I Did Not Write This, and You're Not Reading It

I've been having discussions with several friends lately about how it's important that we don't spend our whole life on "truth patrol." Of course, we need to maintain good theology and sound thinking, but if we spend all our time on search and destroy missions, looking to stamp out godlessness and heresy wherever it may occur, we won't be spending our time focused on constructive things that will help us grow, love others, and become godly (Christlike) people.

So in this spirit of not always grousing about everyone who's doing anything wrong, I am not going to write a blog post about Brian McLaren celebrating Ramadan this year. I am not going to point out that if I ever thought he was an OK guy who was just misunderstood, I now think he's lost it when it comes to orthodox theology. I won't say that he has somehow become the Splenda of faux Christianity...his words may taste sweet, but they're not real sugar.

I also won't say that McLaren's practice of Ramadan with his Muslim friends bears no resemblance to the Apostle Paul's commitment as stated in Colossians 1.28,29:

We proclaim [Christ], admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

I won't say that the last thing from McLaren's mind seems to be the proclamation of Christ. Or that his solidarity with others trumps fidelity to his putative Savior.

No, I won't say any of those things. I just won't do it.

But I will tell you that you can read his Ramadan posts on his website. The first of the series is here.

Have You Hugged Your Terrorist Today?

Back in my grad school days at Washington State, I heard a well-known veteran missionary speak about God's "mission" throughout history - namely, that all the world would be blessed through God's people. I think the missionary was Don Richardson, but I could be wrong about that.

During the course of the talk, Richardson referred to Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who was sort of the Osama bin Laden of his time, the person we Westerners loved to hate. And then Richardson brought us to Ezekiel 33.11, where God says, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live."

The challenge Richardson issued was for us to pray for those who hate us and would just as soon see us dead - in particular, to pray that they will turn from their wicked ways and be saved.

Since 9/11, we've come to understand that terrorism is a serious threat, that there are people who want to eliminate us and our way of life. Although it's appropriate for the governments of the world to seek out these people and eliminate them, what should our response as individuals be? Perhaps even as we pray for justice and God's protection, we also should pray for the conversion of our enemies, that we might enjoy Heaven side-by-side with them.

With all that in mind, I was intrigued to find out recently about the "Adopt a Terrorist for Prayer" website. You can choose your very own terrorist and commit to pray for him. (Sorry, none of the terrorists is female. I'm guessing it's a Muslim thing.) It's not like sponsoring a poor child in Africa, though, so I doubt you'll get updates from your selected person. But once you get to Eternity, you'll find out what happened. Check it out.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." - Jesus, Matthew 5.43-45

Juxtaposition

Event #1:

School teacher in Sudan lets class name teddy bear mascot. Class chooses "Mohammed" (which is also the name of one of the students). Teacher is arrested, then convicted of insulting religion - that religion would be Islam, of course - and protesters outside her jail call for her execution.

Event #2:

Sean Taylor, safety for the Washington Redskins, is killed in a burglary. His father makes the following comments in this excerpt from a Miami Herald article: ``Whatever took place between He and God at the time, He [God] had it all in control. I'm at peace with God, and God, he makes no mistakes.'' He said he was not angry at the person who killed his son. ``You know who you are if you did it, turn yourself in. Vengeance is not mine, it's God's. He holds that in his hands.''

Question:

Which religion has a God big enough to defend Himself?

Observation:

Pope Benedict XVI was on target when he said a year ago that the problem with Islam is that it's not a faith that you can reason with.

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And by the way, you really ought to read that address Benedict gave in Regensburg - the speech that led to Muslims rioting in the streets because they thought the Pope was unjustly accusing them of being violent people. It's a perceptive discussion of the relationship between faith and reason and helps to answer Tertullian's question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"

Need Advice? Ask the Imam.

The Internet has ushered many wonders into our lives, not the least of which is the opportunity to obtain advice on the thorny issues of life.

Check out these three websites for inquiring Muslims. You can learn a lot about their faith, in particular how incredibly legalistic it is. The Pharisees had nothing on these guys. (Sample question: If I burp while fasting and then swallow what I burp up, have I broken the fast? Answer: If it only made it to the throat and not the mouth, you have not broken the fast.)

• efatwa.com
• muftisays.com
• askimam.com - The "Fasting" section is fascinating, or you may prefer to click on the "Random" tab in the middle (or right, depending what page you're on) for samples of all topics.

I'm thankful to the true God that I don't have to live in constant fear of making a misstep and ticking Him off. I'm thankful that my ability to obey depends on more than willpower. And I'm thankful that in the form of Jesus, God came "to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days" (Luke 1.74, 75).

If Voldemort Ran the World . . . It'd Probably Resemble Iran

What kind of a place is it where women get rounded up on the street for having too much hair peeking out from under their scarves? Where they get taken to jail because their jackets are too short? Where the police are forbidden to tell anyone their own names? (Hint: It's the same kind of place where the president denies that the Holocaust ever happened.)

Iran, like many Muslim countries, is being run on a false concept of human nature and human dignity. Voldemort would be right at home running such a society.

From Agence France Presse:

It all starts with one simple sentence, spoken almost in a whisper, but which has a thunderous effect.

A female police officer deployed in Tehran's latest moral crackdown tells a woman that her manto (overcoat) is too short and infringes Iranian Islamic dress rules.

"Azizam (my dear), good afternoon, if possible could we have a friendly chat, please allow us to have a small chat," the officer, a graduate of Tehran's police academy, tells the young woman.

"My dear there is a problem with your manto. Please do not wear this kind of manto. Please wear a longer manto from now on."

Some are just let go there, but others are escorted to waiting minibuses with dark black tinted window panes and labelled "Guidance Patrol."

A girl in a short white manto whose long hair was tumbling out the front of her headscarf is taken by the police to one of the minibuses on Vanak Square in central Tehran -- an unexpected and unhappy end to her shopping trip.

Another arrested woman is already inside the bus. She begins to cry. "I promise, I promise!"

And the minibus doors slam shut.

Tehran's police have said they are operating a three stage process in implementing the new wave of a crackdown on dress deemed to be unIslamic, which started with some intensity on Monday afternoon.

First, women are given a verbal warning on the street. If the problem is not resolved there, they are taken to the police station for "guidance" and to sign a vow not to repeat the offence. Should this be unsuccessful, their case is handed to the judiciary.

"Sure my manto is short, but there are many others whose clothes are more seductive than mine and they walking by without any punishment," one of the arrested girls in the minibus complained bitterly.

The arrested women will now go to a "centre for combating vice".

Their parents will be phoned and they will bring a longer coat and fuller headscarf for their daughters. If the young women sign the pledge they will then be released.

"We want our words to have an effect on people," a female Iranian police officer, who by law was not allowed to give her name, told AFP before being dispatched to take part in the crackdown.

"Our method is through guidance and via words. We do not face an instance that prompts us to be physical. We do not have any bats or sprays, in the toughest instances we may grab her hand and 'guide' her to the minibus," she said.

"I am doing this it as it is my duty and my job is supported by the religious teachings," another women clad in the black chador uniform of Tehran's female police added.

A girl confronted by the female police for having overly short trousers and transparent stockings apologizes.

"I am wearing stockings but, sorry, they are too light. Sorry I will change them, definitely I will change them. Now can I go?"

Not everything goes so smoothly.

One young passer-by rounds on the police for devoting such resources to moral crackdowns rather than other social problems as the minibus -- now filled with "badly veiled" women -- speeds away to the police station.

"Shame on you, look what you've done! The people's problem is not this, go fix your traffic situation, people are stuck in traffic for hours, go fix other real problems," she shrieks.

There was already considerable controversy inside Iran when the first stage of the "plan to increase security in society" was launched in April.

Many conservatives have applauded the drive, but moderates have publicly questioned whether Iran would be better off tackling poverty and crime rather than slack dressing.

Just before the new crackdown started, popular television host Farzad Hasani grilled Tehran's police chief Ahmad Reza Radan about the drive on his talk show, accusing the police of "not differentiating between people and thugs."

An old woman in a black chador in Vanak Qquare echoed the sentiment. "Our youth have no peace of mind. They are afraid to go out, they are afraid that if they go out they will be taken to the police. Aren't they saying that there is freedom?"

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How Islam Helps Us Understand Donald Trump (or is it the other way around?)

Saturday morning, I was streaming the BBC while shaving and heard a thought-provoking interview/discussion between John Humphrys and Tarik Ramadan. Humphrys is a reporter and news anchor. A former theist, he's doing interviews with a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew and inviting them to convert him back to belief in God. Ramadan is a Muslim academic and theologian. We would probably call him a "moderate."

The interview itself (which you can listen to here) was fairly predictable, but it got more interesting when they discussed the question of who goes to Heaven. It's conceivable to Ramadan that the 9/11 hijackers may have gone to Heaven, because no one knows what thoughts might have gone through their minds in the last two minutes before their planes crashed (Ramadan does not, however, seem to endorse their violence). Asked whether he, himself, would go to Heaven, Ramadan answered, "I hope so." He explained that, as a sincere Muslim, you can only do your best and hope for the best. At the end of your life, God will make the determination where you go, based on how you've lived your life. You can hope for mercy.

These statements help me understand Muslim extremism and terrorism. If you can never be sure whether you're saved, you may feel the incessant need to demonstrate your zeal in the service of God. To bring His kingdom to earth by any means necessary. To fight evil relentlessly. Especially if your holy scriptures seem to encourage such behavior.

It reminds me of that piece-of-**** show, The Apprentice. I'll save my rants about the show until later (or never), but the relevant part is this: You work and work and work, and try and try and try, and at the end, you go to the Judgment Chamber and hope for the best while fearing the worst. In Islam, you "compete" against yourself, not against others, and more than one "winner" can ultimately enter Heaven, so the parallel isn't perfect. But the lack of assurance is there, as is not knowing your destiny until the last moment. (For the Muslim, however, there is one sure way into Heaven, and that is dying as a martyr. Isn't that encouraging.)

As for me, I'm thankful for Jesus, who opens the door, shows us the way, and gives us life (John 14.6). For the One who promises not to cast out those who come to Him (John 6.37) and who's committed to preserving His "sheep" through this life and into the next (John 10.28, 29). He is the martyr, not we (John 10.18). And because of all the above, we don't have to wait until the final judgment to know whether we belong to Him (1 John 5.11-15).

Our final point of encouragement? The confident assurance that when we see Jesus, whatever He may look like, he won't be sporting a Donald Trump comb-over.

Islam Is Not Your Friend

Tawfik Hamid was once a member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist group led by Al-Qaeda's second in command. He now lives in the West and practices medicine.

On April 3, The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating 1,000-word essay by him about what's wrong with Islam and what's wrong with the West's response to Islam. I've excerpted about 1/3 of the essay below, but I encourage you to read the whole thing at this link.

It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong.

The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah …

…[It] is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals--who unceasingly claim to support human rights--have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western "progressives" pave the way for Islamist barbarity? Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror …

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them …

Tolerance does not mean toleration of atrocities under the umbrella of relativism. It is time for all of us in the free world to face the reality of Salafi Islam or the reality of radical Islam will continue to face us.

News You May Have Missed: Muslims Debate the Propriety of Wife-Beating (And a German Judge Supports It)

As you'll read below, some Muslims argue that wife-beating is an acceptable last resort, when necessary to save the marriage. A civil judge in Germany last week agreed. But other Muslims disagree and are looking for new ways to translate the "beat" word that occurs in the Quran. Just thought you might like to know what the "religion of peace" is thinking about these days. (Link to the original NY Times article is here, or you can read the reprint below.)

March 25, 2007

New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

CHICAGO — Laleh Bakhtiar had already spent two years working on an English translation of the Koran when she came upon Chapter 4, Verse 34.
She nearly dropped the project right then.
The hotly debated verse states that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed, and ultimately “beaten” — the most common translation for the Arabic word “daraba” — unless her behavior improves.
“I decided it either has to have a different meaning, or I can’t keep translating,” said Ms. Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American who adopted her father’s Islamic faith as an adult and had not dwelled on the verse before. “I couldn’t believe that God would sanction harming another human being except in war.”
Ms. Bakhtiar worked for five more years, with the translation to be published in April. But while she found a way through the problem, few verses in the Koran have generated as much debate, particularly as more Muslim women study their faith as an academic field.
“This verse became an issue of debate and controversy because of the ethics of the modern age, the universal notions of human rights,” said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Egyptian-born law professor and Islamic scholar at the

University of California, Los Angeles.
The leader of the North American branch of a mystical Islamic order, Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, said he had been questioned about the verse in places around the world where women were struggling for greater rights, but most of all by Westerners.
Women want to be free “from some of the extreme ideology of some Muslims,” the sheik said, after delivering a sermon on the verse recently in Oakland, Calif.
[In Germany last week, a judge citing the verse caused a public outcry after she rejected the request for a fast track divorce by a Moroccan-German woman because her husband beat her. The judge, removed from the case, had written that the Koran sanctioned physical abuse.]
There are at least 20 English translations of the Koran. “Daraba” has been translated as beat, hit, strike, scourge, chastise, flog, make an example of, spank, pet, tap and even seduce.
“Spank?” exclaimed Professor Abou El Fadl, who has concluded that the verse refers to a rare public legal procedure that ended before the 10th century. “That is really kinky. That is the author fantasizing too much.”

Ms. Bakhtiar, who is 68 and has a doctorate in educational psychology, set out to translate the Koran because she found the existing version inaccessible for Westerners. Many Jewish and Christian names, for example, have been Arabized, so Moses and Jesus appear in the English version of the Koran as Musa and Issa.
When she reached the problematic verse, Ms. Bakhtiar spent the next three months on “daraba.” She does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in Iran in the 1970s and ’80s.
Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of the Arabic-English Lexicon by Edward William Lane, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for “daraba” was “to go away.”
“I said to myself, ‘Oh, God, that is what the prophet meant,’ ” said Ms. Bakhtiar, speaking in the offices of Kazi Publications in Chicago, a mail-order house for Islamic books that is publishing her translation. “When the prophet had difficulty with his wives, what did he do? He didn’t beat anybody, so why would any Muslim do what the prophet did not?”
She thinks the “beat” translation contradicts another verse, which states that if a woman wants a divorce, she should not be mistreated. Given the option of staying in the marriage and being beaten, or divorcing, women would obviously leave, she said.
There have been similar interpretations, but none have been incorporated into a translation. Debates over translations of the Koran — considered God’s eternal words — revolve around religious tradition and Arabic grammar. Critics fault Ms. Bakhtiar on both scores.
Ms. Bakhtiar said she expected opposition, not least because she is not an Islamic scholar. Men in the Muslim world, she said, will also oppose the idea of an American, especially a woman, reinterpreting the prevailing translation.
“They feel the onslaught of the West against their religious values, and they fear losing their whole suit of armor,” she said. “But women need to know that there is an alternative.”
Religious scholars outline several main threads in the translation of “daraba.”
Conservative scholars suggest the verse has to be taken at face value, with important reservations.
They consider that the Koran holds that force is an acceptable last resort to preserve important institutions, including marriages and nations. Some scholars have accused some Muslims of trying to make the verse palatable to the West.
“I am not apologetic about why the Koran says this,” said Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Islamic scholar who teaches at George Washington University. The Bible, he noted, addresses stoning people to death.
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian whose writings underpin the extremism of groups like Al Qaeda, published extensive commentaries about the Koran before he was hanged in 1966.
Islamic tradition states that Muhammad never hit his 11 wives, and Mr. Qutb considered a man striking his wife as the last measure to save a marriage. He cited the prophet’s horror at the practice by quoting one of his sayings: “Do not beat your wife like you beat your camel, for you will be flogging her early in the day and taking her to bed at night.”
The verse 4:34, with its three-step program, is often called a reform over the violent practices of seventh century Arabia, when the Koran was revealed. The verse was not a license for battery, scholars say, with other interpretations defining the heaviest instrument a man might employ as a twig commonly used as a toothbrush.
Sheik Ali Gomaa, the Islamic scholar who serves as Egypt’s grand mufti, said Koranic verses must be viewed through the prism of the era.
The advice “is always broad in order to be relevant to different cultures and in different times,” he said through a spokesman in an e-mail message. “In our modern context, hitting one’s wife is totally inappropriate as society deems it hateful and it will only serve to sow more discord.”
A caller on a television program in Egypt recently asked the mufti if he should stop sleeping with his wife if she was causing discord, the spokesman said. The mufti replied that the measures in the verse were meant to bring harmony, not to exact revenge.
More liberal commentators, particularly women, say the usual interpretation reflects the patriarchal practices of the Arabian peninsula.
This school holds that the sacred texts have become encrusted with medieval traditions that need to be scraped off like a layer of barnacles. Some Saudi women have been trying to do this by emphasizing the public role played by Aisha, one of the prophet’s wives, while the Asma Society gathered Muslim women from around the world in New York last fall to explore the establishment of a female council to interpret Islamic law.
Some analysts hold that the verse cannot be rendered meaningfully into English because it reflects social and legal practices of Muhammad’s time.
“The whole idea is not to punish her,” said Ingrid Mattson, an expert in early Islamic history at the Hartford Seminary and the first woman to be president of the Islamic Society of North America. “It is like a fear of sexual impropriety, that the husband takes these steps to try to bring their relationship to where it is supposed to be. I think it is a physical gesture of displeasure.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company