Radical Christianity vs. Radical Islam

Years ago I taught a Christian Studies course at Seinan Gakuin University titled “Radical Christianity.” The Japanese word for “radical,” just like the English one, had to be defined, for it was a term easily misunderstood.

As part of my explanation I told the students how the English word, which is often transliterated into Japan, comes from the Latin word radix, which means root. So my emphasis was that radical Christianity was the sort of belief and practice that went back to its roots, to Jesus and his teaching and activities.

(By the way, do you know about Radix, the “radical” Christianity magazine? I subscribed to it for several years, beginning soon after its initial appearance in 1976.)

In explaining what radical Christianity looks like in Christian history, I talked about people such as Francis of Assisi, Kagawa Toyohiko, Martin Luther King Jr., and Clarence Jordan (among others).

The only examples I used were Christians who believed in and practiced non-violence and who were devoted to social justice. And I still believe those are characteristics of what radical Christianity should, and does, embrace.

In recent years the term “radical Islam” has been widely used—and in such cases radical has a completely different meaning—or does it? In general use, radical means “associated with political views, practices, and policies of extreme change” (Merriam-Webster). Used this way, it most often includes use of violence to bring about that change.

Christianity changed from its radical beginnings to become more and more aligned with violence (war). In contrast, until the recent rise of the Taliban, ISIS, and other such radical groups, Islam became more and more peaceful through the centuries.

“Muhammad and the Caliphate” is the first chapter of the massive tome titled The Oxford History of Islam (1999). It is explained there that beginning in 627 Muhammed “launched raids against Meccan caravans, seizing valuable booty and hostages.”

Then by a “series of raids and battles” Muhammad was able to subdue some of his opponents and by “outright force” was able to subdue other groups.

Soon after Muhammed’s death in 632, Abu Bakr, his successor, sanctioned the “Apostasy wars” and then by “shows of force” brought the entire Arabian peninsula under his control by 634 (pp. 10-11).

The British historian Hugh Kennedy is the author of The Great Arab Conquests (2007). In his first chapter Kennedy explains how Muhammad’s “military campaigns” were “the beginning of the Muslim conquests. His example showed that armed force was going to be an acceptable and important element first in the defence of the new religion and then in its expansion.”

Kennedy also writes, “The Prophet’s example meant that there was no parallel to the tendency to pacificism [sic] so marked in early Christianity” (p. 48).

In spite of the changes that later took place, both in Christianity and Islam, it seems indisputable that the nature of the public activities of Jesus and Mohammed from the beginning to the end of their lives differed greatly. There was also great difference in the activities of the followers of Jesus and Mohammed in the decades after their deaths.

Restoring radical Christianity is a challenging and worthy goal for all Christians, and one I continue to promote. How badly most contemporary Christians need to go back to following the radical teachings and activities of Jesus!

On the other hand, staunchly opposing radical Islam, such as embodied by ISIS, as well as affirming and supporting the peaceful Islam that has developed through the centuries and widely practiced here in the U.S. now is also badly needed.

Combatting Islamophobia

Back in May 2013 I wrote about Islamophobia (see this link) and mentioned it again in October 2014 (here). But fear of Muslims, which is basically what Islamophobia is, seems to be stronger now—especially since the San Bernardino shootings—than it was two or three years ago.

It goes without saying that there are radical terrorists in the world. ISIS (ISIL) is a real and ongoing threat to peace and safety in the Near East as well as in the Western world. The extremist activity of some groups or individuals who self-identify as Muslims cannot be denied and should not be ignored.

At the same time, the lumping of all Muslims together and harboring suspicion against, or promoting rejection of, all Muslims because of the terrorist activities of some who say they are Muslims is grossly unfair.

This month the group which meets under the name Vital Conversations discussed the book Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism (2013). The author, Maajid Nawaz (b. 1978), is an ethnic Pakistani born in England. As a teenager he was radicalized, and then a few years later he rejected the Islamism that he had embraced.

Nawaz became the co-founder of, and continues as the leader of, Quilliam, a think tank based in London that seeks to combat Islamism and its extremist activities. (To understand the distinction between Islam and Islamism is crucial.)

In 2011 Nawaz gave a TED talk in Edinburgh with the title “A Global Culture to Fight Extremism.” He is an admirable example of a Muslim fighting valiantly against radical Islamism.

Ahmed el-Sharif was our guest at the January Vital Conversations meeting. Ahmed was born in Sinai and came to the United States in 1979. He is a chemist, and became an American citizen in 1985.

Ahmed is also the founder of the American Muslim Council of Greater Kansas City. There is no question about him being a devout Muslim. But for those who have met him and heard him talk, there is no question about him being a peace-loving, sweet-spirited man.

This evening (Jan. 25) Central Baptist Theological Seminary here in the Kansas City area will be holding its Spring Convocation. Following that, at 7 p.m. veteran professor Richard Olson will lead a discussion of Todd H. Green’s book The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (2015). 

Green, who is a professor of religion at Luther College in Iowa, has written a very helpful, easy-to-read but scholarly book that I found well worth reading.

To pick up on just one point, Green explains that just referring to “Islamic terrorists” encourages Islamophobia. That is the main reason President Obama has generally not used that term.

Even back in 2008 Rudolph Giuliani’s criticized the Democratic National Convention for not using those words, and the President has been repeatedly castigated for not using that label.

For example, about a year ago CNN reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham had said, “We are in a religious war with radical Islamists. When I hear the President of the United States and his chief spokesperson failing to admit that we’re in a religious war, it really bothers me.”

Last month Donald Trump called for barring all Muslims from entering the United States (at least temporarily). Then early this month, in his first television ad of the presidential election campaign, Trump reiterated his call for a ban on Muslim entry to the U.S.

Trump’s statement about Muslims is clearly an expression of, as well as encouragement of, Islamophobia. And sadly, his strident voice is just one among many.

Can We Trust Muslims?

Recently I have had some dialogue (via email) about Muslims with a Thinking Friend who is a retired Baptist pastor.

Responding to a questionable email he had forwarded to me, among several others, I wrote, “I think we (Americans and/or Christians) must be careful not to consider many if not most Muslims to be radicals. Islam should not be judged by looking at the radical Islamists any more than Christianity should be judged by looking at the KKK.”

In response, my TF wrote, “The credibility of separating radical from moderate Muslims lies in the fact that Moderate Muslims, who are the majority, do little or nothing to denounce the radical movement. Christians make no bones about denouncing the KKK, the Jim Jones radicals and others under the rubric of Christianity who deny the basic ideals set forth by Jesus.”

He went on to say, “I personally believe Islam is evil to the core based upon the nature of Allah and the teachings of the Koran. It is a religion of war and conquest rather than love and acceptance (grace).”

My response to that was to send him several recent articles about moderate Muslims speaking out clearly in opposition to ISIS and radical Islam: articles, for example, that you can read here and here.

In this same vein, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, the World Council of Churches general secretary, recently welcomed publication of an open letter by 126 Muslim scholars to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State,” condemning the atrocities committed by ISIS. (Here is that link.)

In the most recent email received about this issue from my TF, he wrote about recently seeing on Fox News an interview with an anonymous Muslim who “specifically referred to the speeches of [moderate] Muslim scholars . . . as a way to deceive Americans to get in their good graces, thus working their way into business, government, education and even religion.”

That was a rather scary interview, which you can see here.

So my TF concluded, “I'm just not convinced of the good intentions of the ‘moderate’ Muslim community. [It is] all deceitful talk.”

But is it?

My TF failed to mention that the same Fox News program, to their credit, also had an interview with Qanta Ahmed (M.D.), associate professor of medicine at SUNY. She spoke out in no uncertain terms against ISIS.

Last month Dr. Ahmed wrote a piece in the Washington Post titled, “My beautiful faith is being overtaken by the beheaders I’ve studied.”

Further, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, in August reiterated its condemnation of the “un-Islamic and morally repugnant” violence and religious extremism of the ISIS.

CAIR rallies against ISIS have recently been held in Tulsa (9/19) and in Houston (10/3). The leader of the former rally was quoted as saying, “ISIS not only represents the worst of humanity, but their actions are without a doubt the antithesis of Islam’s teachings.”

Of course, it is possible that Dr. Ahmed and especially CAIR are being deceptive and that we American Christians (and others) should not take seriously what they say. But that seems like a cynical and, most probably, unnecessary stance.

It is not good to be gullible. But neither is extreme suspicion and rejection of statements made in good faith a commendable position.

Even though there are, no doubt, some Muslims whom we cannot and should not trust, most Muslims in this country are probably as trustworthy as most of the people of other religions.

Is the President a Muslim?

Most of you probably saw or heard the results of the Pew Forum’s poll about the President’s religion. An incredible 18% of all those surveyed and 31% (!) of Republicans surveyed say the President is a Muslim.

On the one hand, we might say, What difference does it make? The nation (and especially all the nay-saying Protestants) found out after the presidential election in 1960 that it doesn’t particularly make a difference if the President is a Roman Catholic. Moreover, the Constitution declares that there is no religious test for public office.

But the fact is, the President is a Christian—in spite of the fact that only 34% of those polled (and only 27% of the Republicans) think so. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel got it right the other day when he said, “A new poll finds that more and more Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim. . . . Which is crazy. Remember . . . during the election, when all anyone could talk about was his crazy friend, Reverend Wright, and how he couldn't be trusted because he belonged to this guy’s church for 20 years? What happened to that?”

Some of my first blog entries were about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had been Barack Obama’s pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for twenty years. (To see those postings, click on the “Jeremiah Wright” label on the right.) Do some people really think Obama became a Muslim after (or because) criticism caused him to leave the church where Wright was pastor?

In contrast to Kimmel, political satirist Stephen Colbert made this inane and highly misleading statement the other day: he said the President “endorsed jihad!” and then quoted the President’s statement: “I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan.” Then Colbert said, “You know what? I’ve been wrong, and I owe the President an apology. You’re not a secret Muslim.”

Colbert, of course, was just trying to get a laugh. What worries me is the people who are serious in labeling the President a Muslim. In her August 20 blog posting titled “Are One-Quarter of Americans Freakin’ Morons?” Time senior editor Amy Sullivan points out that “calling Obama a Muslim has become a way for some conservatives to express their distrust of and opposition to him. The idea that ‘Muslim’ is being used as that kind of pejorative shorthand is a disturbing development on its own.” I think that is certainly true.

I am particularly disturbed by the many conservative Christians who seek to denigrate the President by labeling him a Muslim even though they claim to uphold the Ten Commandments, one of which, of course, is “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

The late senator Daniel Moynihan (1927-2003) made an important point when he famously said that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Even those who have a negative opinion about the President have the responsibility to get their facts straight about his religion.

In Favor of Park51

Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago, "Are you going to write about the 'Ground Zero Mosque' on your blog?" I said, “Probably not.” But because of the very widespread coverage in the news media and the strong opposition to the project in Manhattan that is officially known as Park51, I decided to write about this controversial issue.

The tipping point came when I read “Building Mosque at Ground Zero is Distasteful.” That op-ed piece, which appeared in last Sunday’s Kansas City Star, is by E. Thomas McClanahan, a member of the Star’s editorial board.

McClanahan wrote that “3,000 Americans were incinerated by Islamic jihadists,” but he did not mention that some of those Americans were also Muslims. And he did not mention that most American Muslims are as dismayed by the crimes of the 9/11 terrorists as are non-Muslim Americans. Nor did he mention that the vast majority of those who will worship at the Manhattan mosque are also anti-terrorist Americans.

McClanahan (gleefully?) points out that there are Muslims opposed to the construction of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” That is but to be expected. When was the last time Christians gave 100% support to any social or political matter? But he failed to point out that the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a nationwide group founded by family members of those killed on 9/11, issued a statement back on May 20 strongly supporting the plans to build the Islamic Cultural Center near the Ground Zero site.

On August 11 at the regular meeting of the Vital Conversations discussion group, we had the privilege of hearing comments by Dr. Abdul Rauf Mir, a medical doctor from Kashmir who has practiced in the Kansas City area for decades and is a naturalized U.S. citizen as well as a devout Muslim.

Dr. Mir (b. 1945) personally knows Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam who is behind the construction of Park51. (I have no explanation for the similarity of their names.) When the sensitivity issue was brought up, Dr. Mir insisted that we should not cater to people’s sensitivities that are based on prejudices. That comment is in line with an August 3 article in Time magazine that referred to the opposition to Park51 as being based “ignorance, bigotry and politics.”

Jim Wallis, leader of the Sojourners community, often says that the answer to bad religion is not “no religion” but “good religion.” Accordingly, can’t we say that the answer to the insidious crimes committed by a few terrorists identified with Islam is a peaceful, tolerant Islamic presence such as is being proposed for Park51?

Jeffrey Goldberg, an American-Israeli journalist who writes for The Atlantic says,

I know Feisal Abdul Rauf. . . . He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of the mosque project are giving him what he wants.

Those are words well worth heeding.