Recently,
there have been a slew of e-mails being passed around that are anti-Muslim,
expressing strong and very prejudicial opinions about “why Muslims can’t really
be Americans” and other very bigoted sentiments. I replied to the parishioner who sent it this way: I am not including the questions because they are just wrong but you can sense what the question is by the responses. Below are my response and Pastor Barbara's response.. Pastor Barbara's responses is very good. Barbara's DMin was on fundamentalism and her knowledge is amazing!
Sarah's Response
Really, the label
should be Arab American, We don’t go around saying we are Christian
Americans
We don’t do
Buddhist-American. Muslims, Jews and Christians are all the people of the one
book with differing views of God, So can a Jew be an
American?
I don’t know but yes
this is an extremist point of view. A Muslim was just elected to Congress.
He’s an American.
Oh Well, if I were in
charge.
Pastor Barbara's Response
Recently, Pastor Barbara replied to one of
these e-mails, point by point with the following information. The original e-mail is not included as it was
not seen as necessary, but know that these numbers correspond to specific
comments in the original e-mail.
“There are
fundamentalist Muslims, just as there are fundamentalist Christians.
These can be extremists, as we’ve seen. But they in no way represent the
majority of Muslims.
Yes, there are Christians and Muslims who believe that
people who do not share their faith beliefs will go to hell. This is not,
however, true of all religions. Buddhists,
Hindus and many other religions (native American religions, for example) do not
have these exclusivist ideas.
In response
to the e-mail stating that Muslims can’t really be Americans:
1. Theologically, WE (as much as
Muslims) should not have the strong loyalty to our country that many have because
WE are supposed to have allegiance to one God only – not a country, but
God. We are asked to love everyone, just as Jesus modeled for the Jews
stepping beyond their loyalty to the Nation of Israel by loving Samaritans, and
Syrophoenicians, we are called to do the same. By the way, the word “Allah” just means “God” – it is not a “moon God”
but the same Judeo-Christian-Islamic God that we believe in. Muslims use
the Old Testament just as we do – they have the same roots as we do, with
Abraham as their founder – their God is not a different God and is certainly
not a “moon god.”
2. Religiously, no other religion is
accepted by OUR God accept OUR God – see all of our Old Testament which goes on
and on about not worshipping Baal or “any other god”. Why does this mean
Muslims or Christians or any of us can’t be American? Jews and Christians alike
who also use this Old Testament stuff about accepting no other gods are
Americans, so how is this different for Muslims?
3. Scripturally, again, we too are
supposed to put nothing and no –one before our God, the same as the Muslims.
4. Geographically, while the Muslims
may pray towards Mecca
, the Old Testament roots
our home (or at least the home of the Jews) as Jerusalem
. But Jewish loyalty to America
is not being questioned.
5. Socially, Christian
fundamentalists also are “forbidden” to make friends with non-Christians.
This is a fundamentalist thing, not an Islamic thing. I have several
Islamic friends – they have no problems being friends with all sorts of people.
6. Again, political allegiance is not
based on whether you are Islamic or not but whether or not you are a
FUNDAMENTALIST or not. Christian fundamentalists teach loyalty to America
and Israel
. Non-fundamentalist
Christians teach LOVE FOR ALL PEOPLE ACROSS BOUNDARIES. This is true of
Islamic people too – many believe in love for all people across all boundaries.
7. Domestically, not just Islamic
writings, but our Old Testament also teaches that women are to be submissive (and
actually, Paul also says women are to be submissive! – that’s NEW Testament
stuff). And in our Old Testament, many people have many wives: Abraham
had his slave-concubine Hagar (is that really better than having several
wives?), Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1st
Kings 11:3), etc. While we’re on the subject of bad religious practices,
our Old Testament states, for example, in Exodus 21: 20-21 (NRSV translation)
that a slaveowner can beat his female or male slaves to death as long as it
takes them at least a day to die!! Proverbs 23:13-14 encourages pounding
on children with a rod. There are things
in many religious texts that should be suspect. Just as we suspect many of the Old Testament practices, many Muslims are
also cautious about some of the practices mentioned in the Quran.
8. Muslims believes the Bible to be
corrupt? Really? Muslims believe
in the Old Testament. And it’s not actually true that the constitution of
the United States
is based on Biblical principles: that is again, a myth of Christian
Fundamentalists. In fact, our constitution was based on the basic
principle of separation of church and state! Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Paine, Thomas Jefferson especially advocated religious freedom (All of whom
were theists and stopped considering themselves Christian!!). What little
of religion slips into the constitution is based, again, on the Old Testament –
something Muslims also use.
9. The Quran actually teaches peace –
the God of the Quran is a peaceful God, in contrast, again, to the God of the
Old Testament who wipes out whole groups of people (the Canaanites for example)
simply because they are not Jewish.
Take for example, Father Chacour’s school in Ibillin, Gallilee.
It is a school
of
Christians
, Jews, Druze,
and yes, Muslims who choose to come together across all boundaries to work for
peace and community across faiths. If “Muslims” all really believed the
things in this e-mail there would be no Muslims at this school or at any of the
many, many interfaith gatherings across the world (and indeed, locally – if you
are interested I can connect you with one!) seeking peace, love and unity
between all peoples.
I finish by leaving you with another
of our scriptures: again, one we share with the Muslims: Exodus 22:21 – “You
shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land
of
Egypt
.” I think there are a lot of
people who need to remember this. We are all aliens in this land, all
immigrants originally (with a very few exceptions), and we should be very
careful about whom we attack and shun and criticize. Every person is a
unique person who cannot be boxed as “Muslim” or “Christian” or anything else –
we should know this, we who are so often “boxed” and judged as exclusivist or closed-minded
because we are “Christians” - many assume we are extremist, they assume we
are fundamentalists, though again, most Christians are not fundamentalists.
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