On March 3, 2015, Religion News Service online carried two stories next to each other, both dealing with judicial measures against apostasy, though under greatly different circumstances. Dictionary definitions of apostasy (from the Greek apostasis/”departure” or “defection”) differ depending on cultural context, but there is a simple meaning, very close to how the term is used in the vernacular today: an abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political faith to which an individual is supposed to adhere. In the first RNS story the judicial process was initiated by an Islamic court in Saudi Arabia, in the second story by the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as Mormons), whose headquarters are in Utah. The urge to connect these two dots is irresistible (at least to me).
Raif Badawi is a blogger and advocate for free speech in Saudi Arabia. He had been harassed before by the Saudi government for these activities. Late in 2014 he was convicted by a shari’a court for “insulting Islam” and sentenced to ten years in prison, a fine of about $ 260,000, and one thousand lashes to be inflicted in public in fifty segments. The first flogging took place on January 9, 2015. The timing was exquisite (whether intentionally or not)—on January 7, Islamist terrorists in Paris massacred almost the entire editorial staff of the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo and several Jewish customers in a kosher supermarket. On January 11 a huge demonstration occurred in Paris to express solidarity with the victims and affirmation of democratic liberties, attended by the French political leadership and several foreign heads of state (not including President Obama). Also attending was the Saudi ambassador to France, no doubt to demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s participation in Obama’s grand coalition against ISIS “extremism”. (What is an Arabic word for chutzpah ?) There has been no repetition of the public flogging, allegedly because of Badawi’s poor health, possibly also because of the ferocious international reaction to this act of barbarity. (It included calls in Austria to close down the Saudi-supported center in Vienna with an agenda to promote religious tolerance and dialogue). On March 1 Badawi’s wife (who had fled to Canada with her three children) announced that the Islamic court had decided to retry Badawi for apostasy; conviction would entail an automatic death sentence.
On February 28 Kate Kelly, a Mormon activist who had been advocating the admission of women to the hitherto all-male priesthood, received word that her sentence of excommunication had been confirmed by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Presidency, which sits in Salt Lake City, is the highest authority of the faith. (It is believed to be in direct communication with God, thus possessing a sort of collective papal infallibility.) Kelly was convicted for apostasy, described as “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the church”. For someone with strong attachment to the Mormon church, this is bad enough. But excommunication has further consequences. Kelly had been “sealed in marriage for eternity” with her husband (a peculiar Mormon sacrament, performed at the Temple in Salt Lake City—non-Mormons might be somewhat troubled by this enormous amplification of the marriage vow “until death do us part”). Kelly’s excommunication, and her husband’s subsequent exit from the church, nullify the eternal sealing—in Mormon terms, they are not married any more. But that is not all: Mormon ideas about the hereafter are, comparatively speaking, rather humane. There is I think, no hell. Everyone, “sealed”or not, goes into one vast hereafter. But this hereafter is stratified—only Mormons occupy the top level. And there is no traffic between the different levels. This means that the excommunicated are not only barred from the penthouse floor, but will never see again any Mormon family or friends.
I would not suggest that Islam and Mormonism are comparable as faiths. Islam, shorn of its several aberrations, is one of the great world religions and font of a remarkable civilization. Even with respect for any sincerely held faith, it is difficult to argue this in the case of Mormonism. Nor would I for a moment suggest a moral equivalence of the respective penalties for apostasy in the two religious communities. However, let me draw attention to the maxim propounded by W.I. Thomas (1863-1947), one of the classic American sociologists of the Chicago School, for some reason commonly referred to as “Thomas’ dictum” and known to every beginning sociology student: “If people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences”. Who is afraid of excommunication? Any normal person would be afraid of being beheaded. But, even if there were no penalties for apostasy, an individual would be afraid if excommunication was really believed as leading to an eternal separation from all one loves, or to eternal hellfire. Most historians think that many people in the Christian Middle Ages were genuinely afraid of hell and consequently terrified by the threat to be deprived of the sacramental means of grace: If an entire country was placed under a papal “ban”—no Masses held, no children baptized, nobody given Christian burial—then even powerful emperors might be induced to stand barefoot in the snow, asking the Pope to forgive them and lift the terrible “ban”. How many divisions does the Pope have? As many as people believe him to have (including the invisible hosts of saints and angels). The Roman Church never directly killed anyone; the Inquisition (perhaps with a lingering suspicion that the Church may have something to do with the teachings of Jesus) pronounced sentence but then “handed over” the delinquent to the “secular arm” for the grisly execution. No such horrors are emanating today from the old building of the Holy Office in Rome that now houses the successor organization, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the recent heated debate, whether Catholics who divorce and remarry should be re-admitted to the sacrament of the altar, shows that excommunication still matters—if you believe in it. Mutatis mutandis, if you believe that Islamic law strictly follows the Quran, which was dictated by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, then you will be troubled by a judgment of apostasy, even if no executioner is waiting. And if you believe that three old men meeting in Salt Lake City have privileged access to God, you will not want them to declare you an apostate.
If you are inclined toward apostasy, do it in Utah rather than the Middle East. And thank God for the constitution of the United States!