From all the emphasis on the Charlie Hebdo massacre as an attack on free speech, what’s getting lost is the reality of this as a battle in the contemporary war of secular culture vs. religion. From my admittedly incomplete perusal of online news sources, the magazine has it in for Christianity as well as Islam. It seems to see itself as a secular warrior against religion in general. One difference between at least some Muslims and all Christians may be that while the former are taking umbrage and fighting back, the latter, more mild-mannered, turn the other cheek.
Religion, more and less organized, has much to account for over many centuries, from the Inquisition to the persecution of witches to not being overly eager to mix it up with the Nazis. Recently Catholic priests’ misbehavior with young parishioners and ongoing opposition to womens’ rights. Whether justly or not, Islam has become associated with all that seems most horrific about terrorism, the transcendentalism of not seeming to care whether your victims are male or female, young or old combatants or not. Islam has, we have read, infamously encouraged young suicide bombers with the promise of a heaven of multiple virgins.
Although polls still show a strong majority in the world (including the U.S.) of believers in a so-called Higher Power, the war between all of religion—of transcendent belief itself—and secular culture . France seems determined in avenging the Charlie Hebdo martyrs (if one may borrow that concept) to assert the primacy of its long established version of the latter—not just separate-but-equal, as in “render unto Caesar the things that are is, unto God the things that are his,” but, where there is conflict, tie goes to the secular state.
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