Monday, September 17, 2012

“It’s time for Islamophobic evangelicals to choose”

This is worth reposting in full.  Somebody has to say it!  From Brian McLaren on CNN:

I was raised as an evangelical Christian in America, and any discussion of Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations around the world must include the phenomenon of American Islamophobia, for which large sectors of evangelical Christianity in America serve as a greenhouse.

At a time when U.S. embassies are being attacked and when people are getting killed over an offensive, adolescent and puerile film targeting Islam - beyond pathetic in its tawdriness – we must begin to own up to the reality of evangelical Islamaphobia.

Many of my own relatives receive and forward pious-sounding and alarm-bell-ringing e-mails that trumpet (IN LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS!) the evils of Islam, that call their fellow evangelicals and charismatics to prayer and “spiritual warfare” against those alleged evils, and that often - truth be told - contain lots of downright lies.

For example, one recent e-mail claimed “Egyptian Christians in Grave Danger as Muslim Brotherhood Crucifies Opponents." Of course, that claim has been thoroughly debunked, but the sender’s website still (as of Friday) claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has “crucified those opposing" Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy "naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

Many sincere and good-hearted evangelicals have never yet had a real Muslim friend, and now they probably never will because their minds have been so prejudiced by Islamophobic broadcasts on so-called Christian television and radio.

Janet Parshall, for example, a popular talk show host on the Moody Radio Network, frequently hosts Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-evangelical convert whose anti-Muslim claims, along with claims about his own biography, are frequently questioned. John Hagee, a popular televangelist, also hosts Shoebat as an expert on Islam, as does the 700 Club.

Many Christian bookstores that (used to) sell my books, still sell books such as Paul Sperry’s "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Thomas Nelson, 2008). In so doing, they fuel conspiracy theories such as the ones U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, promoted earlier this year.

In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians - and all Americans - in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.

Meanwhile, many who are pastors and leaders in evangelicalism hide their heads in the current issue of Christianity Today or World Magazine, acting as if the kinds of people who host Islamophobic sentiments swim in a tiny sidestream, not in the mainstream, of our common heritage. I wish that were true.

The events of this past week, if we let them, could mark a turning point - a hitting bottom, if you will - in the complicity of evangelicalism in Islamophobia. If enough evangelicals watch or try to watch the film trailer that has sparked such outrage in the Middle East, they may move beyond the tipping point.

I tried to watch it, but I couldn’t make it halfway to the 13-minute mark. Everything about it was tawdry, pathetic, even pornographic. All but the most fundamentalist believers from my evangelical Christian tribe who watch that video will be appalled and ashamed to be associated with it.

It is hate speech. It is no different from the anti-Semitic garbage that has been all too common in Western Christian history. It is sub-Christian - beneath the dignity of anyone with a functioning moral compass.

Islamophobic evangelical Christians - and the neo-conservative Catholics and even some Jewish folks who are their unlikely political bedfellows of late - must choose.

Will they press on in their current path, letting Islamophobia spread even further amongst them? Or will they stop, rethink and seek to a more charitable approach to our Muslim neighbors? Will they realize that evangelical religious identity is under assault, not by Shariah law, not by the liberal media, not by secular humanism from the outside, but by forces within the evangelical community that infect that religious identity with hostility?

If I could get one message through to my evangelical friends, it would be this: The greatest threat to evangelicalism is evangelicals who tolerate hate and who promote hate camouflaged as piety.

No one can serve two masters. You can’t serve God and greed, nor can you serve God and fear, nor God and hate.

The broad highway of us-them thinking and the offense-outrage-revenge reaction cycle leads to self-destruction. There is a better way, the way of Christ who, when reviled, did not revile in return, who when insulted, did not insult in return, and who taught his followers to love even those who define themselves as enemies.

Yes, “they” – the tiny minority of Muslims who turn piety into violence – have big problems of their own. But the way of Christ requires all who claim to be Christians to examine our own eyes for planks before trying to perform first aid on the eyes of others. We must admit that we have our own tiny minority whose message and methods we have not firmly, unitedly and publicly repudiated and rejected.

To choose the way of Christ is not appeasement. It is not being a “sympathizer.”

The way of Christ is a gentle strength that transcends the vicious cycles of offense-outrage-revenge.

5 comments:

Robert Sievers said...

I have not been impressed by Brian McLaren in the past, and this article just confirms that.

As usual, McLaren gives us half the story. Jesus calls us to be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents. McLaren has the first part of that command down and beats that drum over and over again. However, there is the flip side. There IS such a thing as spiritual warfare. Many Christians in Muslim lands DO live in fear.

Does this mean we should send around provocative emails and foster fear? Of course not. Does this mean we should disengage from making Muslim friends? Of course not. But let us also not downplay the negative aspects of Islam that undercut, subvert, and attack the message of God at every turn. Let us preach the gospel in BOTH deed and word to our Muslim neighbors.

Warrick Farah said...

Hi Robert,

Forget that McLaren wrote it- a Muslim could have written this and it would still be true.

Evangelicals haven't done a good enough job confronting the Islamophobia in our midst. That's the point.

I think McLaren would totally agree with your last paragraph (as do I). And we have to wage spiritual warfare with love and prayer, not fear mongering. And Jesus didn't motivate through fear (speaking of spiritual warfare!). Of course there is a dark side to Islam. It's just that we have a dark side too, as the post makes clear.

Joni said...

It's difficult to sort it out sometimes. There is a Muslim neighbor who is genuinely friendly and kind and helpful, but who points out that when things get "tough" religiously, he will have no choice but to kill you. Then there's the radical whose life is totally redeemed and transformed and he would give his life for you, as did Jesus.
Having lived in Muslim nations for many years, I made friends. Some, taught that I was a "kafiira" (infidel) was surprised to learn that I talk to God, and love God, and know that God loves me. They were ignorant of what true Christians believe and do and were pleasantly surprised by my faith. Other friends threatened to kill me because of the very same faith.
I have read and heard too much to naively ignore that the goal of radical Islam is world domination by any means. Even if only 10% of Muslims are radicals, that's 120,000 individuals bent on my destruction, and the "west" and Israel, and any nominal Muslim, and anyone who gets in their way. Spawn of the master deceiver, they know no other way, and it has been spoon fed to them since infancy. Ah, but God has mercy; aren't we grateful of that? Mercy for us, mercy for the spawn, mercy for the naivety, mercy for the deceived.
Let's reach out in the love and compassion of Jesus to them all. Remember that the Apostle Paul was once Saul the terrorist.

Joni said...

Make that 120,000,000!

Robert Sievers said...

Warrick,

We agree much more than it sounds like. It is true there are evangelicals who should spend much less time on fear, and more on figuring out how to live out our call to minister and witness to our Muslim neighbors. Nevertheless, it is also true that there are those in the emerging church who should spend less time bashing other Christians and more on figuring out to stand firm in all of God's wisdom and council.