Is Islam's Reform Impossible?

See 5:43 p.m. update below.

If you missed it on yesterday's Hugh Hewitt show, haven't been to Hugh's site today, or just breezed through and didn't read the transcript of Hugh's interview with Father Joseph Fessio, it's time to hop over and read the lengthy transcript.

Why? Because it explains that the much hoped-for reformation of Islam may not be possible. In this excerpt, Father Fessio is recalling the words of then-Father Ratzinger following a discussion about the possibility of Islamic reform:

And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that [discussion of Islamic reform], because he said in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world, and therefore by establishing a Church in which he gives authority to His followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.

I'm no Islamic scholar, and perhaps someone can refute the Pope's characterization of the inflexibility of Islam. It rings true to me, though, based on what I've learned about Islam in the last five years. We're stuck with the religion as it is.

I don't agree with the Catholic view of the Pope as a continuing intermediary to permit and require the faith "to be adapted and applied to new situations." We have the New Testament as the guidebook of the New Covenant. It was completed within a few decades of Christ's death, and Christ himself admonished us not to change it.

Martin Luther did no rewriting of the New Testament when he brought reform to the church. He merely redirected attention to the Word and away from its misapplication.

That has kept Christianity a progressive, open, loving religion because that's the kind of religion God wanted it to be. It's unlikely to change, just as Islam is unlikely to change.

5:43 p.m.: Arab News, the English-language mouthpiece of the Saudi government, covers a Muslim World League conference in this article. I'd like to see the original Arabic version before drawing conclusions, but the English-language version says new Islamic education is needed to make the religion more moderate, squelching terrorism. Interesingly, the word jihad does not appear in the article.