Islam and the Challenge of Liberalism

Last summer, Dr. Soroush delivered an informative talk on Islam and the Challenge of Liberalism. He gives an historical account of why Islam still struggles with a big challenge of absorbing liberalism, while Christianity has passed it to some extent. He starts his story by "If the Soviet Union was still in power, we would have much flourished Islamic governments," referring to the relation between Marxist ideology and religions. In Marxism, there exists a religious structure, there exists a God. God is the history with a great power which determines what happens next. Marxism is concerned about the poor, what is also bold in religions. Hence, if such school had stayed in power, it would have given a lot of ideological support to Islamic governments. In his words, Islam was unlucky to see Marxism defeated, whereas liberalism, the school of no God, uncertainty, critics, and skepticism, succeeded. In contrast to Islam, Christianity was so lucky to be first surrounded by liberalism, so-far the conqueror, thus having more time to tune in to the world's changes.