12AR17-35
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Apologia Report 17:35 (1,127)
October 10, 2012
Subject: Daniel Pipes explores Obama's early ties to Islam
In this issue:
CHOPRA, DEEPAK - another "teaching novel," this time all about consciousness
HINDUISM - "clinging to religion in form if not in essence"
ISLAM - Daniel Pipes on Barack Obama's Muslim childhood
RICE, ANNE - the fiction writer's current religious confusion
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CHOPRA, DEEPAK
God: A Story of Revelation, by Deepak Chopra [2] -- "Billed as a 'teaching novel,' this book uses examples from the lives of mystics of diverse traditions to pose questions about the origins, significance and reach of consciousness. Chopra is the founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing <www.bit.ly/QezjRT> in Carlsbad, Calif. He has written numerous books ... and has had several titles on bestseller lists. Here, Chopra profiles 10 historical figures in an effort to better understand God: Job, Socrates, St. Paul, Shankara, Rumi, Julian of Norwich, Giordano Bruno, Anne Hutchinson, Baal Shem Tov and Rabindranath Tagore. Along the way, Chopra offers his reflections, which occasionally drift into homily. The central question Chopra raises in each 'Revealing the Vision' section is: '[W]here did consciousness come from?' Not all of the figures profiled are well-known. Hutchinson, for example, was an early, radical Puritan; Bruno, a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. Of particular interest are the humorous, humble Baal Shem, the brilliant, witty Shankara and the visionary Julian, a man Chopra calls 'the most touching figure in this book.' This book will appeal to the spiritually minded." Kirkus Reviews, Sep #1 2012.
Meanwhile, Chopra's son, Gotham, has produced a new biographical documentary film called Decoding Deepak [1]. Reviews are mixed; see, for example: <www.tinyurl.com/9u6yxrc>
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HINDUISM
"I love my religion" by Zofeen Maqsood -- "A whopping 93% of Indian youth consider religion to be a matter of faith and not of cultural or social identity. 32% of them assert that they are staunchly religious, while 59% say they are moderately religious. ... When the respondents were asked if they had read their religious scriptures, only 15% answered in the affirmative. 48% say that they did not know why certain rituals like fasting are practised. The picture that emerges is of a generation happy to flaunt religious identity while not caring enough to delve deeply into its philosophical underpinnings. ...
"But while young people in India are clinging to religion in form if not in essence, the story is changing in the West. An international survey on religion ... reveals that the average religiosity of 59% showed a decline of 9% since 2005. The percentage of atheists also rose from 4 to 7% in the same period, indicating, perhaps a crisis of faith. ...
"Professor [Madhu] Khanna [Centre for Comparative Religions and Civilisations <www.bit.ly/RNU2yr>] says, 'In our country, there are no avenues to understand the true leanings of religion. Every secular nation has a department of religious studies at universities. India has none. Unless we have educative channels the youth will continue to absorb colonial knowledge. After all, if you flaunt the roots you must know what to flaunt,' she says."
Social anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies <www.bit.ly/bzODED>) notes still another trend: "'Particularly among youth, there is a rise of spiritual sects. From Swaminarayan to Jaggi Vasudev to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The modern gurus would quote from Gita in one instance and would talk about a Western philosopher in another breath, these dialects of intelligence appeal to the young,' he says." Hindustan Times, Aug 11 '12, n.p. <www.bit.ly/MQiKZI>
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ISLAM
"Obama's Muslim Childhood" by Daniel Pipes -- until seeing this piece, we never seriously considered claims of Muslim influence on President Obama. However, for Pipes to devote so much attention to the idea makes us sit up and take notice.
Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and a prolific writer. This lengthy profile was first serialized in the Washington Times from September 10 to 14. It begins by noting Barack Obama's efforts to call attention to "relatively minor matters" in Mitt Romney's past. This is followed by the remark: "If Obama and his supporters wish to focus on biography, of course, this is a game two can play." Pipes finds plenty, saying: "Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications." Pipes contrasts Obama's claims with abundant contradictory evidence.
First, Pipes establishes the baffling inconsistency of Obama's conflicting assertions that "I've always been a Christian" and "I came to my Christian faith later in life," followed by his insistence that "I have never been a Muslim."
To the contrary, Pipes details Obama's connections to Islam from the president's distant to more recent past. These include his patrilineal religious heritage; the context of his Arabic forename designation (in the environment of his childhood, "Obama's middle name, Hussein, explicitly proclaims him a born Muslim"); his school registration as a Muslim and Muslim-centered education as a child; his identity as a Muslim based on his behavior in the eyes of his childhood friends; his manner of addressing contemporary Muslim audiences and specific use of Muslim phrases that infer a Muslim identity; his contemporary remarks which suggest Muslim sympathies; the statement by his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, that "My whole family was Muslim;" and his half- brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama, telling an interviewer in March 2009 that "He may be behaving differently due to the position he is in, but on the inside Barack Obama is Muslim." The Washington Times, Sep 10-14 '12, n.p. <www.bit.ly/SJQ1y0>
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RICE, ANNE
When her latest novel, The Wolf Gift [3], came out in February, I decided to read it just to see what, if any, evidence it gave of Rice having rejected organized religion since her widely reported conversion to Christianity in 1998 after over two decades of writing erotic horror as an atheist, igniting the current popular interest in vampires. In the best review of Rice's changing beliefs that I've (RP) come across, Billy Hallowell says <www.bit.ly/xt0jRI> that "she characterized her current faith walk as 'a state of confusion.'"
This is evident in The Wolf Gift, which features a reporter who accidentally becomes a werewolf while on assignment. The resulting story reveals that werewolves are immortal and out to destroy evil. Rice's most theologically inclined character (a werewolf) claims that "all morality is of necessity shaped by context. I'm not talking relativism, no. To ignore the context of a decision is in fact immoral."
The woman to whom he's talking asks: "Then how exactly do we define immutable truths? ... I do see exactly what you're saying, but I lack the skills to define how we construct moral decisions when context is continually shifting.
Replies the werewolf: "By recognizing ... the conditions under which every moral decision is made." (p. 343)
The identity of "God" is obscure in the book, and He - it? - bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible. Rice favors spirituality over religion, and mystically ties this to a rather New Age evolution of humankind. (Sex has also resurfaced in her narrative, but apparently to a lesser degree than in her earlier works.)
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SOURCES: Films
1 - Decoding Deepak <www.snagfilms.com/decodingdeepak>
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SOURCES: Monographs
2 - God: A Story of Revelation, by Chopra, Deepak (HarperOne, 2012, hardcover, 288 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/9tbzay7>
3 - The Wolf Gift, by Anne Rice (Knopf, 2012, hardcover, 416 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/9mz8yo3>
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