Don’t U.S. Muslims Deserve to Have a Senator?

Previously, I have written two blog posts about Islamophobia (in January 2016 and May 2013). But this month that phobia has reared its ugly head again, so I decided to change my planned blog post for today in order to write about Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and the recent Islamophobic attacks upon him. 

On August 4, Abdul El-Sayed won the primary election for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. Even though he was opposed by the Democratic “establishment,” which spent big bucks to oppose him in favor of their preferred candidate, El-Sayed (b. 1984) narrowly won the election. I had been pulling for him, mainly because of his progressive views.

In addition, I think it is only fair that U.S. citizens whose religion is Islam have a person of their faith in the Senate—and there never has been a Muslim Senator to this point. There are at least 1.1% of U.S. citizens whose religion is Islam, so 1% of the Senate being Muslim seems fair to me. (At present, there are four House members who are Muslim, slightly over 0.9%.)

El-Sayed holds an MD degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and has a Doctorate (DPhil) in Public Health from Oxford University. Following graduation, he chose a career in public health, academia, and government. He self-identifies as a public health physician and epidemiologist.

El-Sayed’s political views deserve widespread support by progressives. I encourage you to read the excellent New York Times interview with the Michigan politician posted on August 7 (see here; the image at the head of this post is from the photo in that article, taken by Nick Hagen for the Times).

Among other things, Tim Balk, the interviewer, said to the Muslim candidate, “There are Jewish folks in Michigan who say they’re anxious about some of your comments. They’re anxious that they could make them less safe in Michigan. What’s your message to them?”

I was impressed by Abdul’s response: “My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters. Antisemitism is a scourge.”

This also is noteworthy: a Religion News Service piece on his Senate primary win reports that El-Sayed has said he believes in the fundamental separation of church and state, adding that he wants to protect the kind of America where everybody can pray how they choose to pray, or choose not to pray at all.

Some Republican politicians have unfairly pilloried El-Sayed. Despite what Abdul has said and the full support he has from even the Democrats who opposed his election, Republican leaders such as the POTUS and Ted Cruz have spoken out strongly and untruthfully about him.

In his Truth Social post on Wednesday (Aug. 5), Trump leveled a series of attacks on El-Sayed. According to Time magazine, the POTUS called the Michigan politician ‘a man of hate’ who was ‘full of sh‑t.’ Ted Cruz’s invective was even harsher.

On that same Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) used the authority of his Judiciary subcommittee of the United States Senate to hold a hearing purporting to demonstrate that there has been a decades-long Muslim conspiracy, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to undermine and control the United States. He stated that El-Sayed is “the crowning achievement of that conspiracy.”

In addition to the unseemly Islamophobic attacks, Abdul is also being attacked for being a Communist, as seen in Trump and his MAGA supporters, and renounced for being a Marxist.

Gary Bauer, a conservative evangelical commentator who writes the American Values daily email newsletter, also posted this on Aug. 5: “All of the socialist leaders were celebrating today. Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani and Marxist professors on every U.S. university faculty see the future looking more like Marx and less like Jefferson.”

That is the sort of criticism coming from the Religious Right, who are mostly MAGA supporters and agree with Trump’s recent screed against Communism. And that is even though El-Sayed declares that he is a capitalist and won’t even self-identify as a democratic socialist.

I fully support the senatorial candidacy of El-Sayed, a Muslim, as well as that of Adam Hamilton, a widely known and highly respected Methodist pastor in Kansas, and of James Talarico, a recent seminary graduate in Texas.

What a difference it will make when Abdul, Adam, and James take their Senate seats in January of next year! (It’s OK to have high hopes, isn’t it?)

Advocating the Radiant Center

On this day before the American Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful that I am in the last stage of publishing the updated and slightly revised edition of my book The Limits of Liberalism. This post is based on the concluding chapter of that book. 

What is the Radiant Center?

In The Limits of Liberalism, I repeatedly call for a position between the “extremes” of the liberal Christian left as well as the “extremes” of the conservative evangelical Christian right. I struggled, though, with what to call the envisioned theological position between the polar opposites.

One term I seriously considered was “radical center,” a term used by Adam Hamilton, the Methodist megachurch pastor in greater Kansas City. Hamilton wrote about that in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White (2008).

Hamilton used the words “radical center” as a term that is “able to hold together the best of the right and the left” (p. 232). It is the position that “seeks to build bridges rather than walls, and refuses to be the wedge in anyone’s theological or culture wars” (p. 235).

But because of the baggage born by the term “radical” and the general unattractiveness of the color gray, I decided to call the position Hamilton was promoting, and which I badly want, the radiant center.

The center between the extremes of black and white doesn’t have to be gray. Rather, it can be a brilliant blue, a gorgeous green, or a rousing red. Yes, a radiant center.

Who Is Included in the Radiant Center?

As I envision it, the radiant center is composed of both progressive evangelicals and conservative liberals as well as all those in between. Moreover, it has ever-widening boundaries, becoming more and more inclusive.

Not everyone, however, is included, or wants to be included, in the center. So, I am not advocating a radical center that includes everyone. I still want, though, to be open to dialogue with those who are not a part of the envisioned center, and I don’t want to exclude anyone from friendship.

While I certainly want to have “malice toward none and charity for all,” not everyone is included in the radiant center because, frankly, some don’t want to be grouped with people with whom they have serious theological disagreements.

The radiant center can’t include those who are not willing to accept and affirm those with quite different beliefs; that is, the radiant center can’t accept “fundamentalists” of the right or the left, that is, those who think that they, and only they, are right.

Advocating the Radiant Center

I close my book by strongly advocating the radiant center as I envision it.

The radiant center radiates the heat (passion and compassion) and light of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the gospel about Jesus.

The radiant center is generous, for it spreads out to warm and enlighten everyone within its reach. Its effects radiate out to all alike, to the right and the left and to those not even on the spectrum.

The radiant center is progressive. While it may not go to the extremes of some contemporary liberal Christianity, neither will it be constrained to the confines of much Christian conservative evangelicalism.

Here, then, is how I close Limits of Liberalism:

I pray that other Christians who are fed up with fundamentalism but who are also aware of the limits of liberalism will join me in searching for, affirming, and then helping to build a radiant center for contemporary Christian faith.

Will you join me in this endeavor?

The Worst Aspect of Racial Segregation

Vital Conversations is a monthly discussion group that meets in the Northland of Kansas City. June and I have been regular members of that group for more than twelve years now, and we have enjoyed many profitable discussions there.

Some of My Best Friends are Black

At the March 13 Vital Conversations meeting, the 25 or so who attended discussed Tanner Colby’s book Some of My Best Friends are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America (2012).  

The meeting was a very helpful one, especially since there were four African-Americans present—including the venerable Alvin Brooks (b. 1932), a civil rights leader who is a former police officer and former city councilman of Kansas City.

The second part of Colby’s book is about racial segregation in housing—and in getting loans for purchasing a home. The situation in Kansas City is a prime example of segregation having been actively enforced by housing planning—and restrictions.

In particular, Colby writes about J.C. Nichols, whom Colby (no doubt rightfully) calls “the most influential real estate developer” in the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century. Colby adds, “One could make the argument that he still holds that title today, despite being dead for sixty years.” (p. 82).

(Specifically, Nichols died in February 1950, several months before his 70th birthday.)

Nichols was the developer of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, regarded as the nation’s first shopping center. After his death, he was memorialized with the impressive J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, just east of the Plaza, and the nearby street renamed the J.C. Nichols Parkway in 1952.

The King of Kings County

In addition to the County Club district and Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, a lasting legacy of J.C. Nichols is the development of Johnson County, Kansas, whose eastern border is just a mile west of the Plaza.

That story, which is told to some extent in Colby’s book, is the theme of the novel The King of Kings County (2005) by Whitney Terrell, a nephew by marriage to J.C. Nichols’ son Miller.

As Colby writes, the novel “tells the story of Kansas City’s blockbusting and suburbanization in a way that only a novel can: fictionalized, but brutally truthful” (p. 291).

(In the book, Nichols is called Bowen, the Plaza is Campanile, and Johnson County is Kings County, but for those who know the history of Kansas City, the identification is obvious.)

“Troost Avenue”

Adam Hamilton is the best-known Christian pastor in Johnson County, Kansas. He is pastor of the 20,000-member Church of the Resurrection, said to be the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S.

“Troost Avenue” is the title of the fifth chapter of Hamilton’s 2018 book Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times.

As also explained in the books mentioned above, Hamilton writes, “The street in Kansas City that serves as the dividing line between predominantly white and black communities is Troost Avenue” (p. 57).

As some blacks sought to move west, Nichols and Bob Wood, an unscrupulous realtor, found ways to profit greatly by the development of Johnson County. They developed “restrictive covenants” that prevented African Americans from buying homes in many of the new, and white, communities.

Black homeowners and communities were also greatly disadvantaged by redlining and other means that meant financial loss.

I used to think that racial segregation was bad because of the deprivation resulting from being separate—and certainly repressive restrictions and lack of freedom are major problems.

But I have come to see that maybe the worst aspect of segregation has been the financial inequity entwined with forced separation.

Perhaps now the major goal is not integration (or equality) but rather thoroughgoing equity.

TTT #19 One Doesn’t Have to be a Liberal to Reject Fundamentalism

In my 7/10 blog article (and Chapter 18 of Thirty True Things . . .), I asserted that one doesn’t have to be a fundamentalist in order to be a good Christian. I am convinced that that is the case. But does opposing fundamentalism make one a liberal? Not necessarily, and that is the main point of this article (and Chapter 19 of TTT).

It Is Not Necessary To Go from One Extreme to the Other

My distaste for Christian fundamentalism is so strong that, as most of know, I wrote an entire book published under the title Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007). Consequently, some people have assumed that I must be a liberal. One of my Facebook friends once referred to me as a “proud liberal.”

But does opposing fundamentalism make one a liberal? No, one doesn’t have to be/become a liberal to reject fundamentalism.

Coincidentally, the very week I was working on the first draft of the 19^th chapter of TTT, I received the first shipment of my second book, The Limits of Liberalism (2010). In that book I call for finding a position between the extremes of staunch fundamentalism and thoroughgoing liberalism.

The Difficulty of Finding the Middle Position

In The Limits of Liberalism I wrote about how in ancient Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis were the names of two sea monsters situated on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy.

Those fearful monsters, representing a hazardous whirlpool and a dangerous reef, were located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to sailors who sought to pass between them: avoiding Charybdis usually meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. 

I certainly agree with those who seek to escape the “monster” called fundamentalism, as evidenced by the content of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism. Still, I see the danger of fleeing the “monster” on the right only to be gobbled up by liberalism, the “monster” on the left.

Unfortunately, some have been so intent on escaping Charybdis (fundamentalism) that they have sailed straight into the jaws of Scylla (liberalism).

Seeking the Radiant Center

While working on The Limits of Liberalism, I came across a delightful book by Adam Hamilton. He is the dynamic pastor of Church of the Resurrection, a Methodist megachurch here in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. The book is titled Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White (2008).

While I largely agree with the centrist position Hamilton takes on most issues, I decided I did not like to talk about that position as being gray, for generally gray is not a very appealing color. So I went on to suggest that perhaps we can seek a position “between the extremes” of black and white, one that is a brilliant blue, a gorgeous green, or a rousing red.

Even though I like Hamilton’s position and found his calling for a “radical center” appealing, I decided to call my vision for the desired middle position the radiant center.

The radiant center is the gathering/rallying place for those who reject fundamentalism as well as for those who recognize the limits of liberalism.

It is the between-the-extremes place for all who realize that one doesn’t have to be a fundamentalist to be a good Christian as well as for all who recognize that one doesn’t have to be a liberal to reject fundamentalism.

[Here is the link to the entire Chapter 19 of TTT, which amplifies and gives examples related to this brief blog article.]