Andrew C. McCarthy posted an article at National Review today about empowering moderate Muslims. The article opens with a quote from John Winthrop, the legendary founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, “Liberty must always be exercised, and may only be maintained,“in a way of subjection to authority.” Winthrop further stated, “But if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then you will quietly and cheerfully submit under that authority which is set over you . . . for your good.”

This is an idea we need to keep in mind as we look at Sharia Law. Mr. McCarthy lists two thoughts on Sharia Law:

First, sharia is a useful barometer for distinguishing real Muslim moderates from Islamists. The latter seek to undermine American liberties, but some have been able to pose as moderates, because they do not employ terrorist tactics in the pursuit of their extreme ends.

Second, focusing on sharia is the most promising strategy for empowering authentic moderate Muslims. Sharia, as classically construed by authoritative scholars, is strewn with tenets that run counter to Western principles of liberty — in the areas of freedom of conscience, equality, free expression, economic liberty, the settlement of policy disputes without violence, what “cruel and unusual punishments” should be unacceptable, and so on.

He goes on to say that John Winthrop’s ideas about obeying God were widely shared in colonial America. What John Winthrop was saying was not considered unusual, as it would be today. There were things done in the early American colonies that were done in the name of Christianity that would be totally unacceptable to us today. It has taken more than two hundred years to attempt to strike a balance between the secular and the religious in America, and we don’t always get it right. Sometimes we forget that the Judeo-Christian ethic is the foundation of our laws, and we should honor that ethic. Mr. McCarthy states that we need to give moderate Muslims the chance to find a balance in Sharia Law. Mr. McCarthy also reminds us that the Muslims who will eventually moderate Sharia Law (if that is possible) are up against 14 centuries of tradition and treatises like Reliance of the Traveller. Sharia Law can be tempered, but it will be difficult.