Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Christians and Islam

A Pastoral Response
© May 27, 2007 by Norman Stolpe

Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.
1 Peter 3:14b-16 NRSV

God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7 KJV

Responding to any perceived threat out of fear almost always leads us in the wrong direction. To avoid this, we must start with the right goal. It is not to defend ourselves but to honor Jesus Christ as Lord of all. Similarly, we are not to defeat or humiliate those with whom we differ by overwhelming arguments but give an account for our hope in Christ. Character is more powerful than logic and rhetoric. Courage is not bravado or anger but confidence in the power of God. Taking our cue from Jesus, we refuse anything dehumanizing, hateful or injurious toward those who oppose Christ (or us) but acknowledge that even the most error ridden or sinful person is made in the image of God, the object of Christ’s love and worthy of Jesus’ redeeming death on the cross. Whether in dialogue or debate, we maintain intellectual integrity and honest research.

While I have read the Koran (in English translation), and have tried to become generally familiar with Muslim thinking, I am not an expert in Islam or interfaith dialogue. Though I have had a few conversations with some Muslim folk, I cannot claim any special insights through personal relationships. I am very aware of the danger of forming opinions from caricatures by opponents and believe it is important that people be given the opportunity to speak for themselves. So I write not as a scholar but as a pastor. I am aware that the people of the congregation I serve get a lot of information and mis-information through the popular media. As their pastor, I am responsible to give them some guidance so that their faith in Christ is strengthened and so they can live confidently as disciples of Jesus Christ in today’s world.

Historical Presupposition

Islam took shape during the centuries of the height of Christendom, when church and empire were indistinguishably intertwined. Islam can be understood as a reaction to the corruption and spiritual weakness of those centuries. Reaction to some of these same problems gave rise to the Protestant Reformation almost a millennium after Mohammed. One way of understanding the parallel histories of Christianity and Islam is to see that Islam gains strength when the Church is weak.

For many Muslims today, their conflict with the West is seen as a death struggle with Christendom. Secularism and pluralism are almost incomprehensible threats to piety and obedience to God. So for many Muslims what we tend to see as social issues (divorce, promiscuity, pornography, abortion, gambling, homosexuality, addiction, profane art) are seen as expressions of Christendom. Unfortunately, many of the social/political efforts to increase Christian moral influence in the U.S. and to promote the Christian (or Judeo-Christian) heritage of the U.S. reinforce this identification in Muslim thinking.

Except for some vestigial, ceremonial forms, Christendom is dead in the West, and in the U.S. the generic, vaguely Judeo-Christian civil religion that reached its peak in the 1950’s is no longer the glue of a social consensus. That some oppose bringing Turkey into the European Union because it would dilute the Christian identity of Europe would be ironically humorous if it did not reinforce the Muslim misconception that the secular West is Christian. (This is not an opinion on whether Turkey should join the EU, only an observation on European secularism.)

Winner-Take-All Competition

Make no mistake. Islam has been competing with Christianity for 1,400 years. Both are missionary religions with a charge from their founders to bring their faith to the whole human race. Both are religions that claim that loyalty to God supersedes all human loyalties: national, racial, ethnic, tribal, cultural, linguistic, social, economic, political. (Nevertheless, historically both have been notoriously powerless to prevent sectarian, fraternal violence.) Both are religions of eschatological victory in which God’s plan is irresistibly accomplished.

Their competing claims are mutually exclusive, so in an ultimate sense only one can succeed. Muslim thinking tends to see the tolerance and pluralism of the secular West as a threat to the absolute claims of Islam. Non-Christendom Christianity, however, is able to see the tolerance and pluralism of the secular West as offering people the freedom to choose to put their faith in Christ. This is parallel to the first three centuries of the Church when Christians were a marginalized minority (before Constantine made a diluted and distorted version of Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire) and to “unevangelized territory” missionary efforts.

The Competitive Arena Has Shifted

After World War II, the global competition for human imagination was largely between Marxist Communism and Democratic Capitalism. Since atheism was an essential tenet of Marxist Communism, transforming the vestiges of Christendom into a quasi-Judeo-Christian civil religion served the interests of Democratic Capitalism. In that culture, authentic Christians could find a comfortable home and platform for Christian expression. A variety of forces that came into open view in the 1960’s relentlessly transformed Democratic Capitalism of the West into Secular Materialism (this is my shorthand for the dominant worldview of the West: Europe, Canada, U.S.). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Marxist Communism has ceased to be a compelling competitor for human imagination. So at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the competition is between Islam and Secular Materialism.

My opinion is that for authentic Christianity to compete effectively in this new arena, Christians must distinguish and separate themselves from the Secular Materialism that characterizes the West (including the U.S.). The Church must become a third voice that is an alternative to both Secular Materialism and Islam. Attempting to restore Christendom or return to Judeo-Christian civil religion will bring only confusion and ineffectiveness. In fact, because of the connection to God, at one level, Christianity may have more in common with Islam than with Secular Materialism.

As a Christian, I believe that an essential part of being human, of being made in the image of God, is a craving for transcendent significance. I believe this is something Islam promises that is entirely lacking in Secular Materialism. It gives Islam a powerful edge in the current competition. However, I also believe the Christian vision of transcendent significance is more compelling that that promised by Islam but will only be a viable alternative when presented and seen as quite distinct from Secular Materialism.

Christians cannot afford to be seen as allies of the Secular Materialism that characterizes the West or of the Christendom that many Muslims confuse with the West. Christians can and should recognize that all human institutions, governments and civilizations are transient; they come and go. Whether historically or eschatologically, Western civilization (including the U.S.) will pass from the world scene. But as Christians, we have a confidence that the Church of Jesus Christ will continue (though its forms may change) until Christ establishes the Kingdom of God in all its fullness. The eschatological vision of Islam is that it will supplant all human institutions not submitted to Allah.

My own view of the competition between Christianity and Islam in the 21st Century is that both religions are competing for those who are discontent with and victims of the spiritual hollowness of Secular Materialism. Since, I also am convinced that the vision of authentic Christianity for humanity both present and future is more attractive and compelling that that of Islam, I imagine that as Christians compete with Islam for refugees from Secular Materialism, God will call some folk out of Islam to become disciples of Jesus Christ.

Why Does Islam Appeal?

The growth and spread of Islam cannot be fully explained by immigration, coercion, birth rates, oppressive poverty or deception. Islam is winning converts in non-Muslim areas. In nominally Muslim countries, not only are some being drawn into radical groups, but many are becoming more observant and engaged with their religion. In non-Muslim countries, many who kept a Muslim identity without conviction or practice, are becoming students of Islam and trying to create a way of being observant Muslims while fitting into modern secularism. Converts from non-Muslim backgrounds are adopting Islam much as Christian denominations swap members, and some are attracted to orthodox and even radical groups.

I am convinced that for Christians to be effective in this competition, to present a Christian vision in an appealing way, we need to understand what people find attractive about Islam. What does it offer them beyond being a cultural artifact of the society into which they were born? This exploration cannot be done with ridicule. Rather, we must introduce Jesus Christ as a respectful alternative that takes seriously what Muslims find satisfying in Islam. Perhaps even more to the point, Christians need to discern why Islam appeals to the refugees from Secular Materialism if we are to introduce people to Jesus as more satisfying of their longings. I have summarized the appeal of Islam and the response of Christians in these four areas.
  • Transcendent Significance and Hope for the Future to be Lived in the Present
  • Integration of Faith with the Totality of Life
  • Clarity of Expectations and Interpretation of the World
  • Satisfaction of Hunger for Spirituality
I have already suggested that people are drawn to Islam for transcendent significance. We want our lives to count, and we want to participate in something bigger and more important than we are. We want hope of something valuable beyond the struggles of this life. I find that non-Muslims tend to think of this in terms of a rather cartoonish representation of the Muslim vision of Paradise (fill in your own rendition of the 70 virgins). What I pick up more in what I read from Muslims is a vision for the oneness of all humanity, justice for the oppressed, and above all submission to and honor for Allah. Are these things manipulated by scruple less leaders for ego and power? Of course, but that doesn’t change the appeal. Furthermore, I suspect that the majority of the world’s observant Muslims do believe they are participating in God’s plan for humanity and never get sucked into a radical or violent group.

As Christians, we, too, want our lives to count for eternity. We look forward to the resurrection to eternal life and enjoying Christ’s presence in the Kingdom of God. We, too, pray for all to be one in Christ. We, too, long for and work for justice and peace. We Christians recognize that our ultimate significance comes from bringing glory to God. When we limit our appeal to trust Christ to getting to heaven or living forever after this life, we short-circuit Jesus’ distinct promise of oneness with God (John 17:21). We need an eschatology of hope that not only offers a bright future for the human race, but enables us to live with hope and joy in the midst of daily life and in the face of the threats and challenges of our time in the world. This is perhaps best summarized by Jesus when he quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19)

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

I believe that one of the appeals of Islam is that it is a total way of life. It is not a religious compartment sealed off from daily experience and values. In the West, Secular Materialism treats religion as a personal choice, almost like a personal preference in styles of clothing or music or cars. People are welcome to whatever religion they prefer as long as they keep it private. But we humans are much more healthy when we are integrated and transparent, when our lives fit together as a whole with no division between our private and public selves. Islam offers this total way of life with an Islamic way of doing everything from eating to praying, from dressing to participating in the community.

Whether out of courtesy or cowardice, most Western Christians have acquiesced to Secular Materialism and distorted personal faith into private faith. We need a revival of understanding that Christ is Lord of all of life, not just worship and religion, but economics, politics, art, career, recreation, entertainment. When we let Jesus be the organizing focus that brings wholeness to the totality of our lives, we will attract those whose lives are fragmented and isolated in secular society.

The Islamic vision of the wholeness of life comes in the form of rules, traditions and customs that govern the external details of daily living: from praying at five set times a day, to dietary planning, from women’s head coverings to washing rituals. Strict modern Muslims would do the Pharisees of Jesus’ day proud. Of course, we know of legalistic Christians who focus on rules for external behavioral compliance. While the New Testament’s teaching of Christian liberty (Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 8; Galatians 5) may encourage variety rather than conformity, living as Christ’s disciples in every part of life should be evident and attractive.

I believe one of the appeals of Islam (in this regard, it also applies to fundamentalist Christianity), is that it simplifies and clarifies life. Faithful Muslims know what is expected of them. They know how to interpret the world around them. Such a worldview relieves the stress and anxiety of ambiguity. I am not proposing a retreat to simplistic externals and rule. Rather, I am suggesting that building all of life on an intimate relationship with Jesus offers peace and joy, contentment and insight for living with ambiguity and uncertainty, with freedom and responsibility. I think that as Christians we can find both clarity and simplicity of expectations in both the Old Testament and in Jesus’ teaching.

“What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8

“Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
Mark 12:28-31(cf. Matthew 22:36-40; Leviticus 19:18)

This gives us not a list of external minutia, with all the difficulties of remembering and enforcing, but great clarity and simplicity that shape us from the inside out. Yes, that will mean that different ones of us will do things differently, and we will sometimes disagree about how to best live this way, but as Christians we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I suspect that for most Muslims, having the living presence of God within would be unthinkable.

Islam also appeals to some whose spiritual hunger has not been satisfied by what they call “organized religion” (these are the “I’m very spiritual but not religious” people). Islam offers them an exotic, mystical spirituality. I see quite a bit from Sufism and quotes from Muslim writers in current generic spirituality literature. Since a mosque may be more of a shrine or place for prayers and rituals than a congregation in the sense Christians understand the Church, some people draw on this to satisfy their spiritual cravings without having the messiness of congregational life. Of course, some Christians are more spiritual tourists or religious consumers than covenant partners in a community of faith.

The first step in appealing to people’s spiritual hunger is to cultivate and nurture our own spirituality with varieties of prayer, meditation, Scripture encounter and interpersonal interaction. The second step is providing opportunities for people to explore how Christian spirituality can satisfy these cravings. Our congregations need to become spiritual communities.

The Same God?

Secular Materialism puts a high value on pluralism and tolerance. Since the Christian Gospel calls for a free and informed response, those values should not be particularly threatening to Christians. But Christians do need to be alert to homogenizing forces that suggest that one’s religion is a personal style preference and that there are no essential differences between religions.

In the culture of pluralism and tolerance, particularly as an extension of Judeo-Christian civil religion, polite speech suggests that Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same God. These religions are sometimes portrayed as culturally interchangeable monotheisms. As long as they acknowledge one God, the only real difference between them is which cultural tradition you were brought up in. This is often proposed with the hope that if these three religions worship the same God, the frictions and conflicts between them could be reduced or even eliminated.

All three of the world’s great monotheistic religions trace their roots to Abraham and claim to worship the God of Abraham. However, Islam does not have the same sense of a covenant making God that Judaism and Christianity do. Despite this Abrahamic origin, Islam traces its origins through Ishmael, not Isaac and Jacob. So if you were to say only that all three worship the God of Abraham, there could be a sense of worshipping the same God. But Muslims would immediately opt out of worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:6; 1 Kings 18:36; 1 Chronicles 29:18; 2 Chronicles 30:6; Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37; Acts 3:13; 7:32). Neither Muslims nor Jews would acknowledge that they worship the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 11:31; Ephesians 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3). Understanding that Jesus Christ is the incarnate God of the Old Testament is important for seeing that Christianity has a continuity with Judaism that it does not share with Islam.

Following World War II, in the interest of promoting world peace, Westerners customarily spoke of “the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” Today, in the 21st century, this sounds quaint and sexist. Devout Muslims could never accept this concept since for them to speak of God as a father is blasphemous. The Koran says that for God to beget a son would be unseemly (Suras 9, 17, 19). Thus, devout Muslims never speak of God as father. Though God is only rarely called “Father” in the Old Testament, parental and marital images of God are common. In the New Testament, Jesus is constantly addressing God as not only his Father, but as the Father of Israel, humanity and certainly of his disciples. So from this perspective, the Muslim picture of God is quite different from that of Jews and especially Christians.

Shared Themes in Common

Nevertheless, Christianity and Islam do share in common a number of essential qualities. Since Islam was formed in reaction to a weak and distorted Christianity, this is not surprising. In fact, Mohammed described his own mission as correcting what the Christians had corrupted. Effective Christian response to Islam requires having a grasp of what authentic Christianity and Islam share in common. Of course, exceptions and failures can easily be found in both religions.
  • Both claim to be revealed by God, not discovered through meditation or insight (in contrast to Buddhism and Hinduism)
  • Both claim that God has objective expectations for human righteousness and morality
  • Both are missionary religions that expect their followers to seek converts
  • Both claim to be for all people regardless of nationality, race, ethnicity, language, geography, class, economic status
  • Both claim loyalty that supersedes all human loyalties: nation, clan, tribe, race
  • Both give considerable importance to care and justice for the poor and oppressed
  • Both highly value study and education
  • Both call people to live every aspect of life through the religion
  • Both have a vision for the future in which God’s purposes are accomplished
Important Differences

The most important difference between Christianity and Islam is their respective understandings of Jesus. The Koran affirms Jesus’ virgin birth, death and resurrection. It calls Jesus a sign to humanity, a servant and a prophet. But it resoundingly rejects any suggestion of Jesus as the Son of God or having any semblance of deity. (Sura 19)
Christians will benefit considerably by reading through the Koran. For one thing, they will quickly discover that it is not at all like the Bible. It is not a history of God’s interaction with people. Most of it is proverbial truisms not unlike the book of Proverbs in the Bible. The Bible represents about two millennia of history, but the Koran came through one person in one lifetime. Orthodox Muslims believe that when the Koran is read aloud in Arabic a miracle occurs and God is revealed afresh. They see the Koran as the living revelation of God. In this sense it is parallel to our Christian understanding of Jesus Christ as the living revelation of God. (John 1)

Since the rise of radical Islam in recent years, there has been considerable debate about the violent material in the Koran, not only among secular and Christian scholars but also among Muslim scholars. Before we as Christians are too hasty to condemn Islam because of this material or because of violent episodes in Muslim history, we need to come to terms with the violence of the Old Testament and the violence Christians have perpetrated on Muslims. When some Muslims describe the “War on Terror” as “War on Islam,” they are seeing current international conflicts as an extension of the Crusades. While that may seem ludicrous to us, we can understand it better if we think of 1,400 years of conflict between Islam and Christendom.

The Muslim understanding of having everything in life submitted to God means that to be fully Muslim, one’s nation and government must be submitted to God, thus the rationale for Islamic Republics. It also means that wielding the sword (waging war) is legitimized in the service of Allah. As we see in the current debates in Turkey (and the different visions for the future of Iraq), a secular state with separation of government and religion, where people have the individual freedom to choose their religion is inconsistent with having everything in life submitted to Allah. From its beginning warfare and force have been tools of Islamic development and expansion, which didn’t come into play in Christianity until Constantine.

By way of contrast, for its first three centuries, the Christian Church was on the outside of the power structures of the Roman Empire. Christians all too easily forget that when Paul wrote to be subject to the governing authorities, and that they all have been instituted by God and do not bear the sword in vain (Romans 13:1-7), the Roman Emperor was Nero who was violently hostile to the Church and ultimately executed Paul and Peter. While not all Christians were doctrinaire pacifists, they were de facto, practical pacifists. Even when some Christians had positions of influence or responsibility in government, they definitely would not have identified the government or the empire as tools for their missionary commission. From 4th century monastics to Reformation era Anabaptists, this vision of Christians operating outside of the government and the military has been kept alive, ever since Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire and co-opted the faith for the cause of the Empire.

That is why Christians can not only live comfortably with but endorse separation of church and state and freedom of religion. In that sense, today’s Secular Materialism may be more like the first three centuries of Christianity than the more than a millennium and a half of some variation of Christendom. In the environment where Christian faith can be chosen without legal or social pressure, it is most authentic and vigorous.

Reducing Christianity to religious rituals and moral rules is a gross distortion of what Jesus and the Apostles were offering. This kind of Christianity is all about a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This kind of Church is all about people who are so bound to Jesus that they can’t help being bound to each other. Islam, on the other hand is about doing the things that Allah demands and being evaluated on how well you perform. Though the Koran addresses God as “the Compassionate, the Merciful,” it does not offer the kind of grace and forgiveness that permeates the Bible.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, who forgives all your iniquity The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love. As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. (from Psalm 103)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? (from Romans 8)

The compassion and mercy of the God of the Koran allows people to work their way to Paradise and to earn forgiveness for their sins by acts of ritual or duty or service. But there is no redemption or atonement in Islam. No way has been provided for the undeserving. This is part of what the radicals distort to motivate suicide bombers with a call to martyrdom, as a huge good work to overcome sin and earn passage to Paradise.

For much the same reasons that Islam sees calling God “Father” as blasphemy, personal intimacy and unity with God, such as Jesus speaks about in John 14-17 are rejected by Islam. God is unsullied, distant, well beyond our human experience. Devout Muslims may be offended by Christians speaking intimately of God. It seems to me, that this is a potential appeal for refugees from Secular Materialism to consider Christ over Islam. Of course, that is predicated on the assumption that Christians are living in this intimacy with God.

Pastoral Guidance

To be sure, the rise of radical Islam presents the governments of the West with political, diplomatic and military challenges and threats that must be met with insight, wisdom, intelligence and imagination. As Christians who live in a Western Democracy, we are affected quite directly by those national and international dynamics, and I believe our country and the world benefits when Christians of deep faith are engaged in these processes. Nevertheless, every Christian and every congregation is confronted by today’s ascendancy of Islam in our own country as well as in the world, perhaps more by Muslims who are not radicals than those who are. Rather than shrinking in fear, I believe as Christians we can become stronger.
  • Define, establish and cultivate the significance and meaning of your own life in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
  • Renew the vitality of our faith with rigorous spiritual disciplines: Bible reading, prayers, corporate worship.
  • Integrate Christ into every aspect of our lives, private and public.
  • Begin to live now the hope of Christ’s coming Kingdom.
  • Practice and articulate with clarity and simplicity the expectations of Christian living: love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with God – love God, love neighbors.
  • Engage in the evangelistic mission of the Christian Church: introducing people to Jesus and inviting them to know, love and trust him as the satisfying alternative to the hollowness of secular materialism and external legalisms such as seen in Islam.
  • Cultivate a lifestyle of daily intimacy with God through Jesus Christ.
  • Determine that the Church in its congregations and mission will be a microcosm of the Kingdom in which people from every tribe and language and people and nation; begin to live as a kingdom of priests serving our God.
  • Advocate justice for the poor and oppressed.

I resonate with what Richard Mouw wrote in “An Open Handed Gospel,” Christianity Today, April 2008, page 47.

“About thirty or so American leaders representing Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had the privilege of a closed-door session with King Abdullah of Jordan. … We were impressed by the Arab leader’s professed commitment to encouraging fellow Muslims to cooperate with Jews and Christians in countering the toxic influence of extremists in each of our communities. … As our session neared its conclusion, an elderly rabbi asked for a final word. He told the king he was deeply moved by what he had shared. ‘We need you in our world of turmoil today,’ he said, ‘but I worry about your safety and the well being of your family.’ He pledged to pray for King Abdullah and his loved ones. And then the rabbi offered, as a fellow descendent of Abraham, the well-known ancient blessing: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace.’ … As an evangelical Christian, … I believe with all my heart that the God I worship, the God of Abraham, looked down on that scene, when a descendent of Isaac gave a blessing to a descendent of Ishmael, and smiled and said, ‘That’s good! That’s the way I want things to be!’ I’m not entirely clear about how to work this into my theology, … but I’m willing to live with some mystery in thinking about this encounter.”