Ebrahim Moosa outlines the root problem with contemporary ‘mainstream’ Islamic orthodoxy:
Mainstream theologians who cater to the majority of lay Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite, are unable to address such critical moral and theological challenges as evolution, gender and sexuality, or the role and meaning of sharia in a modern nation. That’s because theological education is steeped in ancient texts with little attention to reinterpretation. (My emphasis).
Here, too, is a problem for any religion, Christianity included, which views its scripture as having fallen from the sky. It’s a significant part of the problem with the national school chaplaincy program: the only religious people many of our youth are exposed to are trained by the likes of Scripture Union.