Date Published: 06/05/2009
With President Obama having made his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, awareness of Islam and Muslim people is up. However, the perspective of global politics that comes through the media is only a partial picture. Because of my involvement with ThanksGiving Square’s Interfaith Council and a few other interfaith contacts, I have at least been able to get acquainted and have some personal conversation with some Muslim folk. I would have to say that geo-political issues have had almost nothing to do with these relationships. As a Christian whose faith shares Abrahamic roots with my Muslim friends, I am much more interested in exploring where our faiths converge and diverge. Those with whom I have had conversation seem also to share this interest.
One of the convergences is as those who believe God has an objective moral expectation of human beings, both Christians and Muslims share the common challenge of how to articulate and practice personal and community righteousness in a pluralistic culture and secular society. Since the Christian Church was a minority faith on the fringes of the Roman Empire, sometimes violently persecuted, for its first three centuries, we have some history that can guide us in living in a hostile, secular, pluralistic society. Mohamed’s vision was a total society completely submitted to God, so modern Muslims have a different challenge when figuring out how to practice their faith outside of a Muslim country. Though we read in the news about the Sunni-Shiite division in Islam, the differences in how to approach practicing Islam in a non-Muslim society may be their great issue of the 21st Century.
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