Understanding each Other

After reading this post by Andrew Sullivan, I was a bit disappointed. It seemed to me that Andrew was doing to Islam the very thing he argues against doing to Christianity - stereotyping and over-simplifying. I sent him the following e-mail to get his thoughts on it: I feel the need to comment on your post Islamism Watch – particularly, with your comment “So much of Islam's violence seems to stem from men's fear of losing control of women.” I am curious what you mean by this. Perhaps you could clarify the statement for me? I have noticed multiple occasions where you seem to over-simplify the Islamic faith with these types of comments – intentionally or not, I cannot say. With the amount of time you dedicate to the analysis of your particular form of Christianity (much of which I happen to agree with, by the way), it seems to me that you would afford other religions a similar level of depth and complexity. In terms of religion-based violence, we all know that Islam does not have a monopoly here – Christian violence is rampant against homosexuals, for instance. If you were to replace “Muslim” with “Christian”, and “too western” with “gay” in your post, there is no shortage of cases that would be appropriately described. Perhaps I am misreading you, but it seems that you have adopted the simplistic view of Muslims - that they are overly violent and fundamentalist - that creates some of the current hostilities between Muslims and Christians. After reading much of your work, I don’t think this is your true message, but I cannot reconcile the post with the ideal. If Muslim violence stems from men's fear of losing control of women, does Christian violence stem from a similarly despotic fear? Or is Christianity different? Your thoughts would be appreciated. I'm hoping he responds; I'm insatiably curious about what he will say.