appeal, perhaps implicit, to
an ethical standard by which our actions may be evaluated. When the peo-
ple share a religion, they may refer to a religious text and say, “The Bible
says . . . ” or “the Koran says . . . .” When people do not share a religion, the
norm referenced may be less explicit; nevertheless, it is crucial. Normal
people seldom say, “There are no standards, so do what you want.” When
we argue, we imply, “According to the standards which we both know, I
am right and you are wrong;” never “Let’s just fight like animals.” 37 This
unwritten standard is the natural moral law, sometimes abbreviated as the
“natural law.”
Within Christian theology, the natural moral law has been regarded as
a part of creation, specifically as a part of the creation of the human mind
in the image of the mind of God, with the result that humans can hardly
avoid distinguishing between right and wrong and almost necessarily
make similar assumptions about right and wrong (though perhaps denying
this knowledge). Christian theology also regards the natural moral law as
a prominent theme in God’s ongoing “general revelation,” God’s speech to
humanity which comes to all people through his creation in multiple ways.
(God’s general revelation is usually contrasted with God’s “special revela-
tion,” God’s speech to humanity in Christ and Holy Scripture.)
The natural moral law is so strongly assumed in the Bible that the as-
sumption is rarely clarified. Such clarifications typically arise when believ-
ers do something which their pagan neighbors properly regard as wrong,
showing that unbelievers sometimes respond to the moral law better than
do believers. A painful example is when Pharaoh followed principles pro-
tecting marriage and truth-telling before confronting Abram for not fol-
lowing such principles (Genesis 12:10–20), which both assumed everyone
should know.
In the twentieth century, some Protestant theologians mistakenly
claimed that we cannot know God’s natural law, some saying we should
not even mention the topic. This mistake threatens the soul of
37
This analysis of moral discourse is heavily dependent on C. S. Lewis, especially the
first chapters of Mere Christianity. This book was published multiple times and is
available in many languages. Here I am referencing pages 15-26 of the revised edi-
tion of 1952 (London and Glasgow: Collins). For an assessment of Lewis on this
topic see Thomas K. Johnson, Natural Law Ethics: An Evangelical Proposal, Christian
Philosophy Today vol. 6 (Bonn: VKW, 2005), 85-105, available here: https://
www.academia.edu/36884239/Natural_Law_Ethics_An_Evangelical_Proposal.
civilization. 38 There is wisdom in the observations of Aristotle, the oft-

cited hero of both Humanitarian Islam and of many generations of writers
about Christian ethics:
“It will now be well to make a complete classification of just and unjust ac-
tions. We may begin by observing that they have been defined relatively to
two kinds of law . . . . By the two kinds of law I mean particular law and uni-
versal law. Particular law is that which each community lays down and ap-
plies to its own members: this is partly written and partly unwritten. Uni-
versal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as everyone to some
extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men, even
on those who have no association or covenant with each other.” 39
Similar ideas were taught by many classical philosophers, including the

Aristotelians, Platonists, and Stoics, in contending against moral relativ-
ism, represented in the ancient world by the skeptics, sophists, and Epicu-
reans. All the participants in these ancient discussions knew that different
communities have different particular laws and moral rules, which raised
the question of whether there is a universal moral law that is binding on
all people and communities. The relativists claimed there are no universal
moral rules or legal principles, only ethical rules and civil laws that are
established by particular communities. Aristotle argued that there are
moral and legal principles which are binding on all people simply because
they are human; these laws are binding because of the inherent authority
of the laws (the nature of those laws), not because they are authorized by
a community. To repeat Aristotle, there is “a natural justice and injustice
that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or cov-
enant with each other.” 40 This law is binding on all people because of its
nature as a universal moral law, not because people belong to a particular
community (an association or covenant in Aristotle’s words).
38
See Thomas K. Johnson, “The Rejection of God’s Natural Moral Law: Losing the
Soul of Western Civilization,” Evangelical Review of Theology 43:3 (2019), available
here: https://www.academia.edu/39590583/The_Rejection_of_Gods_Natural_Mo
ral_Law_Losing_the_Soul_of_Western_Civilization.
39
Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book 1, chapter 13. Trans. W. Rhys Roberts; edited by Lee Hon-
eycutt. (Alpine Lakes Design, 2011), available here: https://web.archive.org/
web/20150213075009/http:/rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/rhet1-13.html.
40
I share the opinion of Tarnas that much of classical philosophy was a complex
attempt to overcome the nihilism which was perceived to arise from religious syn-
cretism (especially polytheism) and moral relativism. See Richard Tarnas, The Pas-
sion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
(Ballantine Books, 1993).
In the New Testament, the apostle Paul sided with the natural law the-
orists against the moral relativists when the Christian message entered
into Greco-Roman culture. He wrote, “When Gentiles, who do not have the
law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves,
even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements
of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing wit-
ness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even
defending them” (Romans 2:14–15). In this way, early Christianity adopted
the moral philosophy of the Old Testament (of which the account of Abra-
ham is one of many examples) and contextualized it in the Greek and Latin
terminology of the Roman Empire. 41
I have not yet seen a full explanation of the natural moral law from the
thought leaders of Humanitarian Islam, despite their appeal to Aristotle;
however, the comments of President Wahid about “underlying perennial val-
ues” and the descriptions of a Nusantara search for wisdom sound like refer-
ences to the natural law, perhaps using different terminology. This may be
an unfinished theme or a desirable clarification in their ambitious theologi-
cal program. By comparison, I will offer more of a Christian perspective.
The church fathers of the first four centuries usually summarized the
demands of the natural law with the “Golden Rule,” do onto others as you
would have them do to you. For example, Augustine wrote, “There is also
a law in the reason of a human being who already uses free choice, a law
naturally written in his heart, by which he is warned that he should not do
anything to anyone else that he himself does not want to suffer; all are
transgressors according to this law, even those who have not received the
law given through Moses.” 42
Aristotle and Augustine taught the natural law for different purposes.
Aristotle was pointing to the universal moral law as a basis for a civilized
society, assuming the existence of many communities and cultures with dif-
ferent particular laws; Augustine was preaching that all people are
41
Throughout the first sixteen centuries of Christian history, most philosophical
writers assumed a unity of the natural moral law governing humans and the laws
governing the rest of nature (creation). God was seen as the source of the unified
moral order of the universe, including humans, animals, plants, and rocks. Only
in recent centuries, probably as a part of secularism, have Christians sharply sep-
arated the natural moral order from the natural physical order. This topic merits
reconsideration. It would be worthwhile to compare the older Christian notion of
a unified natural moral/physical law with the Muslim doctrine of Sunnatullah.
42
Augustine, Letter 157, paragraph 15; found in Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
Works. English. 1990 Part 2, Volume 3 of Letters 156-210, trans. Roland John Teske,
ed. Boniface Ramsey and John E. Rotelle (New City Press, 1990), p. 25.
accountable to God, even if they do not yet acknowledge God. (Aristotle did
not mention God or the gods in relation to the natural moral law.43) Never-
theless, as the discussion of Christian ethics unfolded, the two lines of teach-
ing from Aristotle and Augustine were harmonized but distinguished.
In the centuries after Augustine, within Europe and the Mediterranean
basin, Christianity grew from a persecuted minority to become the major-
ity religion, sometimes even the official religion. This prompted a discus-
sion within Christian ethics of the relation between the universal moral
law and the civil or human laws of different countries. This echoes the
problem addressed by Aristotle and classical philosophy but with im-
portant differences. The perceived threats to a humane religious and social
life came not so much from moral relativism and cultural diversity as from
the church and the state (or states) alternately seeking absolute power.
These two different types of tyranny (religious and political) threatened
human flourishing.
Thomas Aquinas was a crucial contributor among the Christian writers
on ethics of this era (400 to 1650), most of whom had studied both the Bible
and classical philosophy. Both Augustine and Aristotle were quoted by
many; historians of Western ethics sometimes refer to this perspective as
the “biblical/classical synthesis.” 44 In his “Treatise on Law,” Aquinas dis-
tinguished four types of law in a manner intended to overcome moral rel-
ativism, religious absolutism, and political absolutism. The four types are
(1) eternal law, which is a universal idea which has always existed in the
mind of God and is not distinct from God himself; (2) the natural law, which
is the participation of the eternal law within human rationality, commu-
nicated to humanity by the creation of the human mind in the image of
the divine mind, the light of reason which cannot be fully extinguished
even by sin; (3) human law, which is framed by human lawgivers and given
43
Other Greek and Roman philosophers ridiculed polytheism and idol worship. Ar-
istotle may have thought such religions did not merit mention in serious dis-
course.
44
The teachings of Aristotle began to play a larger role in Western civilization in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, partly through the efforts of the Muslim philos-
opher Averroes Ibn Rushd. The terminology of a “biblical/classical synthesis”
probably comes from Anders Nygren (1890-1978). Nygren thought such a synthe-
sis was a mistake that would reduce the Christian perception of the full demands
of agape love. My argument here is closer to that of H. Emil Brunner (1889-1966),
Gustaf Wingren (1910-2000), and I. John Hesselink (1928-2018) who thought this
synthesis was extremely important for understanding justice and public life. It
could be tremendously beneficial to compare the biblical/classical synthesis re-
garding ethics and society with the synthesis of Muslim and Nusantara ethical and
legal principles found in Humanitarian Islam.
to a particular community for the common good; and (4) the divine law,
which is the special revelation of God in the Bible. 45
Revolutionary themes were hidden in this medieval text. Though writ-
ing during “Christendom,” which history teachers commonly portray as
the period of European church–state unity, Aquinas did not claim that hu-
man law should be based on the “divine law,” the Bible; moreover, his out-
line suggests that neither the state nor the church has ultimate authority
to evaluate a human law. In a manner that is remarkably untheocratic and
anti-autocratic, he argued that human law is to be derived from and eval-
uated primarily by the natural law. In technical language he claimed, “So
too it is from the precepts of the natural law, as from general and inde-
monstrable principles, that the human reason needs to proceed to the
more particular determination of certain matters. These particular deter-
minations, devised by human reason, are called human laws.” 46
This means that laws coming from a king or government are to be eval-
uated by the principles of equity which God has built into human reason,
but without giving ultimate authority to a church which is evaluating hu-
man law by means of interpreting and applying religious texts. Though he
was a man of his times, this was a principled break with both theocracy
and autocracy. He was a Christian who honored God as the source of law
and reason, but not in a manner that had to exclude other religions, since
it was not a religious institution that could evaluate human laws.
During the Reformation, the new Evangelicals, such as Martin Luther
and John Calvin, did not carefully follow the precise terminology of Aqui-
nas. They simply assumed the reality and importance of the natural law,
as was common in the Bible. But their rediscovery of justification by faith
alone (not by obeying the moral law) pushed them to clarify what func-
tions God’s moral law has. This theological need prompted their promi-
nent contribution to this discussion: new clarity on the multiple legitimate
functions of God’s natural moral law. Luther taught that God’s moral law
has two special functions (in addition to guiding the lives of Christians).
The first is the civic use of the moral law, which restrains sin enough to
make life in society possible; the second is the theological use of the law,
which reveals our sin to ourselves. 47
45
See Johnson, Natural Law Ethics, 15-18.
46
Thomas Aquinas, “Treatise on Law,” questions 90 -96 of the Summa Theologica I-II,
trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benzinger, 1947), question 91,
article 3. Republished online in Classics of Political Philosophy, available here:
http://www.sophia-project.org/uploads/1/3/9/5/13955288/aquinas_law.pdf.
47
Luther, Galatians, 308, 309.
Calvin did not woodenly follow the terminology of Luther, but his
teaching was remarkably similar. First, Calvin compared the moral law to
a mirror that “warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns, every man
of his own unrighteousness” so one sees the need for forgiveness. 48 He then
added, “The second function of the law is this: at least by fear of punish-
ment to restrain certain men who are untouched by any care for what is
just and right,” almost a repeat of Luther. 49
In this manner the Reformation more clearly distinguished the dimen-
sions of the biblical/classical synthesis which came through Aristotle from
those which came through Augustine. The reasoning of Aristotle formed
the basis for the civic use of the moral law; the reasoning of Augustine sup-
ported the spiritual use of God’s moral law. On the question of how to order
life in society, Calvin can be taken as speaking for the main Reformers:
“There is nothing more common than for a man to be sufficiently in-
structed in a right standard of conduct by natural law.”50
The purpose of this brief history is to invite further discussion with
the scholars of Humanitarian Islam. Since antiquity in Western theology
and philosophy, the natural moral law has been the conceptual key for
how morally serious people have responded simultaneously to moral rel-
ativism, political absolutism, and religious authoritarianism. The termi-
nology is not wooden, but the principles are important; the universal eth-
ical standard merits high-level discussion across religions and cultures. It
seems probable that Humanitarian Islam can articulate a theory and
method of application of the natural moral law, perhaps using the termi-
nology of the “higher Sharia” which sometimes appears in Muslim phi-
losophy.
4. Ethical standards and human goods

Within Christian ethics there is a developing discussion of the relation be-
tween ethical standards and human goods which has significant parallels
in the ethics of Humanitarian Islam. In Western civilization for 300 years
it has been common to distinguish between those things which are good
for people and those things seen as abstract duties, doing what is “right”
regardless of consequences for people. In moral theory this is the contrast
between utilitarian ethics (good results for someone, often described as
48
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis
Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), II, vii, 6.
49
Calvin, Institutes, II, vii, 10.
50
Calvin, Institutes, II, ii, 22.
pleasure) and deontological ethics (doing what is good in itself). But this
sharp contrast has not seemed reasonable to many people in the theistic
religions. The assumption of a unified divine origin of people (with their
needs and normal goods) and of moral duties (which are mostly to other
people) has often prompted Jews, Christians, and Muslims to see an inter-
nal link between ethical standards (abstract duties) and human goods (the
results of good actions). For example, Moses is quoted as saying, “The Lord
commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so
that we might always prosper and be kept alive,” clearly connecting ab-
stract duty to God with human well-being (Deuteronomy 6:24).
In his discussion of this question, Aquinas argued that there are de-
finable human goods that correspond with God-given human inclina-
tions, that the natural moral law commands us to protect these goods,
and that good, enforceable human laws give more detail about how to
protect these human goods. Commentators on Aquinas normally say
these primary human goods are “life, procreation, social life, knowledge,
and rational conduct.” 51 To avoid a secularized misunderstanding of
Aquinas, one should note that knowledge, in his definition, includes
knowing the truth about God. His definition of social life includes the pro-
tection of private property. 52
There is an astonishing similarity between Aquinas’ definition of hu-
man goods and the definitions provided by the Sunni jurists Imam al-Ghaz-
ali (1058–1111) and Imam al-Shatibi (d. 1388), who are quoted in the Dec-
laration on Humanitarian Islam of 2017. These Sunni jurists described five
human goods — faith, life, progeny, reason and property — which should
be protected by ethical norms, the maqasid al-shari‘ah. This similarity re-
flects extensive interaction between Muslim and Christian scholars in the
twelfth through fourteenth centuries, which occurred largely in France
and southern Europe. They interacted with each other to the extent that
51
For example, Mark Murphy, “The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics,” Stanford Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy (2002, revised 2019), available here: https://plato.stan
ford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/. Since the time of Aquinas some Christians
have interpreted the Ten Commandments as God-given rules to protect these vul-
nerable human goods.
52
See “Treatise on Law,” question 94, article 2. The “New Natural Law” theory offers
a longer list of primary human goods, mostly by means of dividing Aquinas’ cate-
gories into distinct parts. For example, John Finnis argues that the basic forms of
human good, which he also calls “values,” are life, knowledge, play, aesthetic ex-
perience, sociability (friendship), practical reasonableness, and religion. Natural
Rights and Natural Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 59-99.
it is now difficult to know who influenced whom and who is quoting whom
in many books or essays. 53
A clarification of the human goods that has been articulately argued in
the twenty-first century is that it is not only faith (or knowledge of God)
which is a primary human good; freedom of religion should be described
as a basic human good to be protected by moral and civil law. 54 Indeed, it
may be wise to argue that freedom of religion should be at the top of the
list of primary human goods, because of the way in which freedom of reli-
gion plays an important role in securing or promoting the other human
goods. 55
Primary human goods in medieval Primary human goods in medieval

Christian philosophy: Muslim philosophy:
1. Life 1. Faith
2. Procreation 2. Life
3. Social life (including property) 3. Progeny
4. Knowledge (including God) 4. Reason
5. Rational conduct 5. Property
The ethical standards by which the medieval Christian and Muslim schol-
ars evaluated human law were not precisely written in a particular text,
though all these writers spent large parts of their lives interpreting the
religious texts of their respective traditions. One side (Muslim) references
a transcendent or higher sharia, while the other side (Christian) references
a natural moral law imprinted in the human mind made in the image of
God which no one can truly claim not to know. The Muslim and Christian
53
For more background on al-Shatibi, see Ahmad al-Raysuni, Imam al-Shatibi’s Theory
of the Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic Law, trans. from Arabic by Nancy Rob-
erts; abridged by Alison Lake (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2013).
54
Robert P. George, “Religious Liberty and the Human Good,” International Journal for
Religious Freedom 5:1 2012, 35-44, available here: https://www.iirf.eu/site/as
sets/files/92052/ijrf_vol5-1.pdf.
55
Brian Grimm and Roger Finke have used social science research to argue convinc-
ingly that freedom of religion contributes to many other indicators of societal
flourishing including economic growth, political freedom, freedom of the press,
longevity of democracy, lower levels of armed conflict, and reduction of poverty.
See, for example, The Price of Freedom Denied Religious Persecution and Conflict in the
Twenty-First Century, Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
(Cambridge University Press, 2011).
scholars came to astonishingly similar conclusions regarding the primary

human goods which are to be protected by the application of religious and
civil laws. The representatives of Humanitarian Islam have made these me-
dieval claims prominent in their twenty-first-century proclamations in re-
sponse to religious extremism; at the same time Western Christian philos-
ophers have been reactivating the same topic because of a loss of an ethical
standard by which one can evaluate civil law in fully secularized societies.
After a pause of several hundred years, one must say, “Let the Mus-
lim/Christian discussion continue!” 56
56
To avoid misunderstanding one must emphasize that within Christianity the dis-
cussion of fundamental human goods and the natural moral law have to do with
standards in society, how we relate to each other in society, and how we organize
society. This is distinct from salvation, how we relate to God, how Christians pro-
claim the gospel of Christ, and the life of the churches. Human goods and the nat-
ural moral law are related to what Martin Luther and John Calvin described as the
“civil use of the law.”
From Clash to Cooperation
In our situation in which many thoughtful observers have worried about
a clash between Christian and Muslim civilizations leading to a third
world war, seeing each act of aggression between Muslims and Christians
as a step in this direction, there can be tremendous gain by simply telling
the world that a major Christian body (Evangelicals) and a major Muslim
body (Humanitarian Islam) can achieve peace with each other. This is not
the peace of shared religious beliefs; it is the peace of compatible ap-
proaches to life in society based on similar approaches to public ethics.
Though in past times Christians and Muslims sometimes defined their re-
ligions in territorial terms, promoting religiously defined countries or
states, almost all Christians and many Muslims have changed or are now
changing their views of the relation between religious communities and
the state, without changing their central beliefs about how people relate
to God. Outmoded views of the relation between religion and the state
not only contributed to conflict and war; such views also caused many to
use inappropriate methods to prevent conversions between religions.
Now Christians and Muslims even have the possibility to talk about the
ethics of religious persuasion and ethical ways of relating to people who
convert out of our religious communities, themes hardly anyone could
discuss a few centuries ago.
Though they may always understand God and relate to God in very dif-
ferent ways, Humanitarian Muslims and Evangelical Christians see life,
family, rationality, a faith community, and an orderly social/economic life
as fundamental human goods that lead to flourishing in this world. They
know that these deep human goods are vulnerable, needing protection
from various political, spiritual, and moral threats. They have similar con-
victions regarding universal moral standards that should influence reli-
gious and legal norms, all of which should protect human goods. This must
be demonstrated intellectually, politically, in education, and in shared hu-
manitarian efforts.
Though the conflict between Christianity and Islam has a long history,
this does not mean it is inevitable or that it has to be eternal. One must
recognize the degree to which prior conflicts have been closely tied to out-
moded understandings of the relation between religious communities and
states, precisely the issue that is now changing.
I wish to close by proposing specific practical steps, all of which can
build on the shared principles explained in this paper. These are all
proposals of what Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Muslims can

do together:
1. Joint academic events at which university scholars and school-

teachers from both religious communities discuss how to teach
questions regarding religions in society.
2. Joint publications leading to or flowing from such joint academic
events.
3. Joint meetings of parliamentarians from both faith communities to
cooperate in the development of civil law so as to protect the basic
human goods that derive from our understanding of the universal
moral law.
4. Working together to provide information about tools for business,
government, and education that promote harmonious interaction
among people from multiple cultures and religions.
5. Joint humanitarian aid programs.
6. Cooperation in addressing problems that government alone cannot
readily solve, such as homelessness, human trafficking, drug addic-
tion, natural disasters, and environmental problems.
7. Joint peace interventions in places where Christians and Muslims
have been on the opposite sides of conflict.
8. Joint interventions in places where identifiable people groups have
their entire future at risk.
Though not addressed at length in this paper, secularism, atheism, and

moral relativism in the modern West have been partly fueled for at least
350 years by the perception that organized religions are a cause of war and
oppression. The perception of religious extremism has fueled secularism.
This perception has tended to marginalize religious ethics and religious
communities, sometimes pushing religious believers to privatize their
convictions. Religious identity has sometimes been weaponized against re-
ligious believers. The level of philosophical agreement discovered in this
paper would warrant a concerted joint effort, which would require intel-
lectual creativity by the thought leaders of Evangelical Christianity and
Humanitarian Islam.
Appendix I: Beyond Freedom of Religion
As demonstrated above, when the fundamental principles of Humanitar-
ian Islam are brought into interaction with corresponding principles of
Christian ethics, one obtains an ethical and legal perspective that can re-
spond to religious extremism and also respond to efforts to maintain reli-
giously defined states which require a particular religious identity to be
full stakeholders in the society. This means we have clear ways of explain-
ing the moral wrongness of both religious extremism and religiously de-
fined states, on the basis of which we can then engage in principled argu-
ment with people and groups who support such morally wrong relations
between religions and society. Such public-square moral argumentation
could be much more influential if conducted by official representatives of
two major religious traditions that were once perceived to be in endless
conflict with each other.
Such a joint methodology of explaining and arguing the moral wrong-
ness of public actions can, I believe, also be applied to all the major causes
of religious persecution. But religious persecution is seldom isolated from
other problems in society. Religious persecution, as we usually observe it,
is organically tied to many of the major human-caused threats to societal
flourishing. Over a long period of time, a joint Muslim–Christian public
voice presenting principled arguments against religious persecution could
have an enormous global impact that extends to the many other problems
that are commonly associated with religious persecution.
The Open Doors World Watch Monitor has identified eight “engines of
religious persecution,” the types of ideas, societal forces, and political
movements that repeatedly lead to persecution and repression for Chris-
tians. Open Doors primarily represents Evangelical Christians, but its
methods of assessment are not specifically Christian and can be used by
anyone concerned for human rights. The engines of persecution they have
identified should also be of grave concern to Humanitarian Muslims and
to all mature religious communities; these engines of persecution are
threats to human flourishing very broadly.
All the engines of persecution arise from individuals or groups of
people making decisions that are morally wrong. Given the devastating
results of religious persecution, a determined global effort to address
these factors in any way possible is warranted. Here we glance at these
engines, asking the reader to note that all involve people making wrong
decisions. 57
1. Islamic Extremism. “Islamic extremists range from extremist states

that require sharia law, such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, to extremist
movements that seek to impose Islam but through relatively peace-
ful means, such as the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
There are extremist groups that espouse violence to achieve their
aims, such as Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. And there are ex-
tremist households or individuals, which are the most effective in
enforcing Islam’s apostasy laws.”
2. Religious Nationalism. 58 “This refers to an ideology that seeks to
make a territory or a state exclusively the province of a particular
religion. It sees its religion as utterly supreme over other religions
and traditions, and sets a very clear national boundary on its mili-
tancy. In this respect it is distinct from Islamic extremism, which is
always trans-national . . . . This engine refers more specifically, for
example, to the Hindu nationalists in India, who use the ideology of
Hindutva to justify their vision of a Hindu India. Or, to the nation-
alist Buddhists in Sri Lanka, who maintain all Sinhala people must
be Buddhist lest they betray their heritage and country.”
3. Tribal Antagonism. “This refers to the reality that when someone be-
comes a Christian they are often persecuted because they are seen
to have turned their back on the traditions of their tribe. Sometimes
the tribe may have its own religion, such as animistic tribes in parts
of Africa. Or, sometimes the tribe may simply be a social or blood
obligation that can act as strongly as the religious ties.”
4. Ecclesiastical Arrogance. “This is where a church tries to impose its
version of Christianity on everyone, especially other Christians, and
57
“What are ‘Engines of Persecution’?” The quotations in this section are from this web-
site: https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/what-are-engines-of-persecution/.
58
The term “religious nationalism” is used with widely different definitions. The
World Watch List is defining dysfunctional religious nationalism. Some religious
movements describe themselves as nationalist because they claim their religion
contributes to nation-building, with the expectation that other religions can also
contribute to building their nation. This second type of religious nationalism is
compatible with freedom of religion. It may be possible for religious movements
that once promoted dysfunctional religious nationalism, claiming one had to be-
long to their religion to be a good citizen of their nation, to become healthy reli-
gious nationalists, positioning their religion and other religions to contribute to
the development of their nation.
Appendix I: Beyond Freedom of Religion 51
refuses to accept the validity of other traditions.” A similar problem

can be observed among the different versions of Islam.
5. Communist Oppression. “Communism is an ideology that seeks to
bring about a classless paradise through the triumph of the worker
and is utterly atheistic in its method. But it is also a system of con-
trol, where the state seeks to ensure the church is registered in or-
der to control it. While the ideological drive of communism is fa-
tally wounded today, the communist system of state control over
the church remains especially in those post-communist states such
as Russia and the so called ‘Stans’ of Central Asia. Today, there are
four countries left that are still formally communist: China, Vi-
etnam, Laos and Cuba, though it is hard to say how much of the ide-
ology remains and how much is just the system of control staying
in place.”
6. Dictatorial Paranoia. “Dictatorial paranoia drives a political leader
and the inner clique to dominate every aspect of society. The dicta-
tor is seized by fear that someone, somewhere, is plotting an over-
throw. No one is allowed to organize outside state control.”
7. Secular Intolerance. “Secularism can be understood two ways.
There is the positive side: The state remains neutral, or secular, in
the face of religion, refusing to favor one faith or denomination
over another. Indeed, in this sense, state secularism is a legacy of
the Reformation, where the Anabaptists, for example, regarded
themselves as aggressive secularists. The negative side: Atheists in-
sist all religion be expunged from public life and from crucial dis-
cussions about social issues such as sexuality, marriage, and human
dignity. The state’s historical neutrality no longer is deemed suffi-
cient; instead, religious expression is seen as injurious to the public
good. Aggressive secularists do not tolerate dissenting interpreta-
tions of how to conduct public life, and claim that all religious ex-
pression is by definition pathological. This engine is most powerful
in the Western world.”
8. Organized Corruption. “When societies contain elites like mafias
that run extensive economic rackets, Christians can get targeted
when their ethics threaten these rackets. An obvious example are
the Latin American regions run by guerrilla armies who get their
funds through drug trafficking. Pastors or priests who stand against
the drug trade are threatened and killed. This engine is perhaps the
most global of them all, as each society – especially where the state
is weak or complicit – contains very deliberate and organized
schemes to direct riches to an often violent elite.”
These eight engines which power the persecution of Christians are also
threats to the well-being of the Humanitarian Islam community. Indeed,
they are many of the major threats to human well-being more generally,
attacks on the primary human goods as described in both Muslim and
Christian philosophy.
Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Muslims should cooperate in
a global strategy of moral reasoning to argue against such causes of reli-
gious persecution. This means convincing people that such actions are un-
ethical, morally wrong. This should not be merely self-defensive. From the
Christian side we will surely want to describe such an undertaking as part
of our love for our neighbors and attempting to be light in the world. Hu-
manitarian Muslims will surely want to add their own religious description
and motivation of such cooperative efforts.
Appendix II: Christian Milestones
on Religion and War
The conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312
CE, along with the decriminalization of the Christian faith which followed
in 313 CE, were important steps in the trajectory in which Christianity be-
came the largest and sometimes official religion of Europe. This transition
came immediately after a persecution (303-311 CE) during which Emperor
Diocletian attempted to exterminate Christianity in the Roman Empire.
However, only a century later, in 411 CE, Saint Augustine supported the
efforts of the Roman Empire to use force to suppress (persecute) the Don-
atist heresy in the Christian churches in North Africa. In 100 years, one
part of Christianity had gone from receiving to supporting religious per-
secution. 59 This established a damaging precedent with repeated echoes
within Christian history.
Another milestone in this trajectory came on Christmas, 800 CE, when
Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as “Emperor of the Romans.” Charle-
magne was called the “New Constantine,” who ruled over the Imperium
Christianum. Though all the participants in this transition had several mo-
tives, including an East/West balance of power in Europe between the
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire and a renewed Western Roman Em-
pire, one of the motives was to have a Western European power block that
could resist the Islamic nations on their southern border. The grandfather
of Charlemagne, Charles Martel, was famous for defeating a Muslim army
at Tours in 732 CE; the new Emperor had to walk in his footsteps. There
was a division of power between Church and Empire, including continuous
competition between Church and Empire in some spheres of life; never-
theless, having a specifically Christian Empire reduced freedom of religion
for other religions (including Christian movements outside the main
church) and helped set the stage for wars with religious motivations, such
as the Crusades. The wars with religious dimensions included the devast-
ing European wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 brought the Thirty Years’ War (1618-
1648) to an end. This war has been described as a “War of Religion” which
contributed to the secularization of the West. Though this war was partly
59
Let me assure the reader that I assess Donatism as a real perversion of Christian
teaching, but the use of force to suppress a theological heresy was a disastrous
precedent.
between Catholics and Protestants, there were both Protestants and Cath-
olics on both sides in many major battles, and powerful Catholic France
fought against the Catholic Habsburg Empire. It is more accurate to say the
Thirty Years’ War was religious in result rather than religious in cause.
That result was a higher level of state control over the churches. A key
principle of the Peace of Westphalia was cuius regio, eius religio, the one
who reigns decides the religion for his domain. The reigning nobility was
expected to allow limited freedom for other Christian churches, but this
did not always happen, an unhappy milestone in church/state relations.
Though Christian churches had influence on the reigning nobles, the cost
was sometimes a high level of control of the churches by the state.
Despite this unfortunate mix of religion with various nations and em-
pires, that is only one side of the story. For countless millions, Christianity
was about knowing God and serving God, with little regard to the nation
or empire. Every century saw new Christian movements, orders, and mis-
sions, many of which implicitly rejected the union of churches and states;
others explicitly rejected the church/state union by teaching that faithful
Christians may not work for a government, especially not in a military or
police role. Some, such as Roger Williams (1603-1683) in Rhode Island,
wrote principles of freedom of religion into law; others, such as Jan Amos
Comenius (1592-1670), made bold proposals for renewing and reorganizing
church, education, and the state.
The founding of the Evangelical Alliance in 1846 should be seen in this
light, as an attempt to spiritually renew Western Protestantism in a way
that connected churches in several countries with each other, thereby re-
ducing the importance of the connection of those churches with their na-
tions and their governments. From its first years, the EA (now called the
World Evangelical Alliance) engaged governments on behalf of religious
freedom for people who were not Protestants, signaling a complete break
with notions of church/state relations inherited from the Peace of West-
phalia. 60 Unfortunately, this other side of the story was not totally estab-
lished in Christianity until 1918.
World War I (1914-1918) demonstrated that the relationship of Christi-
anity to militarism was not solved. In the words of Philip Jenkins, “The
First World War was a thoroughly religious event, in the sense that
60
See Gerhard Lindemann, Die Geschichte der Evangelischen Allianz im Zeitalter des Libe-
ralismus (1846-1879); Theologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft Bd. 24 (English title
translation: The History of the Evangelical Alliance in the Age of Liberalism (1846-1879).
Theology: Research and Scholarship Vol. 24; Münster, Lit Verlag: 2011), 1064
pages.
Appendix II: Christian Milestones on Religion and War 55
overwhelmingly Christian nations fought each other in what many viewed

as a holy war, a spiritual conflict.” 61 The state authorities of all the primary
nations on both sides in the war claimed that they were God’s warriors
fighting against the enemies of God, while similar views were common
among the soldiers. In many battles, the soldiers on both sides could have
used the same scriptures, prayers, and creeds in church, but they killed
each other because government propaganda convinced many they had to
protect their Christian countries. “All the main combatants deployed such
[holy war ideological] language, particularly the monarchies with long tra-
ditions of state establishment — the Russians, Germans, British, Austro-
Hungarians, and Ottoman Turks — but also those notionally secular repub-
lics: France, Italy, and the United States. More specifically, with the obvi-
ous exception of the Turks, it was a Christian war.” 62
For example, using language that has offended many for a century, the
American Congregationalist spokesman Newell Dwight Hillis took his holy
war teaching to its logical conclusion, that Satan’s earthly servants must
be annihilated; that meant that the entire German race should be extermi-
nated. “In 1918, he urged the international community ‘to consider the
sterilization of the ten million German soldiers, and the segregation of
their women, that when this generation of German goes, civilized cities,
states and races may be rid of this awful cancer that must be cut clean out
of the body of society.’ America’s Liberty Loan Committee distributed a
million and a half extracts from Hillis’s book.” 63
Lest one miss the point, as part of gaining popular support for US in-
volvement in the First World War, a prominent Protestant minister advo-
cated genocide, and this open Christian endorsement of genocide became
part of the US government propaganda for participation in the war. The
German soldiers he wanted to exterminate wore belt buckles with “Gott
mit uns” (God with us) printed on them, while their understanding of God
was shaped by German Protestantism. Only a century ago, this was a low
point in church/state relations in the West. It sounded as if one group of
Christian countries was destroying another group of Christian countries,
all seeking to defend Christianity with the force of arms.64
61
Philip Jenkins, The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade
(HarperCollins: Kindle Edition, 2014), 4-5.
62
Jenkins, p. 7.
63
Jenkins, p. 11. Jenkins was quoting Newell Dwight Hillis, The Blot on the Kaiser’s
Scutcheon (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1918), p. 59.
64
Some American Protestant clergy took a radically different approach. For exam-
ple, E. J. Tanis wrote The Church, the Christian, and the War (Grand Rapids: Louis Kre-
gel, 1917), in which he claimed, “The Church, as an institution, and in her official
As is true of Muslims, most Christians are sickened to see their religion

used to support killing. Soon after the first war, Christians in most of the
branches of Christianity began to see religious support for excessive milita-
rism as an indication that the spiritual life of their churches was in sharp de-
cline. Attempts at spiritual renewal, often led by renewals of Christian theol-
ogy, blossomed in most of the countries that participated in the war, with the
primary exception of Russia, which was dominated by the Communist Revo-
lution. This moral/spiritual transition prompted a reformulation of the as-
sumption that there should be such an entity as a Christian empire or nation.
In the 1920s and 1930s, there were numerous calls for a renewed
“Christian West,” “Christian Europe,” or “Christian America,” with a view
toward spiritual renewal that went beyond the realm of personal life and
the church. However, these calls for a return to Christian civilization were
different from such movements of a prior era; this difference is seen in the
way in which these religious and cultural renewal movements were multi-
national and frequently crossed lines among churches that had little com-
munication before 1920. By the 1920s, Christians who tried to kill each
other as soldiers between 1914 and 1918 were praying together for the
spiritual renewal of Western culture. Even when not explicitly rejected,
older notions of a Christian Empire or of a close alliance of church and state
were dropped as Christians from many states and churches engaged in
spiritual fellowship with each other.
Seemingly in place of an expectation of the previous era, that a state
would receive moral standards from its official or dominant religion, many
Christian intellectuals from several countries and churches of the 1920s
through 1940s began to discuss ethical standards that should apply to all
people and institutions, regardless of religion. There were two main lines
of discussion which often overlapped and intersected under the terminol-
ogy of “universal human rights” and of a “natural moral law.” 65 The notion
capacity, can take no part in the hostilities of war. She cannot preach sermons in
which the wrongs of other nations are emphasized and the people wronged are
aroused to retaliate. The German and English clergymen have been guilty of this
sin, and it behooves the Church of Christ in America to guard against this error”
p. 8. He continues, “The Christian sees in the present war, confined to the nations
of Christendom, the righteous scourge of a just and holy God because of the pre-
sent apostacy of the present generation” p. 10. Full disclosure: E. J. Tanis was the
grandfather of my wife and was a spiritual hero in our circles.
65
These noteworthy thinkers included Jacques Maritain of France (1882-1973),
Charles Malik of Lebanon (1906-1987), H. Emil Brunner of Switzerland (1889-1966),
Dietrich Bonhoeffer of Germany, especially in his posthumous writings (1906-
1945), and C. S. Lewis of the United Kingdom (1898-1963).
Appendix II: Christian Milestones on Religion and War 57
of a natural moral law was more difficult to popularize, but the notion of
universal human rights provided theoretical language to articulate the
moral revulsion felt by millions at the sight of two world wars and the Hol-
ocaust. 66 The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the
United Nations in 1948, including its strong doctrine of religious freedom,
signaled the end of the Constantinian era in Christian political ethics.
There was a long era, from the Donatist persecution of 411 CE till the
end of the First World War in 1918, during which parts of Western Christi-
anity included problematic themes in its approach to church/state rela-
tions. This included notions of a Christian Empire or nation, with various
attempts at church-controlled states and state-controlled churches. These
assumptions occasionally dominated political propaganda even in coun-
tries that had a legal separation of church and state, such as France and
the US. Over a period of 30 years, from 1918 to 1948, Western Christianity
finally dropped these problematic themes from its social teaching, replac-
ing them with a doctrine of universal human rights, including the defini-
tion of freedom of religion in the UN Declaration of 1948 that protected
the right of people to convert to other (non-Christian) religions. This is the
same era that Indonesian Muslims, led by the Nahdlatul Ulama, began in
1926 to fully articulate their principles of religious toleration and plural-
ism. These developments in Christian and Muslim political ethics set the
stage for Christianity to engage Islam in a manner that is totally different
from the era of crusades and jihads.
66
In the decades following 1948, United Nations human rights efforts and language
became increasingly separated from the earlier fruitful interaction with the nat-
ural moral law. As a result, human rights were partly reduced from being a key
component of a global moral compass to be an object of political manipulations.
See Aaron Rhodes, The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of
Freedom (Encounter Books, 2018).
Appendix III: Selections from the Sources
of the Humanitarian Islam Movement
The Humanitarian Islam movement is publishing a series of public docu-
ments regarding its approach to the re-contextualization or reformation
of Islam. Until this time (July 2020), two of these documents are longer and
of a more foundational nature than are the other documents. These two
documents are the Declaration on Humanitarian Islam of May 2017, and the
Nusantara Manifesto of October 2018. The Nusantara Manifesto included, as
an official appendix, the essay “God Needs No Defense” (Tuhan Tak Perlu
Dibela) by H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, giving that text an official
status within the movement. Serious students of Islam and of the founda-
tions for human rights are encouraged to read these texts in their entirety.
As an introduction, these excerpts are included as an appendix. These ex-
cerpts were selected by Thomas K. Johnson, not by a representative of the
Humanitarian Islam movement. The paragraph numbers are taken from
the original sources.
1. Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration

on Humanitarian Islam
Towards the Recontextualization of Islamic Teachings, for the Sake of
World Peace and Harmony Between Civilizations
This Declaration was adopted at the International Gathering of Ulama

(“Halaqah”) held on 21 – 22 May 2017 at Pondok Pesantren Bahrul ‘Ulum,
Tambak Beras in Jombang, East Java.
The Context
1. In the theory of classical Islamic law (usul fiqh), religious norms (akham;
singular, hukm) constitute a response to reality. The purpose of religious
norms (maqasid alshari‘ah) is to ensure the spiritual and material well-being
of humanity.
2. The authoritative Sunni jurists, Imam al-Ghazali and Imam al-Shat-
ibi, identified five primary components of maqasid al-shari‘ah, viz., the
preservation of faith, life, progeny, reason and property.
3. Religious norms may be universal and unchanging—e.g., the imper-
ative that one strive to attain moral and spiritual perfection—or they may
be “contingent,” if they address a specific issue that arises within the ever-
changing circumstances of time and place.
4. As reality changes, contingent—as opposed to universal—religious
norms should also change to reflect the constantly shifting circumstances
of life on earth. This was in fact the case during the early centuries of Islam,
as various schools of Islamic law (madzhab) emerged and evolved. For the
past five centuries, however, the practice of ijtihad (independent legal rea-
soning, employed to create new religious norms) has generally lapsed
throughout the Sunni Muslim world.
5. When contemporary Muslims seek religious guidance, the most
widely-accepted and authoritative reference source—indeed, the standard
of Islamic orthodoxy—is the corpus of classical Islamic thought (turats)—
and especially fiqh (jurisprudence)—that reached its peak of development
in the Middle Ages and was then frozen in place, largely unchanged to the
present day.
6. A wide discrepancy now exists between the structure of Islamic or-
thodoxy and the context of Muslims’ actual (lived) reality, due to immense
changes that have occurred since the teachings of orthodox Islam grew
ossified towards the end of the medieval era.
Appendix III: Selections from the Sources of the Humanitarian Islam Movement 61
7. This disjunct between key tenets of Islamic orthodoxy and the reality
of contemporary civilization can, and often does, lead Muslims into phys-
ical, moral and spiritual danger, if they insist upon observing certain ele-
ments of fiqh, regardless of their present context. Among the complex is-
sues that lie at the heart of this discrepancy are:
• Normative practices governing relations between Muslims and
non-Muslims, including the rights, responsibilities and role of non-
Muslims who live in Muslim-majority societies, and vice versa;
• Relations between the Muslim and non-Muslim world, including
the proper aims and conduct of warfare;
• The existence of modern nation states and their validity—or lack
thereof—as political systems that govern the lives of Muslims; and
• State constitutions and statutory laws/legal systems that emerged
from modern political processes, and their relationship to shari‘ah.
8. Social and political instability, civil war and terrorism all arise from
the attempt, by ultraconservative Muslims, to implement certain elements
of fiqh within a context that is no longer compatible with said classical
norms.
9. Any attempt to establish a universal Islamic state—al-imamah al-
udzma (the Great Imamate), also known as al-khilafah (the Caliphate)—will
only lead to disaster for Muslims, as one aspirant battles with another for
dominion of the entire Islamic world.
10. The history of Islam following the death of the Prophet’s (saw.) son-
in-law, Sayyidina Ali, demonstrates that any attempt to acquire and con-
solidate political/military power in the form of a Caliphate will inevitably
be accompanied by the slaughter of one’s opponents, and tragedy for the
Muslim community as a whole, particularly at the outset of a new dynasty.
11. When this effort is fused with the orthodox injunction to engage in
offensive war against non-Muslims—until they convert or submit to Is-
lamic rule, so that the entire world may be united beneath the banner of
Islam—this constitutes a summons to perpetual conflict, whose ever-wid-
ening appeal to Muslims is rooted in the very history and teachings of Is-
lam itself.
12. Indeed, authoritative elements of fiqh describe such conflict as a re-
ligious obligation—which, at times, is incumbent upon the Muslim com-
munity in general, and others, upon every Muslim adult male, depending
on the circumstances involved—for these religious norms emerged at a
time when conflict between Islam and non-Muslim neighboring states was
nearly universal.
13. If Muslims do not address the key tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that
authorize and explicitly enjoin such violence, anyone—at any time—may
harness the orthodox teachings of Islam to defy what they claim to be the
illegitimate laws and authority of an infidel state and butcher their fellow
citizens, regardless of whether they live in the Islamic world or the West.
This is the bloody thread that links so many current events, from Egypt,
Syria and Yemen to the streets of Mumbai, Jakarta, Berlin, Nice, Stockholm
and Westminster.
14. Civil discord, acts of terrorism, rebellion and outright warfare—all
pursued in the name of Islam—will continue to plague Muslims, and
threaten humanity at large, until these issues are openly acknowledged
and resolved.
15. Clearly, the world is in need of an alternative Islamic orthodoxy,
which the vast majority of Muslims will embrace and follow.
16. The question that confronts humanity—Muslims and non-Muslims
alike—is: how can we encourage, and ultimately ensure, that such an alter-
native not only arises, but becomes the dominant orthodoxy?
A Threat to All Humanity
25. The Islamic world is in the midst of a rapidly metastasizing crisis, with
no apparent sign of remission. Among the most obvious manifestations of
this crisis are the brutal conflicts now raging across a huge swath of terri-
tory inhabited by Muslims, from Africa and the Middle East to the borders
of India; rampant social turbulence throughout the Islamic world; the un-
checked spread of religious extremism and terror; and a rising tide of Is-
lamophobia among non-Muslim populations, in direct response to these
developments.
26. Most of the political and military actors engaged in these conflicts
pursue their competing agendas without regard to the cost in human lives
and misery. This has led to an immense humanitarian crisis, while height-
ening the appeal and dramatically accelerating the spread of a de facto Is-
lamist revolutionary movement that threatens the stability and security
of the entire world, by summoning Muslims to join a global insurrection
against the current world order.
27. In other words, the crisis that engulfs the Islamic world is not lim-
ited to armed conflicts raging in various and sundry regions. Due to the
transcendent value ascribed to religious belief by the vast majority of Mus-
lims, the competition for power in the Islamic world necessarily includes
a major sectarian/ideological (i.e., religious) component.
28. Various actors—including but not limited to Iran, Saudi Arabia, ISIS,
al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and Pa-
kistan—cynically manipulate religious sentiment in their struggle to main-
tain or acquire political, economic and military power, and to destroy their
enemies. They do so by drawing upon key elements of classical Islamic law
(fiqh), to which they ascribe divine authority, in order to mobilize support
for their worldly goals.
29. Mirroring this phenomenon, Western populists, Hindu nationalists
and Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka and Myanmar often cite the identical el-
ements of Islamic orthodoxy, and the behavior of Muslims, to justify their
perception of Islam as a subversive political ideology, rather than as a re-
ligion deserving of constitutional protections and respect.
A Critical Juncture
31. Whether conscious or not, willing or not, Muslims face a choice be-
tween starkly different visions of the future. Will they strive to recreate
the long-lost ideal of religious, political and territorial unity beneath the
banner of a Caliphate—and thus seek to restore Islamic supremacy—as re-
flected in their communal memory and still firmly entrenched within the
prevailing corpus, and worldview, of orthodox, authoritative Islam? Or will
they strive to develop a new religious sensibility that reflects the actual
circumstances of our modern civilization, and contributes to the emer-
gence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect
for the equal dignity and rights of every human being?
48. The Wahhabi/ultraconservative view of Islam—which is embraced
not only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also by al-Qaeda and ISIS—is intri-
cately wedded to those elements of classical Islamic law that foster sec-
tarian hatred and violence.
49. Wahhabism is characterized by extreme animosity towards Shi’ites.
It is also characterized by antipathy—at times violent—towards Christians,
Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Sunni Muslims who do not share the Wahha-
bis’ rigid and authoritarian view of Islam.
50. In seeking to mobilize Sunni Muslims in opposition to Iran, Saudi
Arabia has unleashed a demon upon the world, which threatens the tem-
poral and spiritual well-being of Muslims. It does so by indoctrinating Mus-
lims in religious hatred, and teaching them to ignore the primary message
of Islam as a source of universal love and compassion (rahmah). The gov-
ernment of Pakistan has fallen prey to the same temptation, in its peren-
nial competition with India.
53. It is essential to strip away the veil of illusion employed by state and
non-state actors, whenever and wherever they seek to instrumentalize Is-
lam to pursue their political, economic and military interests.
54. Those who overtly and/or covertly employ problematic tenets of
fiqh to achieve their worldly objectives must be held accountable and,
whenever possible, required to alter their behavior.
55. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar do not tolerate foreign interference in
their domestic affairs, especially in regard to religion and politics. No na-
tion in the world should tolerate, nor be subjected to, interference in its
domestic affairs by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Iran.
56. Saudi opposition to Iran, ISIS and al-Qaeda does not and should not
absolve it from responsibility for promoting the very ideology that under-
lies and animates Sunni extremism and terror.
57. The temporal and spiritual welfare of Muslims, and humanity at
large, requires that Saudi Arabia abandon the “global Wahhabization/rad-
icalization” strategy it has employed, to date, in seeking to contain Iran. It
is a fundamental principle of Sunni Islam not to employ evil means to ad-
dress problems caused by evil.
2. The Nusantara Manifesto

Launching the Recontextualization (i.e., Reform) of Obsolete and Problem-
atic Tenets Within Islamic Orthodoxy
A call to people of goodwill of every faith and nation

to join in building a global consensus
to prevent the political weaponization of Islam,
whether by Muslims or non-Muslims,
and to curtail the spread of communal hatred
by fostering the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order,
founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity
of every human being.
This Manifesto was officially adopted and promulgated by Gerakan

Pemuda Ansor and Bayt ar-Rahmah at the Second Global Unity Forum,
held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on October 25 and 26, 2018. It builds on the
claims presented in the Declaration of Humanitarian Islam, especially points
1 to 8 above. The Manifesto is forty pages in length; only some high points
are reproduced here.
9. In the words of Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the
Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council: “The Nusantara Manifesto represents
a concrete step whereby Gerakan Pemuda Ansor and Bayt ar-Rahmah are
officially, and institutionally, initiating a process to bring problematic ele-
ments of Islamic orthodoxy into alignment with the ‘civilizational reali-
ties’ of the 21st century.”
14. A rising tide of Islamism in its myriad forms—which run the gamut
from preman berjubah (thugs draped in Arab garb) to social media activists,
proselytism movements, educational networks, political parties and even
terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—has been
among the most noteworthy phenomena to emerge in Indonesia over the
past 20 years.
15. Individually and collectively, these developments threaten the
unity of Indonesia and its people, often in ways more subtle and profound
than the bloody conflicts waged in the name of Islam in regions as diverse
as Ambon, Poso and Aceh.
16. And yet, this threat is far from new. Both before and after Indonesia
achieved independence, its founding fathers had to grapple with the ten-
sion that exists between Islamic orthodoxy and the ideals of the modern
nation state. In June 1945, the members of the Preparatory Committee for
Independence (PPKI) reached a temporary consensus with the Jakarta

Charter, which subsequently formed the basis for the preamble to the Con-
stitution of Indonesia. It originally included an obligation for Muslims to
abide by Islamic law (sharī‘ah).
17. In the course of further negotiation, secular Muslim nationalists,
including Soekarno and Muhammad Hatta, persuaded their fellow com-
mittee members to delete seven words— “with Muslims required to ob-
serve Islamic law”—from the first principle of Pancasila, the foundational
political philosophy of the newly-independent Indonesia. Hatta argued
convincingly that Hindu- and Christian-dominated regions of the East In-
dies would refuse to join the Republic of Indonesia if its Constitution were
to contain the seeds of an Islamic state.
18. Yet, although the committee members unanimously adopted the
1945 Constitution (UUD-45), the tension reflected in their debate over the
Jakarta Charter has never been resolved and continues to roil Indonesian
society to the present day.
19. The election of a Constitutional Assembly, in 1955, witnessed the
reemergence of this fierce debate regarding what form of government In-
donesia should adopt: Islamic theocracy or a secular nation state. After
years of political maneuvering and conflict, in July of 1959 President Soe-
karno wielded an iron fist to end the debate, by dissolving the Constitu-
tional Assembly and re-imposing the 1945 Constitution via presidential de-
cree.
20. In addition to paralyzing legislative conflict, the 1950s were also a
time of armed rebellions waged in the name of Islam. From 1949 – 1962 the
Darul Islam/ Tentara Islam Indonesia (Islamic State/Indonesian Islamic
Army) movement flourished in West Java, South Sulawesi, South Kaliman-
tan and Aceh. DI/TII recognized only sharī‘ah as a valid source of law, while
terrorizing and beheading its opponents. In Sumatra and Sulawesi, the
Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI) raised the
banner of Islam, due to the fact that the Islamist party Masyumi—stung by
its political defeat at the hands of Soekarno, Kyai Wahab Hasbullah (Chair-
man of the Nahdlatul Ulama) and other Indonesian nationalists—was
deeply involved in the CIA-backed PRRI/Permesta rebellion (1958 – 1961).
21. These historical experiences demonstrate that Islamism—especially
as a political movement based on religious identity—is indeed a latent, en-
during threat to the existence of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indo-
nesia (NKRI) as a multi-religious and pluralistic (Pancasila) nation state.
22. Under the Soeharto regime, this threat was repressed continuously
and with considerable difficulty, but never completely neutralized. The
rising tide of Islamism in post-Soeharto Indonesia may thus be said to
constitute a “rebound” of the perennial Islamist aspiration and its accom-

panying pressure to transform Indonesia from a Pancasila nation state to
an Islamic state.
23. Social groupings based on religious identity are a natural phenom-
enon. The problem with certain tenets of Islamic orthodoxy lies in the fact
that these invariably incarnate as a form of political identity, with a
marked tendency to embrace absolutism and a hidden or explicit agenda
of dominating the existing political order, whatever that may happen to
be. Whether this struggle to acquire political supremacy is waged blatantly
or covertly is simply a matter of strategy and tactics.
24. Detailed analysis—including careful study of the historical dimen-
sions of this phenomenon—may be necessary to gain comprehensive un-
derstanding of this issue. Yet one thing cannot be denied: the aspiration
for Islam to attain political domination is indeed an intrinsic part of ortho-
dox Islamic teachings, if we employ the term “Islamic orthodoxy” to de-
scribe “an array of theological doctrines accepted by the majority of Mus-
lims as the most authoritative religious reference standard.”
25. And how could this not be the case? Islamic orthodoxy includes a
remarkably extensive discourse about public law, both civil and criminal,
which is generally described as “God’s law” (sharī‘ah)—or at least as “the
interpretation of God’s law” (fiqh)—which must be implemented in daily
life. Obviously, this cannot be achieved without political domination by
those who wish to implement sharī‘ah (in reality, fiqh), which describes the
Islamist agenda precisely.
26. Soeharto viewed Islamist political pressure as a threat to his own
power. Hence, he adopted a strategy of political and military repression,
combined with symbolic concessions carefully negotiated in order to pac-
ify the Islamist groups. The products of these negotiations are clearly vis-
ible in post-Soeharto Indonesia: the embedding of religious education
within the school curriculum; the establishment of the Indonesian Ulama
Council (MUI); the creation of an Islamic judicial system that exercises ju-
risdiction over marriage, divorce, remarriage and inheritance solely for
Muslims; “political donations” offered to compliant Islamic institutions
and organizations; the establishment of “sharī‘ah-compliant” banks; and
the creation and government support of the Association of Indonesian
Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), to name a few.
27. And yet, like Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Ataturk and the Pahlavis of
Iran, the Soeharto regime failed to address the problematic tenets within
Islamic orthodoxy that underlie and animate the perennial Islamist threat,
which can only be done through a process of recontextualizing, or reform-
ing, Islamic orthodoxy itself.
28. Throughout its history, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has been fortu-
nate to possess leaders who strongly favored the Indonesian nation state
over theocracy and genuinely yearned for the well-being and political suc-
cess of NKRI. Among the most prominent of these NU leaders were Abdul
Wahab Hasbullah and Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid. Both employed
their religious authority as chairmen of the world’s largest Islamic organ-
ization to mobilize their followers and maneuver strategically in ways that
proved crucial to the survival of NKRI, Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution
in truly desperate times.
29. During the 1950s and ‘60s, Kyai Wahab blocked Masyumi from re-
storing the Jakarta Charter and transforming Indonesia into an Islamic
state; supported Soekarno and the Indonesian military in repressing the
Darul Islam and PRRI/Permesta rebellions; and allied with Soeharto to pre-
vent a communist seizure of power, such as that which had already oc-
curred to such devastating effect in Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia,
China, North Korea and Tibet.
30. During the 1980s and 1990s, Gus Dur mobilized the NU to help en-
sure Indonesia’s successful transition from authoritarianism to democ-
racy, and thus saved his nation from the fate that engulfed Syria, Yemen
and Libya, and destroyed the fragile shoots of democracy in Egypt and
Russia.
31. Kyai Wahab and Gus Dur encouraged other NU elites to develop a
religious discourse that offered a concrete alternative to the obsolete,
problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy. This alternative Islamic discourse
has strengthened the legitimacy of NKRI, Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution
and Bhinneka Tunggal Ika—Indonesia’s national motto of “Unity Amid Di-
versity”—and mobilized the great mass of NU followers at the grassroots
level to support this alternative discourse. But the “task” Kyai Wahab, Gus
Dur and their followers have undertaken is far from complete. As Gus Dur
himself remarked, “[We] must maintain a continuous dialogue between Is-
lam and the Constitution.”
36. So long as obsolete, medieval tenets within Islamic orthodoxy re-
main the dominant source of religious authority throughout the Muslim
world, Indonesian Islamists will continue to draw power and sustenance
from developments in the world at large. This is especially true so long as
key state actors—including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Paki-
stan—continue to weaponize problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy in
pursuit of their respective geopolitical agendas.
37. These considerations have led key figures within the NU—including
Gus Dur in the months and years prior to his death, and former NU Chair-
man Kyai Haji A. MustofaBisri—to conclude that it would be impossible to
permanently resolve the tension that is inherent between Islamic ortho-

doxy and NKRI/UUD-45, so long as we confine our efforts to the domestic,
or purely Indonesian, context of the perennial Islamist threat.
38. Preserving Indonesia’s unique civilizational heritage—which gave
birth to NKRI as a multi-religious and pluralistic nation state—requires the
successful implementation of a global strategy to develop a new Islamic
orthodoxy that reflects the actual circumstances of the modern world in
which Muslims must live and practice their faith.
40. The recontextualization and reform of Islamic orthodoxy is thus
crucial to the welfare of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, for it constitutes
the one indispensable prerequisite of any rational and humane solution to
the multi-dimensional crisis that has plagued the Muslim world for over a
century and not only shows no sign of abating—despite an ever-growing
toll of human lives and misery—but rather, increasingly threatens to spill
over and engulf humanity as a whole.
Religion, Tribalism and Secular Ideology
65. Throughout history, human beings have displayed astonishingly di-

verse behavior—both noble and, conversely, cruel and ignoble—while act-
ing in the name of religion.
66. Every major religious tradition enjoins its followers to observe a
common set of humane and ethical standards, quite similar to those de-
scribed above in regard to Islam.
67. Yet for thousands of years humanity has been plagued by discord,
animosity and violence perpetrated in the name of religion, which in turn
often constitutes a de facto ethnic or “tribal” identity.
68. Again and again, those who crave worldly power have manipulated
religious sentiment in their struggle to maintain or acquire political, eco-
nomic and military supremacy, and to dominate their rivals. This has led
to untold suffering and loss of life, and precipitated the ruin of entire civ-
ilizations.
69. This raises a fundamental question regarding the nature and prac-
tice of religion, whose ramifications for modern civilization we may seek
to ignore but cannot escape.
70. As Dr. Rüdiger Lohlker observed in his essay, “Theology Matters:
the case of jihadi Islam”: “Flatly denying the importance of religion causes
many in the West to overlook a crucial element of jihadi thought and ac-
tion. This is particularly evident with regard to the mantra so often re-
peated in the wake of each new terrorist attack, viz.: ‘Islam is the religion
of peace.’ The claim that religion motivates only positive behavior among
human beings, and the implicit denial that religion may ever legitimize
negative behavior, cannot withstand intellectual scrutiny. History pro-
vides countless examples of both positive and negative behavior legiti-
mized by religion . . . .
“The only way to deconstruct this violent form of religion is to develop al-
ternative forms of religion capable of resisting the theology of violence,
which is characterized by apologetics that simultaneously demand and le-
gitimize authoritarianism, socio-cultural and religious homogeneity, and
the strict demarcation of boundaries, etc. [i.e., tyranny].”
78. Nevertheless, the ease with which Islamists have been able to exploit
problematic elements of Islamic orthodoxy to clothe their political agenda
in religious authenticity has had the far-reaching and catastrophic result
of strengthening dogmatic forces worldwide. The full ramifications of this
process are still unfolding and threaten to produce an enduring radicali-
zation of politics on a global level. This is a particularly alarming develop-
ment, as it comes at a time when the diverse peoples, cultures and civili-
zations of the world are increasingly interconnected, interdependent and
interfused.
79. In the Islamic world and those regions with localized Muslim ma-
jorities, Islamist groups have used the clarion call of establishing an Islamic
state to launch civil wars, insurgencies and campaigns of terrorism that
have left cities in ruin, countless dead and millions displaced over a vast
arc of territory stretching from the Western Sahel to the Southern Philip-
pines. Many of these conflicts have lasted for decades and, in spite of their
terrible toll, show no sign of abating in the decades to come.
80. The widespread perception of Muslims and Islam as a threat to non-
Muslim societies is a direct and intentional result of Islamist groups’ ac-
tions, and their astute use of propaganda, which transmits powerfully
symbolic images of the dystopian reality they seek to create. Horrors of
the past such as slavery, crucifixion and the public execution of alleged
homosexuals, adulterers, infidels, apostates and magicians are resur-
rected, reinstituted as valid components of an Islamic social order and
broadcast to a disgusted global audience.
Transcendent and Historically-Contingent Elements

of Religious Orthodoxy
(Thawābit and Mutaghayyirāt)
99. The majority of political conflicts within the Islamic world—and be-
tween Muslims and non-Muslims globally—stem from the Muslim world’s
failure to adapt, peacefully and harmoniously, to the realities of our cur-
rent world civilization.
100. One factor that contributes to this failure—indeed, perhaps the
primary factor—is a dominant mindset among Muslims, which tends to
view the classical orthodoxy of Islam as an unchangeable set of religious
rules and guidance.
101. Those who consider Islamic teachings to be immutable are, by def-
inition, incapable of responding to the ever-changing circumstances of life
in an appropriate and effective manner. They fail to apprehend the com-
plex nature of Islamic orthodoxy, which evolved over a number of centu-
ries in response to divine revelation and historical—i.e., sociocultural, po-
litical and military—circumstances encountered by Muslim communities
in the broader Middle East and North Africa.
102. As the majority of ‘ulamā’ (Muslim scholars) have traditionally rec-
ognized, Islamic orthodoxy consists of both transcendent (i.e., immutable)
elements (thawābit) and contingent responses to historical reality (muta-
ghayyirāt), which may be adapted to address and reflect the ever-changing
circumstances of life.
103. In order to appreciate this analytical distinction, it is necessary to
differentiate between the spiritual (i.e., essential) values of Islam and its
contingent expressions, including numerous tenets of Islamic orthodoxy
that emerged within the context of Islamic civilization in the Middle East.
104. The transcendent (immutable) elements of Islam include a peren-
nial set of messages embedded within scripture as guidelines (also known
as sharī‘ah) that apply to all Muslims throughout space and time. These
eternal values may be described as the religion of Islam, if we wish the
term religion (al-dīn) to refer to that which is noble and enduring.
105. Temporal elements within Islamic orthodoxy, on the other hand,
constitute historically-determined responses to specific circumstances on
the part of Muslims. These responses may be described as the historical (or
civilizational) manifestation of Islam, which occurred within specific ter-
ritories at specific points in time, primarily within the Arab, Persian and
Turkish cultural basins, often in response to armed conflict with neighbor-
ing states and the administration of conquered territories and peoples.
106. Islamic orthodoxy contains internal mechanisms, including the

science of uṣūl al-fiqh—the methodology of independent legal reasoning
employed to create Islamic law, or fiqh (often conflated with sharī‘ah)—that
allow Muslim scholars to adjust the temporal elements of religious ortho-
doxy in response to the ever-changing circumstances of life. These inter-
nal mechanisms entail a process of independent legal reasoning known as
ijtihād, which fell into disuse among Sunni Muslim scholars approximately
five centuries ago.
107. If Muslims are to live at peace with themselves and the modern
world, it is essential that we recognize and acknowledge that the context
of our current global civilization is profoundly different from that in which
the religion of Islam was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, may the
peace and blessings of God be upon him, and the circumstances in which
the temporal elements of Islamic orthodoxy emerged and gradually be-
came ossified towards the end of the medieval era.
121. Certain tenets of Islamic orthodoxy emerged within the context of
prolonged military conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim states. For
example, one of the fundamental norms of Islamic orthodoxy is the as-
sumption that a state of enmity exists between Muslims and non-Muslims.
122. It is not difficult to understand the origin and persistence of this
particular tenet. From the persecution of early Muslims in the city of
Mecca until the modern era, this norm may have served to ensure the sur-
vival and prosperity of Muslims, whose political entities—and, conse-
quently, their enjoyment of full legal status within an Islamic state—were
threatened by neighboring non-Muslim states. In this pre-modern con-
text, it was necessary for the survival of Muslim communities, and of an
Islamic state, that Muslims be constantly alert to the military threat posed
by non-Muslim neighboring states and, by implication, non-Muslims who
were allowed to dwell within their own borders.
Bibliography on Humanitarian Islam
Foundational documents in chronological order:
ISOMIL Nahdlatul Ulama Declaration, 2016; media report: https://baytarrahmah.org/
2016_05_10_isomil-nahdlatul-ulama-declaration/; full text of the declaration:
https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2016/Nahdlatul-Ulama-Declaration_0
5-10-16.pdf.
The Global Unity Forum and Ansor Declaration, 2016; https://baytarrahmah.org/
2016_05_12_global-unity-forum-and-ansor-declaration/.
The GP Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam, 2017; https://baytarrahmah.org/
2017_05_22_ansor-declaration-on-humanitarian-islam/.
The Nusantara Statement, 2018; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2018/Nusan
tara-Statement.pdf.
The Nusantara Manifesto, 2018; https://baytarrahmah.org/2018_10_25_nusantara-
manifesto/.
The Findings of the 2019 National Conference of Nahdlatul Ulama Religious Scholars:
Nahdlatul Ulama Abolishes the Legal Category of “Infidel” within Islamic Law;
https://baytarrahmah.org/2019_10_16_world-first-nahdlatul-ulama-abolishes-
the-legal-category-of-infidel-within-islamic-law/. The foundational text de-
scribed in this article is entitled “Decree: Bahtsul Masa’il Ad-Diniyyah Al-Maud-
luiyyah;” https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2019/2019-Munas_Findings-
of-Bahtsul-Masa%E2%80%99il-Maudluiyyah.pdf.
Resolution on Universal Human Fraternity and Global Civilization, 2019;
https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2019/IDC-CDI_Resolution-on-Human-
Fraternity-and-Global-Civilization.pdf.
Resolution on ethics and values that should guide the exercise of power, 2019;
https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2019/CDI_Resolution-on-ethics-and-
values-that-should-guide-the-exercise-of-power.pdf.
Resolution on promoting a rules-based international order founded upon universal
ethics and humanitarian values, 2020; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/
2020/CDI_Resolution-on-promoting-a-rules-based-international-order-found
ed-upon-universal-ethics-and-humanitarian-values.pdf.
Additional primary sources in chronological order:

Abdurrahman Wahid, “Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam: Muslims and non-Muslims must
unite to defeat the Wahhabi ideology,” The Wall Street Journal, 30 December 2005;
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113590649048834335.
Abdurrahman Wahid, editor, The Illusion of an Islamic State: How an Alliance of Moderates
Waged a Successful Campaign Against Radicalization and Terrorism in the World’s
Largest Muslim-Majority Country. Prologue & Preface: Prof. Dr. Ahmad Syafii
Maarif and C. Holland Taylor; Epilogue: Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri; Principal Au-
thors/Editorial Team: Kyai Haji Hodri Ariev, Prof. Dr. Ratno Lukito, and C. Hol-
land Taylor. English translation by C. Holland Taylor. (Jakarta, Winston-Salem,
Cairo, and Leiden: LibForAll Foundation, 2011), 597 pp. Portions of this book are
available online: https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2011/The-Illusion-
of-an-Islamic-State_Sample-Chapters.pdf.
Abdurrahman Wahid, “God Needs No Defense,” foreword to Paul Marshall and Nina
Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide
(Oxford University Press, 2011), xvii to xxii; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/
media/2011/Silenced_God-Needs-No-Defense.pdf.
A. Mustofa Bisri and C. Holland Taylor, “Indonesia’s ‘big idea’: Resolving the bitter
global debate on Islam,” Strategic Review 2:3, July – September 2012, pp. 34-43;
http://www.iiqs.org/media/Strategic-Review_Indonesia-s_Big_Idea.pdf.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, “How Islam learned to adapt in ‘Nusantara,’” Strategic Review 5:2,
April – June 2015, pp. 18-28; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2015/Stra
tegic-Review_How-Islam-learned-to-adapt-in-Nusantara_Apr-Jun-2015.pdf.
A. Mustofa Bisri, “The Universal Values of Indonesian Islamic Civilization,“ Strategic
Review 7:1, January – March 2017, pp. 36-45; https://www.libforall.org/lfa/me
dia/2017/Strategic-Review_Universal-values-of-Indonesian-Islamic-civilization
_Jan-Mar-2017.pdf.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, “Terrorism and Islam are Intimately Connected;” originally pub-
lished in German as “Terrorismus und Islam hängen zusammen,” in the Frank-
furter Allgemein, 19 August 2017. Republished in English online at
https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2017/FAZ_A-Conversation-with-Kyai-
Haji-Yahya-Cholil-Staquf_08-19-17.pdf.
C. Holland Taylor, “Maneuver in the narrative space: Lessons from Islam Nusantara,”
Strategic Review 8:1 January – March 2018, pp. 36-51; https://www.baytarrah
mah.org/media/2018/Strategic-Review_Maneuvering-within-Islam's-narrati
ve-space_Jan-Mar-2018.pdf.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, “Enduring threat, global ramifications,” Strategic Review 8:3, July
– September 2018, pp. 12-17; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2018/
Strategic-Review_Enduring-threat_global-ramifications_Jul-Sep-2018.pdf.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, adopted by the National Conference of Nahdlatul Ulama Religious
Scholars 1 March 2019, “The Recontextualization of Fiqh (Islamic Law) and
Transformation of the Prevailing ‘Muslim Mindset,’ for the Sake of World Peace
and to Achieve a Harmonious Communal Life for all Mankind.” This document
is also called informally “2019 Munas;” https://www.baytarrahmah.org/me
dia/2019/2019-Munas_The-Recontextualization-of-Fiqh.pdf.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, “To prevent another Christchurch, Islam must confront the at-
tacks in its name that have radicalised the West,” The Telegraph, 24 March 2019;
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/24/prevent-another-christchur
ch-islam-must-confront-attacks-name/.
Bibliography on Humanitarian Islam 75
Yahya Cholil Staquf, “Responding to a Fundamental Crisis Within Islam Itself,” Public
Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, 11 July 2020; https://www.the
publicdiscourse.com/2020/07/64947/.
Background and context in chronological order:

Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, Sum-
mer, 1993, pp. 22-49.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 368 pp.
Mujiburrahman, “Islam and Politics in Indonesia: The Political Thought of Abdurrah-
man Wahid,” Islam and Christian—Muslim Relations, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999; pp. 339-
352.
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House,
2003), 224 pp.
Robert W. Hefner, “Muslim Democrats and Islamist Violence in Post-Soeharto Indone-
sia,” pp 273-301 in Robert W. Hefner, ed. Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Con-
testation, Democratization, Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics vol. 26 (Princeton
University Press, 2004).
Paul Wolfowitz, “Wahid and the Voice of Moderate Islam,” obituary for President Ab-
durrahman Wahid, The Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2010; https://www.wsj.
com/articles/SB10001424052748704842604574642353284811682.
Hodri Ariev, “Islam: Torn between Blessing and Cursing,” paper presented at Oceans
of Revelations Screening as an introductory lecture on “Liberal Islam: Indone-
sian Islam—liberal influences from Southeast Asia,” held by the Friederich
Nourman Stiftung, 24 November 2010, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, Ger-
many; https://www.academia.edu/1325060/ISLAM_Torn_Between_Blessing_
and_Cursing.
Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking
Freedom Worldwide (Oxford University Press, 2011), 480 pp.
Fernando Perez, “Why Religious Violence has Grown in Indonesia,” World Evangelical
Alliance, Religious Liberty Commission, 24 February 2011; https://www.gos
pelherald.com/articles/47076/20110224/why-religious-violence-has-grown-in-
indonesia.htm.
Ahmad al-Raysuni, Imam Al-Shatibi’s Theory of the Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic
Law, original edition translated from Arabic by Nancy Roberts, abridged by Ali-
son Lake (Herndon, VA, USA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2013).
Martin van Bruinessen, “Abdurrahman Wahid,“ The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edi-
tion, 2013 Part 2013-1, pp. 4-9; https://www.academia.edu/3167991/Abdurrah
man_Wahid?email_work_card=view-paper.
Alex P. Schmid, “Violent and Non-Violent Extremism: Two Sides of the Same Coin?”
(The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2014), 31 pp.
https://www.icct.nl/download/file/ICCT-Schmid-Violent-Non-Violent-Extre
mism-May-2014.pdf.
Joe Cochrane, “From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic
State,” The New York Times, November 26, 2015; https://www.nytimes.com/
2015/11/27/world/asia/indonesia-islam-nahdlatul-ulama.html.
R. Rania Shah, “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazālī on the Attainment of Hap-
piness,” The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 6:2 (Cham-
paign, Illinois, USA: Common Ground Publishing, 2015), 18 pp.
Jayson Casper, “The World’s Biggest Muslim Organization Wants to Protect Chris-
tians,” Christianity Today, 18 May 2016; https://www.christianitytoday.com/
news/2016/may/more-than-300-islamic-leaders-denounce-extremism.html.
Rüdiger Lohlker, “Theology Matters: The Case of Jihadi Islam,” Strategic Review 6:3, July
– August 2016, pp. 93 – 105; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2016/Stra
tegic-Review_Theology-matters-The-case-of-jihadi-Islam_Jul-Sep-2016_highli
ghted.pdf.
Alex P. Schmid, “Moderate Muslims and Islamist Terrorism: Between Denial and Re-
sistance” (The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2017), 28 pp.
https://icct.nl/publication/moderate-muslims-and-islamist-terrorism-betwe
en-denial-and-resistance/.
Alexander R Arifianto, “Islam Nusantara & Its Critics: The Rise of NU’s Young Clerics,”
RSIS Commentary, 23 January 2017; https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/up
loads/2017/01/CO17018.pdf.
Krithika Varagur, “Indonesia’s Moderate Islam is Slowly Crumbling: Liberal Muslims
are fretting as fundamentalists seize the popular moment.” Foreign Policy, 14
February 2017; https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/indonesias-moderate-
islam-is-slowly-crumbling/.
Paul Marshall, “Indonesia’s Blasphemy Conviction Threatens Muslim Democracy. But
I Still Have Hope. Why Christians should support the type of Muslims who sup-
port Ahok.” Christianity Today, 11 May 2017; https://www.christianitytoday.
com/ct/2017/may-web-only/indonesia-blasphemy-threatens-muslim-democ
racy-ahok-jakarta.html.
Kate Shellnutt, “Pence Meets Indonesia’s Top Muslim Leader After Church Attacks,”
Christianity Today, 18 May 2018; https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/20
18/may/mike-pence-staquf-indonesia-church-attack-nahdlatul-ulama.html.
Paul Marshall, “Conflicts in Indonesian Islam,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Hud-
son Institute, 31 May 2018; https://www.hudson.org/research/14367-con
flicts-in-indonesian-islam.
Yaakov Katz, “A Message of Peace and Rahma: The leader of the world’s largest Islamic
movement visits Jerusalem bringing a universal message of Islam,” Jerusalem
Post, 15 June 2018; https://www.jpost.com/opinion/editors-notes-a-message-
of-peace-and-rahma-560062.
Bibliography on Humanitarian Islam 77
Paul Marshall, “Countering Extremism In Indonesia and Beyond,” Cornerstone (RFI), 22

June 2018; https://www.religiousfreedominstitute.org/blog/countering-ex
tremism-in-indonesia-and-beyond.
Muhammad Zuhdi, “Challenging Moderate Muslims: Indonesia’s Muslim Schools in
the Midst of Religious Conservatism,” Religions 2018, 9(10), 310; https://www.
mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/10/310.
Paul Marshall, “Blasphemy Returns as a Political Weapon in Indonesia,” Providence, 31
October 2018; https://providencemag.com/2018/10/blasphemy-returns-polit
ical-weapon-indonesia-jokowi/.
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, Living in a Sacred Cosmos: Indonesia and the Future of Islam
(Yale University, 2018), 426 pp.
Brian L Steed, “Maneuvering within Islam’s narrative space,” Strategic Review 8:1, Janu-
ary – March 2018, pp. 16-35; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2018/Stra
tegic-Review_Maneuvering-within-Islam's-narrative-space_Jan-Mar-2018.pdf.
Paul Marshall, “The Ambiguities of Religious Freedom in Indonesia,” The Review of Faith &
International Affairs, 16:1, March 2018, pp. 85-96; https://www.tandfonline.com/
doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2018.1433588.
Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the
West (Da Capo Press, 2018), 352 pp.
James M. Dorsey, “Reforming the Faith: Indonesia’s Battle for the Soul of Islam,” Hori-
zons: Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development, Winter, 2019,
pp. 150-171; https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-winter-2019-issue-
no-13/reforming-the-faith.
Paul Marshall, “Muslim Leader Yahya Cholil Staquf: Need to Address ‘Problematic El-
ements of Islamic Orthodoxy’ After Christchurch Attack,” Religion Unplugged,
April 3, 2019; https://religionunplugged.com/news/2019/4/3/muslim-leader-
yahya-cholil-staquf-need-to-address-problematic-elements-of-islamic-ortho
doxy-after-christchurch-attack.
Benjamin Soloway, “What’s at Stake in Indonesia’s Elections?” Foreign Policy, April 16,
2019, 6 pp; https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/16/whats-at-stake-in-indone
sias-elections/.
Paul Marshall, “Muslims and Evangelicals form Joint Working Group to Counter Ex-
tremism,” Providence, 27 April 2020; https://providencemag.com/2020/04/
muslims-evangelicals-form-joint-working-group-counter-extremism/?fbclid=
IwAR0vsxcXtwMWTKsCLIwQG8rB--5vXixR2OalZ57sChCJUFnouuMJ6x0BU1Q.
H. Muhaimin Iskandar, “The future of civilization: Indonesia’s contribution,” Strategic
Review, 2 July 2020, pp. 1-5; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2020/Stra
tegic-Review_The-Future-of-Civilization_Indonesia%E2%80%99s-Contribution
_07-02-20.pdf.
Timothy Shah and Thomas Dinham, “Humanitarian Islam: Fostering shared civiliza-
tional values to revitalize a rules-based international order,” Strategic Review, 2
July 2020, pp. 7-18; https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2020/Strategic-
Review_Humanitarian-Islam_Fostering-Shared-Civilizational-Values_07-02-
20.pdf.
James M. Dorsey, “Indonesia: A Major Prize in the Battle for the Soul of Islam,” Inside
Arabia, 30 July 2020; https://insidearabia.com/indonesia-a-major-prize-in-the-
battle-for-the-soul-of-islam/.
Timothy Shah, ed., Indonesia Religious Freedom Landscape Report 2020 (Religious Freedom
Institute, 2020); https://www.baytarrahmah.org/media/2020/RFI_Indonesia+
Landscape+Report+ONLINE.pdf.
Thomas K. Johnson, “A Case for Ethical Cooperation Between Evangelical Christians
and Humanitarian Islam,” Evangelical Review of Theology 44:3, August 2020, pp.
204-217; https://theology.worldea.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ERT-
Vol-44-No-3-August-2020.pdf.
World Evangelical Alliance
World Evangelical Alliance is a global ministry working with local churches
around the world to join in common concern to live and proclaim the Good
News of Jesus in their communities. WEA is a network of churches in 129 nations
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and the nations of the earth are forever transformed.
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launching, in their own words, “a new thing in church history, a definite organiza-
tion for the expression of unity amongst Christian individuals belonging to differ-
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believers from 21 countries officially formed the World Evangelical Fellowship.
Today, 150 years after the London gathering, WEA is a dynamic global structure
for unity and action that embraces 600 million evangelicals in 129 countries. It is a
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Are Muslims and Christians locked in mortal combat forever? Will ever-continuing Thomas K.

Thomas K. Johnson, Research Vice President of Martin

World of Theology Series 20

ISBN 978-3-86269-216-3 sponsored by:

Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft

(Culture and Science Publ.)

Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft

Publishing Distribution Center and catalog for book stores:

Death When Religions Collide ............................................................................. 7

During the last decade, diplomats, senior religious leaders, parliamen-

However, these recent Muslim statements perpetuate some convictions

The previously mentioned Human Fraternity Document of 2019 (HFD)

or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in

Ansor_Declaration-on-Humanitarian-Islam.pdf. Confirmed 1 April 2020. For con-

1. Eternal norms versus contingent norms

2. A transcendental definition of sharia

from a previous era; perennial and eternal values have to be applied in

3. Humanitarian Islam and Nusantara civilization

Muslim theocratic visions (whether described as a caliphate or a Muslim

4. Faith and reason

is well-defined and the second of which may not yet be so well-defined.

In Aristotle’s ethics, humanity is portrayed as poised between two

5. Constructive political developments

6. Tyranny and the will to power

This recovery of a classical theological method has, at its center, a clar-

1. The relationship between law and grace

2. God’s moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws

both similar to and different from the distinction made by Humanitarian

Some Christians question this threefold hermeneutic, claiming it is not

This three-part hermeneutic enables Christians to regard commands

3. The natural moral law

explicate claims of ethical truth. The standard to which such an ethical

civilization. 38 There is wisdom in the observations of Aristotle, the oft-

Similar ideas were taught by many classical philosophers, including the

4. Ethical standards and human goods

Primary human goods in medieval Primary human goods in medieval

scholars came to astonishingly similar conclusions regarding the primary

proposals of what Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Muslims can

1. Joint academic events at which university scholars and school-

Though not addressed at length in this paper, secularism, atheism, and

1. Islamic Extremism. “Islamic extremists range from extremist states

refuses to accept the validity of other traditions.” A similar problem

overwhelmingly Christian nations fought each other in what many viewed

As is true of Muslims, most Christians are sickened to see their religion

1. Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration

This Declaration was adopted at the International Gathering of Ulama

A Threat to All Humanity

2. The Nusantara Manifesto

A call to people of goodwill of every faith and nation

This Manifesto was officially adopted and promulgated by Gerakan

Independence (PPKI) reached a temporary consensus with the Jakarta

constitute a “rebound” of the perennial Islamist aspiration and its accom-

permanently resolve the tension that is inherent between Islamic ortho-

Religion, Tribalism and Secular Ideology

65. Throughout history, human beings have displayed astonishingly di-

Transcendent and Historically-Contingent Elements

(Thawābit and Mutaghayyirāt)

106. Islamic orthodoxy contains internal mechanisms, including the

Additional primary sources in chronological order: