Brother Al and the Muslims

Here is a story that gives us some insight into the prevailing American fundamentalist Christian view of Islam.

Evangelical Leaders Pledge Common Cause with Islam by Stephen Adams, CitizenLink (from James Dobson's Focus on the Family Web site) 01/03/08. the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group of conservative Protestants, recently wrote a conciliatory public letter to Muslims. The petition was a response to a statement by a number of prominent Muslims, that was called A Common Word Between Us and You. The Christian petition originated with a group of Yale Divinity School scholars and is titled A Christian Response to "A Common Word Between Us and You".

This kind of exchange seems to be very much in the spirit of ecumenical dialogue to promote world peace that Hans Küng's Global Ethic Foundation promotes.

Evangelicals in the American sense means conservative Protestants who adhere to a "born-again" theology. Fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Former President Jimmy Carter and Billy Graham are non-fundamentalist, evangelical Christians. (Billy's son Franklin may be another question.)

Conservatives regularly complain that "moderate" Muslims aren't doing enough to counter violent jihadism. But you don't have to listen that closely to see that in many cases, what the conservatives are really saying is that the real enemy is Islam and that the "moderates" are either useless against the jihadists or actually support them.

This exchange of public statements gives an example in practice of how this works out. If the conservatives were serious about wanting "moderate" Muslim to step up to promote peace, one would think they would embrace such a moment. NAE President Leith Anderson gives an example of this in the statement he about his support for the Christian public letter at Signing the Letter to Islam NAE.net 11/2/07:

What are my hopes from this dialogue [between Christians and Muslims]? First, mutual respect between the two largest religions on the globe. This includes a freedom to state what we each believe without pretending that there is comprehensive mutual agreement. Second, peace in places and between peoples who are hostile toward one another. Third, religious liberty where every nation allows its citizen to freely believe and worship even if that means changing what is believed and how worship is rendered. Fourth, an opening for future dialogue with the conviction that it is not good to live in either ignorance nor isolation.

The CitizenLink news report notes that prominent Baptist theologian Albert Mohler has attacked the Christian statement:

Their response [the Christian petition] — initiated by Yale Divinity School and endorsed by other liberal Christian leaders — apologized for the sins of Christians during the Crusades and for "excesses" of the global war on terror, without mentioning Muslim atrocities. It appeared to leave the fundamentals of Christianity — especially the deity of Christ — open for discussion.

It even seemed to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible. "Before we 'shake your hand’ in responding to your letter,” it stated, "we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world."

The very name of the Muslim communiqué — A Common Word between Us and You — is from a verse in the Quran that condemns “people of the Scripture” (Christians) for alleged polytheism (the doctrine of the Trinity).

Mohler said the agreement “sends the wrong signal” and contains basic theological problems, especially in "marginalizing" Jesus Christ. He also condemned the apology for the Crusades. (my emphasis)

While the theological buzzwords may not be immediately obvious to all readers, this position essentially rules out all ecumenical dialogue between Chritianity and Islam (and Judaism) that isn't a sales pitch of Christians proselytizing believers of the other faith.

There are different motivations for people to learn about someone else's religion. The kind of dialogue sought by Hans Küng and the Global Ethic Foundation is one that would help believers understand what the other religion believes and to seek common ground in the interest of world peace. A genuine ecumenical dialogue, that is.

Learning about another religion for the purpose of proselytizing means that one is seeking to understand the other religion from a sales standpoint, i.e., how can I convince the other side to give up their own religion and adopt mine?

The former means understanding the other religion on its own terms. Not accepting it or converting to it, but understanding it in its own terms, not just from the standpoint of one's own religion. Christianity and Islam are both religions that historically emphasized winning converts. So such an approach can be challenging for both.

The latter means understanding the other religion in order to discredit it, at least in the eyes of those targeted for conversion.

This is where the fundamentalist view converges with the desire of those who wish to demonize Islam for more earthly reasons than saving the souls of Muslims. The quote above on criticism of the Christian petition provides some good examples of how that works.

First of all, saying that Christians should never make a statement that would have the effect of "marginalizing" Jesus Christ is pretty much the same as saying that Christians should never talk to Muslims about religion except to convert them. Or maybe to anger and humiliate them during torture sessions in the Bush Gulag. The reality is that Christians have never won a lot of voluntary conversions from Islam or Judaism, in part because the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't make any sense to them.

For that matter, it doesn't make sense to Christians either. Any minister who is remotely respectful of the religious complexities of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is going to wind up explaning it by some version of saying, "it's a Mystery", and that believing it is a matter of faith. My own pastor, who takes his theology pretty seriously, explains it as a type of dialogue of God with Himself. Then he reminds people that they're never going to really understand the doctrine and that you shouldn't beat yourself up over it. (Kind of like a native English speaker attempting to master German, for instance.)

Muslims and Jews believe that there is one God. Not "one God in three Persons" as the Trinity doctrine describes it. But one God in one Person. Historically and theologically, that one God is God worshipped by Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Maybe someday She'll explain to us how many Persons She really is in a more understandable way. Meanwhile, we can't understand the doctrine. But we can do the math. The belief in one God is a common belief among Christians and Muslims. The belief in Jesus as a prophet is also common to both faiths. The belief that Jesus is God is common only to Chrisitians. And, for that matter, the Western and Eastern Christian Churches split nearly a thousand years ago (theoretically and at least in part really) over how to define the doctrine of the Trinity and have never reconciled over it. But let's not even go there.

So, saying, "I'm not going to talk about your religion on any kind of equal, respectful basis until you acknowledge that Jesus is God", is pretty much eliminating the possibility of Christians talking to Muslims about their faith on any kind of equal, respectful basis. It's very similar to Cheney and Bush telling Iran, "Do everything we tell you to do with nothing in return, and after you've done it then we'll hold negotiations with you."

It's a particularly brainless fundamentalist habit to talk about Allah as though the word designates a particular deity different from the one worshipped by Christians. "Allah" is the Arabic word for "god". Arabic-speaking Christians also pray to "Allah".

The defense of the Crusades is particularly ironic coming from hardline Protestants. The Crusades were for a long time a standard item in Protestant polemics against the Catholics, wars of conquest in the name of God that Protestants claimed with the doing of the vile papists, not some common and dubious legacy of the religion of Christianity. Brother Al, though, is more than happy to embrace the Crusades.

If you can stomach a half hour of this, Brother Al did a radio program on this. He spends the first ten minutes on anti-abortion. The segment on the evangelical letter to Muslims begins around 11:15 in the excerpt.

There's a telling moment near the end that gives the listeners a brief exposure to the limited nature of fundamentalists' alleged fondness for Jews. A caller to the show asks a reasonable question: if fundis can recognize that Jews worship the same God as Christians, why is that not the case with Muslim. Brother Al responds, with a minimum of mealy-mouthing, that Jews do not worship the same God as Christians.

Tags: albert mohler, christian fundamentalism, christianism, christianity, hans küng, islam