Yesterday I wrote about the radical Islam dilemma — the way our political class collapses into moral panic the moment someone asks how exactly we are meant to distinguish between “good Muslims” vs “radical Muslims” in immigration policy terms.

And the President of Turkey has done something rather inconvenient for out of touch Canberra and the Lying Harlot Media. President Erdoğan said:

“Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing.

“Recently the concept of ‘moderate Islam’ has received attention. But the patent of this concept originated in the West.”

He went further, criticising the very concept of “moderate Islam” as a Western construct designed to weaken the religion (Hürriyet Daily News, 29 November 2017).

Islam can only be one thing.

That’s not Pauline Hanson speaking. That’s not One Nation. That’s not some anonymous agitator. That’s the elected leader of a Muslim-majority nation rejecting the distinction our political class leans on whenever Australians raise legitimate concerns.

When Pauline Hanson questions whether the distinction between “moderate” and “radical” Islam is workable, she is smeared as racist.

But where can the morally-superior “anti-racists” hide when the elected leader of a Muslim-majority nation says it, rejecting the framework and entire distinction our political elites fall back on?

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

If Islam is not divisible into “moderate” and “radical” streams — if those categories are Western political branding — then on what basis does Canberra insist that Islamic immigration poses no long-term risk to Australia’s social cohesion or to the Western, Christian civilisational foundations that shaped this country?

Is ASIO operating with a theological taxonomy Erdoğan hasn’t heard of? Are Immigration Ministers applying a doctrinal filter that somehow escaped the notice of the President of Turkey?

Or are Australians simply being soothed with comforting language because the alternative conversation is politically inconvenient?

Let’s step back and be serious.

Australia is a sovereign nation. Foreign nationals do not have a right to enter it. Immigration is a discretionary policy choice exercised in the national interest. That interest includes economic benefit, certainly — but it also includes social cohesion, legal continuity and civilisational stability.

Our constitutional order did not emerge from a vacuum. It grew out of a Christian civilisational framework — one that wrestled painfully with conscience, coercion, church and state, and eventually articulated a system in which religious liberty exists precisely because Christianity relinquished the sword.

There is no structural conflict between Christianity and the Australian constitutional system because that system is downstream of Christianity.

If a religion’s dominant political theology is incompatible with Australian values, does not unambiguously affirm freedom of speech including mocking the faith, and freedom of conscience including conversion out of the faith, and does not decisively separate ecclesiastical from civil authority, then integration into a Western democratic nation is not automatic. It is not frictionless. It is not guaranteed. It’s not good policy.

Erdoğan calls reform “weakening.” He says the West wants to weaken Islam. Amen!

From the standpoint of a liberal democracy, that “weakening” would mean precisely the softening or renunciation of those theocratic or illiberal elements that conflict with constitutional order.

But if Islam “can only be one thing,” as he insists, then the prospect of widespread theological reform is not something we can prudently build national policy upon.

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has — I think seriously — suggested that internal moderation is the path forward; that Islam in Australia should simply “self-regulate.”

Self-regulate according to which authority? Which school of jurisprudence? Which global clerical influence? Islam is not a local community association that updates its rules to suit suburban sensibilities. It is a global religion with established doctrines, jurisprudence and transnational ties.

Self-regulation is not a realistic strategy.

Once large concentrations of any tightly bound ideological community form, policing internal doctrinal commitments becomes practically impossible without trampling civil liberties. And once here, those liberties can’t be selectively applied — it’s too late to discriminate.

Which leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable conclusion.

The only guaranteed protection against importing the more illiberal or radical expressions of a religious political theology is to limit or avoid importing that theology in the first place.

That is not hatred. It is wisdom and prudence.

If Islam is indivisible, if “moderate” is merely a Western label rather than a stable theological category (or if, like Europe, we can’t tell who is “radical”), then the safest course for a nation that wishes to preserve its cultural and constitutional inheritance is not to gamble on Islam’s future reform or internal self-correction.

You want Australia to be safe? Exercise restraint at the border.

Australia has no obligation to take risks with its civilisational continuity. Sovereignty includes the right to decide who enters and in what numbers. Once people are lawfully here, they enjoy the protection of Australian law. But that is precisely why immigration selection must be serious, sober and clear-eyed.

Civilisations are not preserved by labels like “moderate Islam.” They are preserved by honest assessment of ideas, their historical consequences, and their compatibility with existing constitutional order.

If the President of Turkey insists Islam is one thing, and global news confirms this reality, then Canberra must stop pretending it can be two.

Clarity is not racism.

It is responsibility.

Dave Pellowe is the founder of 'Church And State', a nationwide ministry equipping Christians to be public salt and light: redeeming the culture and advocating for righteousness in government. Dave teaches Christians how God’s unchanging Word answers all the controversial questions. Specialising in what God says about complex ethical and social issues, Dave Pellowe is a guest speaker at churches, youth groups and Christian schools, TV, radio and podcast interviews and other secular and Christian forums where love of Truth and honest thinking are valued. [more]

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