God's Law or Secular Law?

The Muslim Charter "an initiative challenging Muslim communities living in the West to subordinate their interpretations of Sharia law to the laws of the land" sounds from this article like an initiative with really horrific implications.

The practical subordination of God's law to secular law is a mark of totalitarianism, and the results have been particularly apparent in the 20th century. The very concept of human rights can only be coherent if such rights arise from something transcending the arbitrary secular law. The Nuremberg Trials only make sense if there is a "higher" law than that promulgated by the state. If there is not such a "higher" law, the Nuremberg trials represent nothing other than an exercise of force.

No, the problem is not in the Mohammedans believing that God's law is higher than the secular law. The Catholic Magisterium certainly teaches that. The problem is that many (arguably a plurality of) Mohammedans have a terribly defective understanding of God's law, most problematically in the area of religious freedom. One risks various forms of oppression up to and including death to convert from Mohammedanism to Christianity in most Mohammedan-majority countries.

For those groups of Mohammedans who do believe that God's law prohibits the killing of non-combatants and who also believe that God's law prohibits violent repression of religious freedom, we can have respect--with them we can engage in dialogue. Unfortunately, there is clearly no consensus within Mohammedanism that such is the nature of God's law.

The proposed Muslim Charter effectively asks Mohammedans to convert from their religion to secularism. This will not be good either for their own souls or for the European countries they live within.