On Respecting Islam
a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
March 26, 2006
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
There is a joke that has been around
for a long time about someone appearing at the Gate of Heaven. After some pointed
questioning to determine the person’s eligibility to enter, St. Peter shows the
person in. As Peter gives the new resident a tour of the heavenly grounds, they
come upon an odd looking structure. It has high walls and no windows. There is
lots of noise coming from the inside.
Seeing the newcomer’s perplexed
expression, Peter says, "Let me explain. Those are where the Presbyterians reside. We need to be very quiet as we pass because they think they are
the only ones up here."
I think the first time I heard the
joke, a priest told it about Roman Catholics. But it works for just about any
other religious group. Because one of religion’s greatest sins is our
continuing fantasy that we and we alone will inhabit heaven.
Why is it that for us to be right
about God, everyone else has to be wrong? Why do Christians think that a God
who welcomes back prodigal children, leaves the ninety-nine sheep to purse the
lost one will suddenly change personality and no longer want to gather the
whole family together? I have never understood a proprietary concept of God’s
love and I never will.
But I do know where it comes from.
The "my religion is better than your religion" syndrome is yet
another example of the most fundamental human sin: hubris. Hubris is what gets
us into wars we shouldn’t be in, makes executives at Enron believe they can
dupe the world, encourages a Jack Abramoff to engage in ever more bold schemes.
Hubris is the driver that shapes much of what is destructive and disgraceful in
human behavior.
And hubris clearly infects the lives
of institutions as profoundly as it does the lives of individuals. Institutions
can be incredibly narcissistic. Rather than serving the people they were
created to serve, institutions can demand that we serve them. Chief among the
institutions who have fallen victim to the sin of hubris is the church.
Nowhere is our hubris more evident in
the church’s teaching that only Christians are saved. Of course, some
Christians have taken it to an even higher level. They proclaim that even non-orthodox-thinking
Christians are damned.
I have a dear evangelical friend who
avoids this judgmental approach in a very simple, humble manner. He says,
"I think only Christians are saved but, ultimately, that matter is in
God’s hands, not mine." If all the church shared his humble approach to
theology, Christians would not have spilled the blood of hundreds of thousands
of innocent victims over the years, people ranging from heretics within the
church to supposed pagans outside the church.
Mix the state into the religious
equation and the church’s hubris rises to the level of the cataclysmic. From
the 8th to 15th centuries, Spain was one of history’s
great multicultural societies. Judaism, Islam and Christianity thrived in
Spain, producing a breathtaking wealth of science, art and humanities. Although
they paid a special poll tax, Christians and Jews enjoyed a protected status
under Muslim rule in Spain.
However, the era of religious
tolerance ended abruptly when, in the 15th century, the Christians
gained control of Spain under Isabella and Ferdinand. The country’s 200,000
Jews were expelled almost immediately and the Inquisition killed and tortured
many dissenting Christians. Shortly thereafter, the Muslims, who had been
guaranteed protection in the Treaty of Granada, were driven from the land they
had called home for six hundred years.
While dismantling Spain’s religiously
tolerant society, Isabella and Ferdinand sent explorers, troops and priests to
the New World. Once there, the Christian Spaniards killed tens of thousands of
indigenous people who refused to accept Jesus as their Christ. The
conquistadores beamed with pride as they tore down Mayan, Aztec and Incan
temples, building churches in their place.
As a warning to ourselves, the
example of Spain should be taught in every school in these United States. If we
assume that our sublime multi-cultural mix here in the United States is safe,
we need only look at Spain.
As we consider immigration
legislation, as we consider the headline in yesterday’s Washington Post telling
us that within a decade, everyone in this region will be in a minority status,
we should be asking, "Who could destroy this great multicultural
feast?" Using Spain as the precedent, the answer to the question is:
"We can. Americans can destroy our tolerant multiculturalism just as the
Spaniards destroyed their multiculturalism." And if it is destroyed, it
will probably be done with the same combination of religious intolerance and
cultural imperialism we saw at work in Spain.
In the days following 9/11, President
Bush wisely and courageously reached out to the Muslim community in the United
States. Sensing that some might respond to 9/11 by blaming Muslims, the
President visited the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue. It was an unforgettable
moment, a truly great leadership gesture.
However, in the years following 9/11,
our nation has given Muslims in this nation no reason to feel welcome and
valued. Indeed, in a recent Washington Post poll, 46% of Americans expressed a
negative attitude toward Islam. That is a very scary polling result. It is even
scarier when we realize the negative number today is seven points higher than
it was in the months right after 9/11.
Since 9/11, the number of Americans
who believe Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled
from 14% to 33%. 25% are willing to go on record as possessing prejudice
against Muslims and Arabs. Can we imagine finding 25% of our population who
would admit to being prejudiced against, say, African Americans or Jews?
One thing that jumps out in the poll
is the totally false association of Islam with terrorists in the Middle East.
Perhaps the easiest way to debunk that falsehood is to understand that the
world’s four nations with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia,
Pakistan, India and Bangledesh—none of which are in the Arab world. Of the
nations with the fourteen largest Muslim populations, only one, Egypt, is in
the Middle East.
Every Friday hundreds of Muslims
attend midday prayer services downstairs here at Western. Of all the things we
do in ministry, making this space available to the Muslim community should be
high on the list of things in which we take pride. Watching the people come to
prayer, I am always struck that it is like watching the world come to worship.
The family systems of the attendees are rooted in different nations and
cultures from around the world. Would that Christian congregations looked like
that on Sunday morning!
As a nation, we are developing a
major anti-Muslim image at the precise moment when Islam is growing. There are
more than one billion Muslims in the world; somewhere between six to eight
million here in the U.S. To develop a bias toward such an enormous, growing
segment of the human family seems almost suicidal on our part.
What can account for our huge upswing
in anti-Muslim sentiment? I think the conservative intellectual Francis
Fukuyama describes a major part of the problem. In his latest book, he speaks
of our nation’s response to the Al Qaeda attack on 9/11 and says, "But
conceiving the larger struggle as a global war comparable to the world wars or
the Cold War vastly overstates the scope of the problem, suggesting that we are
taking on a large part of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Before the Iraq war, we were
probably at war with no more than a few thousand people around the world who
would consider martyring themselves and causing nihilistic damage to the United
States. The scale of the problem has grown because we have unleashed a
maelstrom."
No one can accuse Fukuyama of being
in the "blame America first" camp. But he is not afraid to admit that
we, as a nation, make mistakes, sometimes catastrophic mistakes. It is time
that our elected leaders admit that we are currently engaged in a global
strategy that is simultaneously fueling anti-Americanism around the world and
anti-Muslim sentiment here at home. Our current foreign policy has become a
double curse.
There are many reasons why this war
in Iraq needs to end. But among the primary reasons it needs to end is what the
war is doing to us. Just as Pearl Harbor fueled an ugly bigotry toward
Asians and Asian Americans, so this war is fueling an ugly bigotry toward
Muslims and Arabs. We can figure out ways to defend ourselves against
terrorists. But can we figure out a way to defend ourselves against
anti-Islamic bigotry?
Can we practice religious tolerance
at home and preach it around the world? Frankly, as I read history, spreading
religious tolerance would have a much greater positive effect of humanity than
spreading democracy. Over the centuries, there have been lots of different
forms of governments, democratic and otherwise, that were reasonably peaceful
and just. But there has never been a religiously intolerant society that is
peaceful and just.
The Church needs to be a leader when
it comes to building religious tolerance, not a contributor to religious
intolerance. We must get busy educating ourselves and our children about the
positive attributes of Islam. When I was growing up, I was taught the virtues
of Judaism in church and at home. I wasn’t taught that Judaism
was a lesser religion than Christianity. I was taught that it was Jesus’
religion. It was not just to be respected. It was to be held in high esteem.
The time has come for us to start
doing the same with Islam. Actually, the time is long overdue. As Christians,
we shouldn’t say another word about Islam until we know something about Islam.
As we have studied Islam in our first
Thursday lunchtime discussions with members of Temple Sinai, my already deep
respect for Islam has grown. I have always envied the intense prayer discipline
of Islam. I have also always been grateful for the way they honor Jesus as one
of God’s great prophets.
But my reasons to respect and want to
learn more about Islam continue to grow. Like Christians and Jews, Muslims are
people of the Book. I want to know more about what the Koran actually says. As
in Christianity, there is tremendous diversity within Islam. Our exposure to
Iraq has taught us about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites. There are
many other subsets within Islam. What are they? We should know. What about the
role of women in Islam? How much diversity is there on the subject? The
organizational structure of Islam, especially the role of its clergy, remains a
mystery to me. Most of us operate on false or misleading generalizations about
what Islam is and what Muslims do and believe. Equally bad, we have allowed the
actions of a few to create a caricature of the many. Associating Muslims with
terrorism and extremism is as outrageous as associating Italians with mobsters,
the Irish with the IRA or Colombians with drugs lords. As Christians, do we
think our faith is accurately portrayed by the Crusaders, the witch
trials in Salem or an anti-abortion assassin?
If we continue to allow our opinion
of Islam to be shaped by the most extreme members of that religion, the true
nature of Islam will continue to be distorted and anti-Muslim bias will
continue to grow. If it does, we doom our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
to generations of bloody religious battles.
There is time to nip this growing
anti-Muslim bias in the bud. And the time is now. Right now.
This is a very scary moment for our
nation. However, it is also a moment of great opportunity. We have the chance
to write a new chapter of religious tolerance and acceptance in this nation’s
history. We can be known as the generation who welcomed Muslims to a prominent
position in America.
As Christians in this nation, we do
welcome Muslims to this amazing multi-cultural feast called America. May they
benefit as we have benefitted.
Let us pray: Gracious God, Jesus
taught that you love us all. For this Good News we give thanks. Help us to
continue to build what we inherited—the most diverse, eclectic and heterogenous
society in history. As we do so, may our respect for and knowledge about other
religions and other peoples grow. Amen.
John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
2401 Virginia Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037, USA