What Do We Do About Them? - Acts 17:16-34
I have remained
silent on an issue that troubled so many over the last week and a half. I have listened and read as folks on one side
of the issue or the other have quickly offered their thoughts…some I believe
without running them through the filter of common sense (and just to let you
know, if any of you and I have engaged in written or verbal dialogue in the
last week and a half, I am not talking about any of you—when I question the
common sense, I am thinking of some of the religious leaders across our
nation), others I have watched respond out of fear or operating out of a bias
that they have been taught over time. I
know it is a subject matter that consumed many of our congregation, because
while the news may have been out there, I must have been contacted by four or
five members of our congregation within two hours of the issue being picked up
by national news services. For those of
us who missed the unbelievable controversy, it is the question of the Muslim
call of prayer being sounded from the Duke Chapel bell tower. Before I go any further, because I know that
there has been confusion by many of the years, Duke University is not a
Methodist university, there are connections between the United Methodist Church
and the Divinity School, but neither the University nor the Divinity School are
funded by means of our denomination. In
addition, Duke Chapel is not a United Methodist congregation. If a United Methodist pastor serves as the
pastor of the Chapel, as has happened many, many years, it is considered an
appointment outside the denomination. Now,
back to the controversy…
I read Franklin
Graham’s response and call for alumni to withhold funds from Duke because, as
he says, “followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians,
Jews, and anyone who doesn’t submit to their Sharia Islamic law….”[i] I read the comments of another pastor
interviewed on Fox News who wanted to know whether or not Duke was going to
allow The Lord’s Prayer to be played from the bell tower to give Christians
equal time with the Muslim call to prayer.
I followed a link to read yet another pastor being quoted as this was
opening the use of Duke Chapel up to those who worshipped a “demon god.” All of these ministers troubled me because to
me it reflected Christian leaders who were speaking without thinking through
their thoughts, speaking without a knowledge of Duke Chapel, and speaking
without a clear understanding of Biblical and religious history.
Let me tackle
these in reverse, since I’ve probably made the strongest accusation last. Why would I suggest that one of these
religious leaders has opened his mouth and started commenting without a clear
understanding of Biblical and religious history? It is because he has just identified the God
that you and I gather to worship every week, and the God that he probably leads
his people to worship each week, as a demon god. I believe that too many folks forget that the
God we claim as Christians is the same God that both the Jews and Muslims claim
to worship. We all trace our history
back to Abraham. We all lay claim to the
covenant that God established with Abraham.
As Christians we trace it back through Christ to Jacob to Isaac to
Abraham. The Jews trace it back through
Jacob to Isaac to Abraham. And here’s
where the difference comes in, a difference caused by the fact that man of
faith that he was, he and Sarah didn’t initially trust God to handle things on
His own, the Muslim people trace their heritage as descendants of Abraham’s
first son, Ishmael back to the promise of being people of God’s covenant. We all worship Yahweh, however, I
understandings of how we relate to Him differ—my understanding of how we relate
to Yahweh is the traditional orthodox Christian understanding, from the Gospel
of John, when Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through
me.”[ii]
Secondly, the
folks that were getting all excited and wanted to know whether or not
Christians were going to receive equal playing time have evidently never been
on Duke’s campus, or at least not around the Chapel. When it comes from what is being sounded from
the bell tower, Christians would have more than equal time, and always
have. Anyone who has spent much time on
the campus around the Chapel can tell you that at least once a day, if not
multiple times a day, the sounds of multiple traditional Christian hymns ring
out for five to ten minutes. That
renders the argument that Muslims were being favored over Christians a unfounded
argument.
Which brings me
to my problem with Franklin Graham’s assertion that alumni should hold their
money in opposition to the call to prayer because, “followers of Islam are
raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn’t
submit to their Sharia Islamic law….”
Are there Muslim’s who are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians,
Jews, and other non-Islamic folks? Yes. And they are also attacking newspaper offices
and business centers, gunning down innocents, and blowing up planes and
buildings.
However, let me
share with you a quote from a historical holy war:
“...Wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our
men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others
shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them
longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to
be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the
bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what
happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are normally
chanted ... in the temple and the porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to
their knees and bridle reins. Indeed it was a just and splendid judgement of
God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers since it had
suffered so long from their blasphemies…”[iii]
Or there is this
holy war:
“And now Nineteen persons having been hang’d and
one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which
a third part were Members of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of
them a good Conversation in general, and not one clear’d; about Fifty having
confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred
and Fifty in Prison, the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a
period.”[iv]
Or this “holy
war”?
They call themselves Westboro Baptist Church and
have declared war on pretty much everyone over the issue of homosexuality, and
anything else they can come up with.
Their tactics, not raising up hetero-sexual or holy living, but
picketing public events and funerals with signs declaring God’s hate of
individuals and groups and condemnation of those individuals and groups to
Hell.
These are the
works and/or words of folks who claimed the name Christian. Do we want their understanding of God to be
the label that we all bear? Again, in
reverse order. As Christians, do we want
folks to understand those extremists of Westboro Baptist Church to be
representative of what it means to be a Christian? As Christians, are those extremists who
conducted the Salem Witch Trials in the name of God to be representative of
what it means to be a Christian?
Finally, do the words of eyewitness and Church historian Raymond
D’Aguilers during the First Crusade give testament to our place as Christians?
I hope not! And if we would claim that these who claim
the name Christian are not representative of what we believe, then we have to
be careful about not condemning and being afraid of every Muslim (or any other
person of a different faith) based on the actions of others who claim the same
faith.
So, what do we do
about them? What do we do about people
of other faiths? How are we to
understand them? How are we to react to
them?
First and
foremost, we are to remember, that like each and every one of us, they are so
loved by God, that Christ gave His life for them. It doesn’t matter whether they are our next
door neighbor who wouldn’t hurt a fly or one of the extremists that threaten
the world, they are among those that Jesus died to save.
Secondly, we
learn to respond to them the same way that Paul responded to those in Athens
that we read about earlier.
We begin by
remembering that the first Christians were those Jews who came to accept that
the crucified and risen Jesus was their Messiah, the One who had come from
Israel to bring Salvation, first to the Jews and then turn the entire world
toward God. It is no puzzle then why
Paul began his ministry of spreading the Good News by debating the role of
Jesus in the synagogues. Paul began by
witnessing to those of his own background, offering them the proof of Jesus as
their Messiah.
From their Paul
moved into the marketplace, extending his witness to those of Jewish background
there and then, in a larger sense, to all of those of Athens, to those who grew
up, and still were worshipping all of the pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses—including,
of course in Athens, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, courage, and war (among
other things) to a myriad of other gods and goddesses because the folks of
Athens did not want themselves to be found cursed by some god they had
slighted. They were so concerned about
not slighting any deity, they even had erected an altar “to an unknown god.’ Here is the key we need to find with Paul’s
ministry—rather than blast them for worshipping all these false gods (he knew
they were false gods), Paul praised them for being so religious, and then found
the point of connection—he says let me tell you about this unknown god—for I
know Him.
Paul didn’t tell
the people if they didn’t stop worshipping Athena, Zeus, and all those other
gods and idols that they were doomed to Hell.
He didn’t call together a group of like-minded people and start trying
the Athenians, hanging them for their pagan beliefs. He didn’t put together a band of soldiers to
butcher those who wouldn’t convert to his way of thinking. Paul simply proclaimed Christ, crucified and
risen.
Once Paul had the
attention of those who were interested, Paul said, “I know this unknown God you
have built an altar to. He is the true
God of all the earth…in fact He is the One who created all heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in this or any other temple
that has been built by human hands. He
isn’t made by human hands like the idols that are created and are used to
control those whom they represent. He is
the God of us all, because he created and gave life to us all…and as your poets
have said, we are all His children. This
unknown God whom we proclaim to You is the one who desires your salvation, He
wants you to repent, because the day will come when He will gather all who are
righteous.
Paul found the
point of connection and shared the story in a way they would understand, a way
that drew them in—and we see that some believed and others didn’t, and rather
than focusing in upon those who turned their back, condemning them, Paul
continued with those who believed—knowing that as they came to faith and understanding,
there was the opportunity that they would share the Gospel, possibly with those
who had turned away, and God’s people would continue to spread…
So what do we do
them? We look for those of other faiths
who are open to conversation and dialogue, who are interested in hearing what
and why we believe. We find points of
connection—whether it is a common belief, like God’s call to Abraham, or a
common cause, such as feeding the hungry, or it is a place that they might not
have clear understanding, like the temple of the unknown god, for which our
faith may have the answer. We encounter
them as Paul did, as Jesus did, with compassion and concern for them and a
desire that they might find redemption and life—just as God had for each of us,
when we were far from Him…in reality, what we do with them, is remember that
they are us, estranged from God and in need of God’s grace…that we all might
come to find ourselves as One family in God through Christ.
In the Name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
[i]
http://m.christianpost.com/news/franklin-graham-blasts-duke-universitys-muslim-call-to-prayer-tells-donors-to-withhold-their-support--132635/
[ii] John 14:6
[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades - Raymond D'Aguilers,
historian of the First Crusade from the Church, 1096-1099
[iv] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
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