Fundamentalists vs Most everything I believe!

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 (1^st 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.