I get the fear of terrorism. Part of my family’s story includes those living as refugees in foreign countries, mourning the memory of a loved one shot to death because of religious and ethnic extremism…. Yes, there are Muslims who commit horrible acts of violence. But violence is not unique to Islam. It is common to all humanity. In our fallen depravity, all of us are radicalized by sin. This is not a Muslim problem. This is a human problem.
I understand the fear of terrorism. I’ve lived and traveled in places where things went “BOOM!” and innocent people were injured or killed, sometimes in large numbers. It’s no fun living with the knowledge that something as simple as grocery shopping or going to a cafe may well be your last mortal act. Living in fear can be a grim and frightening existence, and the impact it can have on the way one lives their life can be as pervasive as it corrosive.
No one wants to live like that. I get it. That said, fear of the unknown doesn’t excuse considering that an entire religion validates and even sanctions terrorism, and those who follow it to be terrorists. There’s simply no way to rationally excuse the view that all Muslims are terrorists, because if you follow the logic behind this argument, then you’d have to also believe all Christians are terrorists.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
The author of this piece, Omar Rikabi, is a Christian pastor in North Texas. He’s also the son of a Muslim refugee, and proud to be part of a large, loving- and Muslim- family. As you might expect, Rikabi is conflicted about the current overblown fear of all things Muslim. He’s surrounded by it, he lives it…and yet he knows that his faith condemns hatred, intolerance, and repression.
I have a Muslim problem.
I am a Christian pastor in North Texas. I am also the proud son of a Muslim immigrant from the Middle East, and I have a very wonderful—and large—Muslim family.
This is a problem, because when I hear about San Bernardino, or Paris, or any other terror event, my first prayer is to hold my breath and hope the killers do not have names like mine.
This is a problem because down the highway from me some men with guns protested outside a mosque, then posted the names and home addresses of local Muslims online.
This is a problem because a brother in Christ, and president of a large Christian university, received thunderous applause when he told his student body to get guns and help end Muslims before they kill us.
This is a problem because a leading presidential candidate, along with the son of an iconic preacher, called for Muslims in our country to be tracked, databased, and banned from coming into the country, with both looking to the U.S. treatment of Japanese during WWII as inspiration.
When those who call themselves Christians (and believe they’re called to lead members of the faith) can call for Muslims to be killed before they kill Christians, something is very wrong. When a Presidential candidate can call for Muslims to be “tracked, databased, and banned from coming into the country,” we’ve reached a point where fear and hatred have taken the wheel. That those who loudly and proudly claim to be Christians cannot see the contradiction and hypocrisy in their attitude and behavior is a sad commentary on their commitment to their faith.
This is not a Muslim problem. It’s not a Christian problem. It’s a hatred, fear, and ignorance problem. It’s a human problem. It’s a problem because those who call themselves Christians are in fact choosing to ignore what their Lord and Savior taught about love, charity, and compassion. It’s as if they’ve willfully chosen to ignore the basic humanity of Muslims and have turned them into a horrific, inhuman stereotype, thereby dehumanizing them and making it easier to advocate for eliminating them altogether.
An objective person could look at this scenario and recognize that demonizing an entire class of people for the murderous actions of a pitiful few is as unfair as it is wrong. Muslims are no more uniformly terrorists than Christians are- and if you’re going to talk about “Muslim terrorism,” you can’t credibly ignore the Christian variety…and it absolutely is a thing and a far more significant threat to the Homeland.
Of course, talking about Christian terrorism means having to face an exceedingly uncomfortable truth. Demonizing people who don’t look, think, or believe as you do is easy. Doing the same to those in your theological and ethnic camp means not knowing who you can trust.
In seminary, after I gave a talk in chapel about this, another pastor came up to me and said, “I’ve always hated Muslims. I’ve never led my congregation to pray for them as humans.” So goes the trend in some churches and politics of creating Muslims as the other: A less than human without a face or a story… or only a story veiled in hate and violence.
When a Christian pastor can admit to openly and willfully hating Muslims, how can any of his flock take him seriously as a man of God…unless he’s speaking to and confirming their own prejudice? How can anyone who claims to represent the teachings of Jesus Christ to others speak openly of hating Muslims and never leading his congregation to pray for them or to think of them as human beings? That’s not Christianity; that’s not reflective of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Hatred and the desire to destroy The Other aren’t Christian values…but this is what terrorism does. It convinces people to fear the wrong things and hate the wrong people, and then it preys on that ignorance and disquietude.
Until we accept the truth that there’s no hope for progress or reconciliation as long as we’re willing to demonize and dehumanize an entire minority class, we cannot be confident of our ability to defeat terrorism. As long as we refuse to recognize the basic humanity of Muslims- as people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations- we can’t solve the problems we face…unless by “solve,” you mean “destroy them utterly.”
That Christians- or any other human being- could advocate for destroying others merely for professing different religious beliefs is as astonishing as it is morally bankrupt. Christianity should be a force for healing and reconciliation, a means for bringing people together and fostering dialogue and understanding. Instead, it’s being bastardized and trotted out as justification for hating, discriminating against, and advocating for the destruction of Muslims.
It’s (not exactly) what Jesus would do…right?
