Muslims and Christians…..meet and greet

Like it or not Christians and Muslims are going to be seeing a lot of each other. Both have more than 2 million adherents. Together they make up more than half of the world population. Both are growing in numbers. Muslims are growing faster than Christians (mostly by birthrate) and are headed for dominance in the coming decades. The adherents of both are global. They both touch every corner of the earth. We are becoming neighbors.

Christians and Muslims have a great difficulty in understanding one another. This is understandable because they are structurally and conceptually different. Neither Jesus nor Muhammad set out to establish a new religion. They each attempted to restructure the society and the religious practices that they found.

In the case of Jesus, he was born into a community that was controlled by a heartless economic system that had learned to dominate a corrupt religious system. Jesus led a rebellion, not of swords but of ideas and reformed theological understandings. When Jesus took his reform movement to Jerusalem, he was greeted as a nuisance and was killed by Roman puppet rulers, supported by a cooperating religious leadership. He was killed by being hung on a cross until dead. His death should have ended his challenge to the powers. Instead his followers turned the cross into the most powerful symbol in the history of Western civilization.

Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world. The central celebration in Christian worship is communion (or mass). The death of Jesus on the cross is what the communion service is all about. Christians argue about the meaning of the communion service, but communion remains fixed as the heart of Christian worship.

While Christianity is the outcome of a failed reform movement, Islam is the result of a highly successful reform movement.

In the seventh century CE, Muhammad, a man of spiritual and social sensitivities, observed that his Arab people were constantly warring with one another and that wealth and the pursuit of wealth were driving people to terrible treatment of one another. According to Muslim tradition, God spoke to Mohammad and gave him holy words to be shared with the Arab people. The message to the Arab communities was simple. There is no God but Allah. The message of God as given to Muhammad was written down in a holy book, the Qur’an. The Qur’an had one author, Allah, and Muhammad was the only prophet of Allah.

The people of Mecca responded to the message and the city was transformed. In a period of about 10 years, Mohammad and Islam had put down all challenges and were on the path to regional domination. In contrast to the failure of the Jesus revolution, the revolution led by Mohammad was highly successful. Muhammad died only 10 years after Allah’s revelations to him. Muhammad claimed no special status for himself. The revelation was central. The Qur’an became the unquestioned holy book.

The central act of worship for Muslims is an act of obedience. Faithful Muslims are required to prostrate themselves in prayer to Allah five times daily, always facing Mecca. The great symbol of devotion is the Qur’an.

The differences between Islam and Christianity are real. One religion is symbolized by the cross, and the other is symbolized by a holy book. One calls for faith, the other calls for an act of obedience. Christians among themselves argue and discuss theology. Muslims concern themselves with absolute obedience to Allah.

Admittedly, my summary of the differences between Christianity and Islam is flawed by simplicity. However, it does speak accurately to a fact: The two faiths will never be reconciled. There will continue to be examples of Christians becoming Muslims and Muslims becoming Christians. However, the challenge of the future is not which faith will win in a competition between neighbors. Christians will continue to be Christians, and Muslims will continue to be Muslims. The challenge will be how we will live successfully with one another.

Stephen Prothero has called for respectful argument. Kirby Godsey suggests the formation of communities of conversation. I embrace both suggestions. I believe that we will have abundant opportunities to converse and argue simply because we live so close to one another. I am a sports fan. I have been an active participant in team sports. Age has reduced my active involvement to cards, Scrabble and a weekly game of golf. I continue to watch baseball, basketball, gymnastics, football and volleyball. I am always aware that there are rules that say what a participant cannot do.

I offer some rules by which we play our games of argument and discussion. 1) Killing or threat of killing is totally rejected. 2) Harming another human being, physically or mentally, cannot be a part of the process. 3) The value of every human being is never to be questioned.

The sooner we form communities of conversation and the sooner we create forums for respectful arguments, the sooner we will have a chance to live together in creative enjoyment.

The Rev. Howard Bess is an American Baptist minister, who lives in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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