Last week seventeen high school students from my Christian school went on a mission trip sponsored by Stand to Reason to reach Muslims in L.A. This was the first trip of its kind, so these students were really trekking out on faith! We were able to join an Iranian Christian Bible study, visit an Islamic center, engage Muslims in personal conversations, hear testimonies from former Muslims, get training from missionaries to Islam, share a meal with Muslims, and visit a major mosque. The students did not go unprepared – they had spent the last seven months reading books and attending training sessions outside of regular school hours. My thanks in particular to Brett Kunkle, Alan Shlemon, and Dawnielle Hodgman for planning such a great trip. Here are some highlights and reflections.

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For the past few weeks I have been carefully reading through the entire Qur’an. One reason is because there are roughly 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide, including an estimated 3-7 million Muslims in America. Understanding the Qur’an will help me better relate to my Muslim neighbors and friends. Second, Muslims consider the Qur’an the greatest miracle and proof of Islam (Surah 10:37-38). It is considered the most beautiful, holy, and truthful book. I wanted to assess this claim for myself.

Following are some observations and criticisms of the Qur’an. Just one precursor: If the Qur’an were true, then I would believe it. I’m just not convinced it is. If someone begins with the conviction that the Qur’an is true, then certainly these critiques will have little effect. But if one begins with an honest attempt to evaluate the historical, theological, philosophical, and scientific evidence, I believe they would come to a very different conclusion.

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When Jesus was asked the most important commandment in the law he answered to “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor.” In other words, the most important thing for Christians to do is to love (Mark 12). And yet this summer I have been reminded how far we have to go in learning to love our neighbors. Let me explain.

One of my favorite ways to teach students is through role-playing. I take on the part of an atheist, Muslim, Mormon, or a member of some other non-Christian worldview and challenge students to articulate and defend their beliefs accordingly.  I have done this with groups of as few as twelve students or as many as 6,000.

One of the great values in role-playing is that it quickly reveals how little students actually understand their faith. Rarely have I encountered a student who was conversant about theology, science or philosophy. Most defend their views by quoting verses (even though my role-play persona typically does not believe in the Bible) or by pointing to some personal experience. As Barna studies reveal, few Christians understand or can articulate their faith.

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Ticia and I live in the center of Columbia SC, what a Re-Max realtor might call a “developing area.” You know, “those buildings are boarded up now, but I hear there’s a Pop Eye’s Chicken coming!” Lots of homeless people standing quietly on our block all day; the Rescue Mission kicks them out at 7am. And, in keeping with the “Developing Locale!” theme, there are two competing Loan businesses on the first floor of our building, both offering quick cash with no credit check. “Just give us your car’s title papers, we’ll work out the details later.”

Ticia and I have a hard time with these loan places. They further poverty by offering a quick fix at great expense. Sure, you have cash in your pocket, but in reality, you just bought a very costly distraction.

I have to admit, the loan guys are smart. We all like to live this way, and they know it. There is something intrinsically human about focusing on the immediate and evident in order to ignore the deep and difficult. Do email and don’t think about the checkbook. Work longer hours and tune out the difficult marriage. It’s part of being human.

And I wonder, how does this apply to our theology? Robert Wright just wrote a New York Times Opinion piece on the Koran and the Bible. He focused on the human capacity to embrace one thing in order to ignore something else. On both sides! Emphasize “infidels” while ignoring peace, hate on “others” while neglecting love.

Wright asks, “Why do people tend to hear only one side of the story? A common explanation is that the digital age makes it easy to wall yourself off from inconvenient data, to spend your time in ideological “cocoons,” to hang out at blogs where you are part of a choir that gets preached to. Makes sense to me. But, however big a role the Internet plays, it’s just amplifying something human: a tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.”

I thought about the whole anti-Islam thing that’s happening in the United States today, the Tea Party Protesters, the general discord and anger, and that many of the people at the front of the protests, carrying a white poster board sign stapled onto a stiff wood stick, are committed Christians. The rhetoric is often biblical and the passion is real. I wonder if they are being duped.

It is so easy to focus on something simple, something obvious, and make that obvious thing the point of our righteous Christian wrath. But as we focus on political and religious “enemies,” Jesus says “sell everything and give it to the poor.” “Can’t be rich and get into the kingdom of heaven.” Fat rich guys trying to squeeze through an eye-of-the-needle kind of stuff. But we avoid. We shrug, blink twice, scream “Islam is of the devil!!!!!” Repeating the extremist mistake ourselves.

Is Islam more of a threat to Americans than consumerism? Why are the potential deaths from a terrorist attack scarier than the current deaths caused by global warming? Are we focused in order to avoid?

Maybe we steer clear of real issues by focusing on what’s obvious and easy. It seems to me that if we took the scriptures seriously that deal with possessions and justice, we might have to change our lives. Sell something. Give up a piece of the “American Dream.” Change.

It's far easier to be angry at Muslims. 

With all the election-year nonsense being spouted about the Islamic Cultural Center in New York, I thought it interesting to see the emergence of another cultural influence on the other coast. This fall, Zaytuna College is opening its doors as a small, faith-based institution in the San Francisco Area. Faculty hope to assist students to integrate faith and learning, the curriculum includes intentional spiritual formation, and the College’s vision extends to the shaping of American society.

What, another Christian college? Don’t we already have plenty of those around? While it might sound like your typical Evangelical college, it’s not. It’s a Muslim College, with the Koran as a firm foundation. The stated mission of the college is to “educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders, who are grounded in the Islamic scholarly tradition and conversant with the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.”

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The Islamic Cultural Center! The ISLAMIC cultural center? The Islamic CULTURAL center? Depends on which news you watch and what papers you read. To some, it sounds like the second choice. Sarah Palin has weighed in. Jon Stewart made his views known. President Obama gave a speech, after Mayor Bloomberg finally came out of his civil rights closet to make a solid statement.

And I really don’t get what the fuss is about. As if there are not already two mosques located within four blocks of the trade center site, one of which predated the building of the World Trade Center. In fact, none other than Fox news recently reported that “New York City has more than 100 mosques . . . more than 800,000 of its 8.21 million residents are Muslims, said Philip Banks III, chief of the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau.” My friends, New York City has more Muslims than the entire populations of two Islamic nations: Bahrain and Qatar.

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Mosques, cathedrals and synagogues make the most interesting bullies. There they crouch, architectural annoyances flaunting their crosses, spires, and stars at the playground. That glowing white dream castle in Salt Lake City kicks sand in everybody’s face, and Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral thinks it’s God himself. If only these buildings could just leave everybody alone.

Now everybody’s having a fit over the new kid who’s moving in, thanks to the Cordoba Initiative, the proposed Islamic cultural center at Ground Zero. Its controversy stands up there with Justin Bieber as part of The Summer Debate 2010, and its symbolism is far bigger than the acreage it plans to cover. If allowed to play at recess, it will be larger-than-life, the kind of presence that no one will be able to ignore.

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This morning's BBC report discloses that the French government has refused to grant citizenship to man because he is forcing his wife to wear the 'full veil'. Because she is not free to 'come and go with her face uncovered', this man's values place him a category of person to whom the French government denies citizenship. It is recommended by the French government that anyone showing signs of "radical religious practice" be refused citizenship.I'm interested in your thoughts on this subject so I'll just toss some questions out:

1. The phrase 'radical religious practice' seems ambiguous. Isn't 'eating the flesh and drinking the blood' (see John 6, or your weekly communion table) also radical? Or living in community? What are the risks that this ruling becomes precedent setting for all manner of religious persecution? On the other hand, isn't the state obligated to protect the powerless (Romans 13), and isn't this woman being rendered powerless? But what if she wants the full covering?

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March 15, 2008, I was privileged to occupy a seat at the 25th anniversary banquet for Frontiers. Frontiers mission is to invite Muslim peoples to follow Jesus by loving them and respecting them. The banquet consisted of Frontiers missionaries, staff and donors.

During the banquet, Frontiers staff introduced a Muslim couple from Pakistan who they had brought along for the anniversary events.  As the couple stepped up the microphone, the packed banquet hall silenced, all eyes glued on the couple who bore their traditional dress. The man spoke first. Speaking from the heart he spoke to the kindness he and his wife had received from the Frontiers missionaries in Pakistan. He also spoke about how he could never follow their Jesus. He spoke to the many contradiction’s he saw weaved in and out of the West and the Christians of the West. The room was sober and the guest speaker was honest and convicting.

After 10-15 minutes of observation of the West and its wicked ways, which had a stinger full of truth, the wife of the man approached the microphone. She spoke out against the promiscuity of Western women. She spoke as to how she could never embrace Christianity when the values of relationships and character were so flippant. As they closed their speech and thanked us Christians for listening to them, Muslims, the room was so silent I was afraid to swallow for fear those sitting across the room would hear.

After a period of silence, the Pakistan Muslim man stood to the microphone again and took off his turban. He then introduced himself as an American Christian missionary serving the Pakistani Muslim peoples. His wife followed suit as she removed her burka. You could feel the weight of the room lift as he began to share with us how he and his wife have served with Frontiers for many years. He shared with us that what he and his wife had said when they were posing as Muslims was exactly what they deal with in Pakistan daily in the Muslim community.

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