In my sermon this past Sunday I mentioned attending our recent clergy conference at which our speaker, who specializes in inter-religious studies and translation, made the bold statement that there are far, far more similarities among the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam than differences. No one had any problem with Judaism being compared to Christianity, but as I recounted in the sermon, one priest at the conference, a former military chaplain couldn’t stand being in the room when our speaker said that the God of Islam is no less the God of Love than the God we worship. He was infuriated. I have for the past week wondered why he was so full of hate. Perhaps it was because both the Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan, in which he served, were fought against people who were predominantly Muslim. In the media we rarely if ever see scenes of Muslim families honoring their time honored tradition of hospitality and welcome, breaking bread with their Christian brothers and sisters, rather, Muslims are most often depicted as extremist bomb toting warriors and not to be trusted either abroad or at home. Remember, just a couple of years ago Juan Williams (a skilled reporter) was fired by the venerable news source, NPR, for saying that if he were boarding a plane and saw someone obviously Muslim, he would think twice about boarding. (I think he ended up at Fox News…poetic justice?) I cringed when I learned that the Boston Marathon bombers were Muslim, because of course that will further feed the malicious stereotype.
The Koran is no less a call to love than our own Bible, purely and simply. Yes, there is violence in the Koran, including holy wars, but no more so than what is contained in the annals of our scripture.The fact is there are fundamentalists and fundamentalist extremists in all religions who can find justification for violence or anything else for that matter. But Dr. Starr, our speaker at the conference pointed out that the vast and overarching theme of the world’s religions, and here I’m concentrating more particularly on Christianity and Islam, is a call to love…Love one’s neighbor, make way for justice, practice compassion and mercy, welcome the stranger, work for peace, live lives of hospitality… these are rudiments of the scripture we read and of the Koran. Dr. Starr says that the hope for the future is that all people of particular faiths must stop “other-izing.” We must seek out our common bonds which are many united in the sacred rubric of love.
I told Dr. Starr of an event that happened a couple of years ago in the lobby of the Saenger Theater. I ran into a former Episcopalian who has left the church for one of the fundamentalist splinter groups. No sooner than we had said hello, he launched into this rant attacking Muslims, calling them evil, that their goal is to eradicate all other religions, that a “holy war” was coming…I stopped him there and said, ” you need to stop reading whatever it is you’re reading.” He turned and walked off. This brings me to the conclusion that much of this other-izing towards Muslims, this insidious caricature, so pervasive in our culture, comes quite simply from ignorance (which begets falsehood) and fear, and the media, and talk show hacks only fuel the fire of ignorance and falsehood. There are countless scholars, and mainstream citizens who know differently; they’ve done their homework. Perhaps it’s time we did some homework as well, because I believe that to engender a peaceful future for our world, there must be genuine inter-faith dialogue, and that will require a working knowledge and understanding of the subject. We must educate ourselves, become knowledgeable. That is a vital part of the work of faith. We are all…All of us people of faith worldwide for the sake of peace…We are going to have to name ourselves as members of one family…God’s family… By whatever name God is called we are God’s, Yahweh’s, Allah’s children, sons and daughters, blood kin… and that makes us fearless children of love.
