Thursday, December 29, 2011

Who Is My Enemy: Questions American Christians Must Face About Islam – And Themselves

From Our Top 10 Books of 2011 by Relevant Magazine:

4. Who Is My Enemy: Questions American Christians Must Face About Islam – And Themselves, by Lee C.Camp

The starting point for Lee Camp’s stunning new book is that Christians should take Jesus at His word when He said, “Love your enemies.” This requires a commitment to self-examination as well as the practice of empathy—“empathy that may not agree, approve, or necessarily even tolerate, but nonetheless seeks to understand.” Camp suggests taking the question that was on everyone’s lips after the 9/11 attacks (“How could they do this to us?”) as an authentic agenda for understanding: “What in their experience, in their presuppositions, in their vision, could contribute to the deeds or words or actions we find so unjust and horrid?” Reading Who Is My Enemy reminded me of the growing pains I’d get as a kid, usually at night. It was going to be uncomfortable for a while, but I knew I was going to wake up bigger.

John Pattison

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