In “Is the Only Good Muslim a Bad Muslim?” in Inside Catholic today, John Zmirak, the moderator of my debate with Peter Kreeft last week (which I have reposted above for your convenience), provides a useful summary of the debate:
Last week I was privileged to moderate a debate between two of the best writers on religion in the English-speaking world, Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft and Jihadwatch director Robert Spencer. How was I able to land two eminent speakers on the same night? Easy: I was their editor. Both Kreeft and Spencer contributed eloquent essays to the collection I compiled: Disorientation: How to Go to College without Losing Your Mind. The debate took place at the wonderful little Catholic liberal arts academy where I teach, Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts, which accounts for the atmosphere of amity and clarity that prevailed at the event. It could have gone much differently, since the speakers were handling nitroglycerine.
The topic was, “Is the Only Good Muslim a Bad Muslim?” which was drawn from Professor Kreeft’s book Between Allah and Jesus — a graciously written account of the interactions at Boston College of several composite characters: an orthodox, pious Muslim; a black dissenting Catholic; an Evangelical Christian; and a wise old faithful Jesuit philosopher. In his winning way, Kreeft uses the Muslim character to point up the gaping hole at the heart of liberal, postmodern religion: the absence of the “fear of God.” I’m not vain enough to think that I can improve on Kreeft’s own prose, so I’ll let him speak for himself….