John H Armstrong

Building Bridges With Our Muslim Neighbors

In a world where the fear of Muslims is very high most of us are not sure how to respond to the Muslims we meet from day-to-day. Increasingly Muslims live in our neighborhoods. You almost have to live in a small rural area or a remote place to not see Muslims on a daily bases. They live in many of our neighborhoods and I deal with them on a regular basis. What are we to do?

I suggest the first and most important thing we are to do is not be suspicious of our neighbors unless there is clear and obvious reason to become so. Most have the same hopes, dreams and fears that we do. And most will be good neighbors just like non-Muslims. Our job, as Christians, is to build bridges to our neighbors, not react with fear and enmity. Such bridges can foster harmonious community relationships based on mutual respect, which is always the starting point for our witness as believers. We best engage Muslims when we engage them as human persons made in the image of God just as we are. They have joys and trials just as we do and it is natural to share in these as fellow human persons.

We can look to Muslims as neighbors who want to solve problems just as we do. They want safety, good schools, good jobs, etc. If we know them as people we can share a great deal with them. This means we are called to practice hospitality. "Inter-faith hospitality" is always appropriate. We should allow, indeed encourage, other faiths so that they feel welcome in our midst. My friend Gerald R.McDermott  says there are striking lessons Christians can learn from Muslims, truths that are not absent in our own tradition but truths which we too easily forget. I agree.

When my friend Brian McLaren recently announced that he was going to fast during Ramadan thousands of Christians jumped on him with incredible opposition. I was not one of them. I do not always agree with Brian, especially when he speaks about social solutions to cultural problems, but I found his actions and statements in this instance completely consistent with radical hospitality and Christian love of neighbor. He did not say he fasted because he thought Islam was equal to, or parallel with, Christian faith. He clearly said he did this to show solidarity and to join his neighbors in something that was important to them. I frankly see nothing wrong in his approach unless he said or did something I missed along the way. 

I am reminded that a study undertaken by Fuller Theological Seminary revealed that the number one reason Muslims who converted to faith in Christ gave for becoming Christians had to do with the reality of the love they saw in their neighbors who were Christians. I am not surprised by this in the least. Must we turn every Muslim into a potential terrorist or enemy? Must we fear Muslims because we do not understand them or know them? What ever happened to building bridges for the sake of the gospel? Whatever happened to love, period?

Moderate Muslims and the Islamists

If radical Islam is to be countered in North America and Europe it seems that it will take much more than military force and positive education. The key to a successful resistance against jihad is quite likely to be found in the efforts of moderate Muslims who resist the Islamic fascists inside their own communities. Thankfully there are a number of courageous Muslims who are willing to make this very dangerous effort in the West.

The 2007 documentary film Islam vs. Islamists: Muslims Against Jihad, produced by Canadian novelist and veteran documentary filmmaker Martyn Burke, tells the story of these moderate Muslims and their efforts to resist radical Wahabbism. (Wahabbism is the radical Muslim sect that is the force behind the most militant expressions of Islam.) The story of attacks upon moderate Muslims by Muslims is very troubling. It is most troubling because Westerners have little or no grasp of the real dangers inherent in this courageous Muslim stance. This two-disc documentary ought to be required viewing for everyone who wants to understand this important struggle for the future of Islam.

I believe the West is not only ill-informed about Islam but we fear opposing the radical voices of Wahabbism lest we be guilty of intolerance and bigotry. The protection of tolerance and freedom actually requires us to be vigilant. Filmmaker Martyn Burke has given us one of the finest resources I have seen to counteract our malaise. The tragedy is that Burke’s excellent documentary has itself been overtly controversial. This should not be since Burke is not a political partisan in any meaningful sense. He is a green-card carrying Canadian and considers himself neither conservative nor liberal. His wife is a member of the ACLU. His concern, in this documentary, is to show how moderate Muslims are being silenced and intimidated by the Islamist extremists. Anyone can easily see that he keeps politics completely out of this series if they view it for themselves.

So what is so controversial about Burke’s documentary? In the spring of 2007 PBS aired a series on post-9/11 America titled “America at a Crossroads.” Originally Burke’s material was to be included in this series but it was cut because it was not completed on time (Burke denies this point) and, more importantly, because it was deemed “alarmist” and non-objective. Having seen the video I have to tell you I think that charge is unadulterated rubbish.

Burke received $700,000 from public funding to make this two-part series. He now regrets this arrangement since the public source then had the power to censure the final product. In an interview dated April 17, 2007, posted at www.frontpagemag.com, Burke explained how the project broke down and why. The real reasons are revealing and, quite frankly, deeply alarming. If you think the freedom of the press is not threatened you should check out this controversy. Whether from the left or the right freedom of press is a freedom that we far too easily surrender, especially in times of conflict.

The documentary portrays the struggle through the stories of a number of moderate Muslims in Denmark, France, Canada and the United States. Each of them has been threatened and several are even required to have body guards 24/7. Burke says, of the project, “We hired a team of journalists, some of the best we could get our hands on, who are reporters from major newspapers in France, Denmark and Toronto. We had a Pulitzer Prize nominee and a woman profiled in the New York Times for the excellence of her team. We were just about making a documentary on this topic but we found ourselves enmeshed in politics unlike I have never seen before.”

All documentaries clearly have a point of view. This is the nature of the genre and everyone knows it. Burke’s point of view was clear to PBS from the start—there are a considerable number of moderate Muslims who are afraid to speak up because of the attacks of Islamists. Burke says PBS wanted his film to become an apology for the Islamists. He says PBS wanted him to represent the Islamists as a more moderate strain of Islam and thus to downplay the real moderate forces in the Muslim world and the West.

So why did PBS finally reject Burke’s film? Their answer is that he would not fire his two partners, Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev. Both partners are political conservatives. This is not in question. PBS argued that Burke (photo right) should have checked out his associates in advance. He said he did not, and would not, blacklist anyone because of their political views even though he is not a conservative. He had known these two partners from covering other stories with them and he believed them to be good journalists. Burke said in 2007 that he had never dealt with a more “politically biased” network than PBS. (He has worked in France, Britain, Canada and the United States for more than two decades.) He said in the April 2007 interview, “It’s just raw politics taking precedence over journalism.” So much for freedom of speech.

This series, rejected by PBS, was finally aired by Fox News. Fox News is not always the best source for both sides of a debate but in this case they showed courage and proved that alternative news sources, both conservative and liberal, do have their place in a free society. You can now buy or rent these two DVDs at Netflix. I assure you that they will open your eyes to understand just how hard it is to really resist radical Islam here in the U.S. You will clearly see the duplicity of Muslim leaders who say one thing to the American press and quite another to their own followers. This is so apparent as to be beyond debate. (Do you know where most all of the money for the huge mosques in your city comes from? What if I told you it was petro-dollars from Saudi Arabia? And what if I told you it was money given based on a compromise reached after the 1979 Wahabbi uprising at Mecca?) We had better wake up and help all the moderate Muslims we can. If this war is about minds and ideas then the trench in which this war will finally be won will be filled by earnest and freedom loving Muslims. In the days ahead I intend to find and support moderate Muslims wherever possible. Through their noble and courageous efforts our long held commitment to freedom can be preserved where it really counts, in our neighborhoods and communities.

Will Iran Legislate the Death of Thousands of Christians?

The state religion of Iran, as everyone I suppose knows, is Islam. In fact 98% of the nation’s 66 million people are Muslim. The problem this presents for people of any other faith, especially Christians, is a major human rights issue but few world leaders pay attention.

Satellite television is having some impact within Iran and there is evidence of Christian conversions taking place. When this happens believers remain underground and are often directed to other believers where they can find encouragement and a Bible. But publicly these new Christians remain Muslims, going through the motions of prayers and practices that keep the government at a distance.

Leaving Islam has always invited serious consequences from the Iranian government. If a person is born into a Christian home it is acceptable to be a Christian. What is not acceptable is any attempt to convert others to the Christian faith. Since Christianity is inherently evangelistic this presents real challenges for believers. The government has recently introduced legislation that would mandate the death penalty for Muslim apostates. Joseph Griesboski, the president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, says, “Life for so-called apostates in Iran has never been easy, but it could become literally impossible if Iran passes this new draft penal code. For anyone who dares to question the regime’s religious ideology, there could soon be no room to argue—only death.”

The code being considered defines two kinds of apostates: (1) Fetri, an innate apostate, or one who has at least one Muslim parent, identifies as a Muslim after puberty, and later renounces Islam, and; (2) Melli, a parental apostate, who is a non-Muslim at birth but later embraces Islam, only to renounce it again. Punishment for the first category is death. In the second case three days are allowed to repent or then will come death.

In the past various laws were more ambiguous, which allowed some leeway for interpretation. These new laws close all such ambiguity and thus will bring about the death of hundreds, probably thousands, of Christians.

Parliament has slowed its process toward approving this legislation, primarily because of outside protests such as those of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. It would be good if all Christians expressed themselves on behalf of the suffering people of God inside Iran.

Do You Really Believe in Freedom of Religion?

A 24-year old Assyrian Christian woman, who is a citizen of Iran, was recently rejected for a job as a flight attendant with Air Iran, the state-run airline. What was the reason for her rejection? She had not read the Koran. Her comment about her rejection underscores a major point that I believe is true with regard to all religion in public society. “Religion without the freedom to reject it is not a true religion. It makes life very claustrophobic.”

Christianity has not always recognized this principle clearly, given the history of certain events that followed the conversion of Constantine and the millennium long developments of European Christendom. Christendom plainly had long periods where there was little or no freedom in European states that allowed a person to openly “reject” the Christian faith without real personal and social consequences.

But there is a fundamental difference here between Christianity and Islam. The teaching of Jesus makes it explicitly clear that faith cannot, or should not, be coerced. We are all invited to freely choose to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We can also freely walk away from his claims. There is no conception in the New Testament of a government that can require, or should induce with societal incentives, conformity to the teachings of Christ. Christian faith, in its essence, is a faith that promotes real liberty. This is why the West has evolved, after numerous wars of religion and false Christian practices, into a context where governments (generally) protect freedom in the area of religious faith and practice. This is true in most liberal democratic nations, with America having been the real leader in this area for well over two centuries.

In Islamic cultures, especially where the overwhelming majority of the people practice Islam and the government is built upon it, this is not the case. The Koran says that “there is no compulsion in religion” but issues of religious freedom still cling to Islamic cultures like super-glue. Can Islam change? Some scholars think so. I surely hope so. I embrace these reformers and pray they will have a greater impact upon Islamic cultures in the coming years. I think it is good for Christians and governments to encourage such reformation in a proper way, that is without coercion. 

Mohammed Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and the former vice president of Iran says: “If you force religion down people’s throats, it makes them less religious, not more.” He maintains this is why so many young people in Iran are turning away from practicing an active faith in the teachings of the Koran.

Freedom of religion is the right of a person to form personal religious beliefs according to his or her own conscience and to give public expression to these beliefs in worship and teaching, restricted only by the requirements of public order. Religious liberty differs from toleration in that toleration presupposes preferential treatment of a particular creed by the state because it is an established church or, in some cases, is the predominant religion of the population. Some Muslim countries practice a form of toleration, at best, but there is little if any freedom of religion, except perhaps in a place like Turkey. (Even here pressure is mounting against the secular state from the Islamic Right.)

I think healthy Christianity never needs the state to support it in any sense. In the best case scenario the state should stay out of religious matters that involve the choice of citizens to practice their beliefs. The government should allow the market to solve the problem, to borrow an apt economic metaphor. This is one reason why religion flourishes in America where people can make up their own minds about what they will believe, or not believe, without state interference. Many Christians, both liberal and conservative, have forgotten this basic truth and by seeking to wrongly establish one religion as the state’s choice they have thereby violated the great principle of true liberty in religion. In the end the Christian faith will thrive best where we allow people to hear the claims of Christ accurately presented and then see what a Christian community really looks like in action. This is what mission is all about, not creating Christian states who seek to force faith, or religious decrees, on anyone.

Victor Davis Hanson on Jihadism

There are several public thinkers who do serious research and also write for the wider culture. One such writer, who almost universally stirs me to think beyond my box is classicist and military historian, Victor Davis Hanson. If you do not know Victor Davis Hanson I would strongly urge you to read some of his work and absorb his basic ideas. Even if you disagree you will be better for reading him I promise. His Web site is valuable and a Google search will bring up all kinds of blogs and articles by and about him. Hanson is a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute in California, and the author of numerous books, his most being: A War Like No Others: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

Hanson produced an article this week that is so clear-headed that I could not miss the opportunity introduce some of you to this amazing man and his succinct and clear thought about the world in which we now live.

Immigrants from the Middle East, as least as we determine their sentiments in the media and the universities, complain about current U.S. policy, but rarely voice sustained appreciation of our system they fled to in rejection of their own. Opposition leaders bash Bush as preemptive, unilateral, and incompetent, but do not adduce any alternative peace plan for the Middle East, a new innovative strategy for Iran, a better way of handling Pakistan, new directions in Afghanistan, or something other than quick withdrawal from Iraq. What little we’ve seen and heard — Obama’s worldwide Muslim peace conference and call for an armed incursion into nuclear Pakistan, Pelosi’s visits to dictatorial Syria, Joe Biden’s trisection of sovereign Iraq — are more frightening than novel.

Abroad, the European public is more schizophrenic. It wants to make no sacrifices to stop the jihadists, but fears them terribly. It damns the U.S. as responsible for the tense, unpleasant global environment, but then — apparently in private — votes to ensure it has leaders favorable to us. Europeans offer moral lectures to Americans who are paying a great price in blood and treasure for constitutional alternatives in Iraq, even as their own elites in shameful timidity mortgage the Western Enlightenment to two-bit thuggish Islamists.

Afghanistan is not seen as a line in the sand to stop the spread of jihadism, but an embarrassing entanglement that can be blamed on George Bush’s inordinate anger following 9/11. The European attitude toward America seems to be “you must intervene in the Balkans to lead us in the fight against the twilight, but we won’t follow you into Afghanistan to battle against abject darkness.”

For those who thought that the level of European appeasement could not be surpassed following the Dutch murderers, the opera and cartoon fiascos, the pope’s remarks, or the Iranian kidnapping of British sailors, we now are to listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s admission that the implementation of sharia law in Britain is “unavoidable” and probably useful as well. Never was so much surrendered by so few to so many.

The new multicultural and relativist British elite in just a decade or so has managed to make in comparison the 12th-century England of Thomas Becket seem humane. In the last analysis, the real worries about the survival of the West in this war are not with America and its courageous twenty-something suburban kids in Anbar trying to offer something better than the sharia morality of the seventh century, but with the likes of sanctimonious and cowardly churchmen in England trying to spread it.

The Former Archbishop Speaks About the Current Archbishop

It is quite rare that a former Archbishop of Canterbury will speak about the comments and practices of his successor. But the words of Archbishop Rowan Williams about sharia law brought a very thoughtful and weighty response from his predecessor, Lord George Carey, in the Sunday edition of The Telegraph, a British newspaper. Carey, an evangelical, understands the serious danger of Rowan Williams' comments in the context of modern Britain.

The Telegraph

Lord George Carey

The storm of criticism that greeted the Archbishop of Canterbury's lecture on sharia law in Britain will no doubt have disappointed him but, in fact, he may have done us a great favour by airing this whole area of controversy. He might even be regarded as prescient for discussing sharia, even before demand builds among Muslim communities for special provision in British law. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says there is no Islamic consensus on the application of sharia

Indeed, some opinion polls have the number of British Muslims wanting to live under sharia as high as 60 per cent. Furthermore, sharia councils are based in almost every city and town with a sizeable Muslim population. Famously, Canada's politicians came perilously close to introducing Islamic law for matrimonial cases, headed off eventually by an alliance of women's groups and the opposition of ordinary Muslims.

Dr. Williams's chief concern is the protection of religious communities against an increasingly aggressive secularism which last year, for instance, saw Roman Catholic adoption agencies put out of business by an insistence that they act against their conscience by placing children with gay couples.

And in his defence, it has been said that his prescription does no more than recognise the rights of people to settle private and domestic disputes in the way Jewish courts currently operate. Yet his proposal for a legal marketplace in which people can opt in and out based on religious affiliation opens the door to a parallel system of justice.

The question that must be asked is whether separate systems promote harmony or continue the creation of ghettos for Muslim communities - the result of disastrous policies of multiculturalism that the Bishop of Rochester highlighted in The Sunday Telegraph last month.

The problem with an accommodation to sharia is manifold. Firstly, there is no universally agreed system of sharia. In many of the countries where sharia is in force it disadvantages women and minorities and contradicts principles of human rights. Dr. Williams is right to criticise some of the more extreme aspects of sharia and to insist that this is not what he has in mind. Furthermore, a debate might bring existing sharia councils under public scrutiny to ensure that they operate under British law.

Even in Muslim-majority countries the introduction of sharia law has not been without its pain for minority groups.

In Pakistan, that country's blasphemy law has been used to persecute Christians. In Nigeria, where sharia has been introduced in certain northern states, community tension, church burning and widespread violence have been the result. I remember a young Roman Catholic priest, Father Linus, telling me how despite the insistence of the governor of Zamfara state that sharia would have no effect on the Christian community, the opposite had been the case. Christians no longer had any freedom, he said. They could not broadcast on radio or television, they could not build churches and women felt under pressure to assume the veil.

The watchword for any dialogue, worth its name, between Muslim and Christian communities must insist on reciprocity - that rights guaranteed to all in the West should be granted to minorities in Muslim lands. We have yet to see real steps toward that form of equality.

The second main objection to accommodation with sharia is the fact that while there are considerable numbers wanting to avail themselves of Islamic codes, many ordinary Muslims want to embrace the West and adapt their faith and customs to Britain.

Tariq Ramadan, a very significant moderate reformer, points to the fact that western law can already be seen by Muslims as compliant to more progressive notions of sharia. The late Zaki Badawi of Regent's Park Mosque always pointed out that the religious tradition had very little to say about living as a Muslim minority. This was a matter of urgent attention, he said, for Muslim scholars. It is by no means certain that the answers eventually reached will point to sharia law at all. Muslim communities post-9/11 are still engaged in a strenuous dialogue among progressives, moderates, traditionalists and extremists. We should not seek to foreclose that debate.

The third main objection is that accommodation would lead to further demands. That is absolutely inevitable, since questions to do with the separation of "church and state" are largely new to Islam. While Christianity and Judaism recognise the truth in "rendering unto Caesar", it is resisted by mainstream Muslim countries. Sharia law trumps civil law every time.

So, significantly, this would open up the problem of competition between British and sharia law if the time ever came that they operated side-by-side. Many Muslim interpreters of sharia believe that it supersedes secular law and assume that its "God-given" status would lead to its replacing civil law. Reports that sharia has been used to settle some criminal matters is already a considerable concern.

Finally, you would not think from media reports that Muslims constitute less than three per cent of the population. Most Muslims are heartily sick of being in the spotlight, but an ambitious programme of incorporating sharia tribunals into civil law seems a little like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut - and what it would do for social cohesion doesn't bear thinking about.

* Lord Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, is co-chair of the West-Islam Community of the World Economic Forum. He is chairman of the Foundation for Reconciliation and Relief in the Middle East, working with Canon Andrew White, and is also patron of the Three Faiths Forum founded by Sir Siggy Sternberg. He is a noted evangelical author and has been actively involved in the worldwide ecumenical movement among Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians. 

Rowan Williams Answers His Critics

Archbishop Rowan Williams has expressed real dismay that his comments made yesterday about Britain legally supporting certain aspects of Sharia Law has already created a considerable storm of protest both in the UK and abroad. While the British Muslim Council has praised him a number of Christians, as well as UK politicians, have expressed profound concern, even calling for him to step down as head of the Anglican Church. His response, as well as that of various critics, can be read and even seen on video at today's news on the BBC.

Christians in the West need to engage this conversation very carefully. Williams seems to go further than wisdom dictates, at least to me, but I hope we will not stop this conversation. I have my doubts about Williams, both about his leadership of the worldwide Anglican communion and his statements on a number of vitally important subjects, but before we throw him overboard we owe it to the truth and the love of our neighbors to at least engage in a dispassionate dialog about these kinds of subjects. Britain has a special problem in that the nation has already given a significant place to Muslim law and custom in ways that have created a great deal of fear among the general public.

It should be kept in mind, especially by all who urge tolerance in the West, that no such tolerance exists in the overwhelming majority of Muslim nations, especially where Sharia is the norm. This is clearly an issue that will not go away anytime soon. If you live in Europe the problem is real. It is also an issue in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, where a dominant Muslim community now influences the city and culture.

My first concern is not cultural preservation or even national security, though I have an interest in both, especially the latter. My first concern is how Christians in the West are going to love their neighbors and become vital Christian communities where Muslims will be loved as people created in the image of God. The hope of every Christian who shares a deep commitment to the gospel is that Muslims will be won to faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But regardless of Muslim response to the gospel we must call upon all Christians everywhere to practice radical hospitality and real neighbor love. This is the obvious teaching of Holy Scripture. This is not the same thing as mere tolerance thus the missional mandate of Jesus calls upon us to do much more than tolerate the presence of our Muslim neighbors. Many of you, like me, live in neighborhoods where Muslims live, shop and go to our schools. What will we do now that the world is not simply over there but right here in our own community?

What on Earth Does the Archbishop Mean?

In a startling interview yesterday, on BBC Radio 4, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said, "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law." Williams went on to state that the adoption of Islamic Sharia Law was inevitable in the United Kingdom and that it would help maintain social cohesion. "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognized in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system."

He compares the practice of Sharia Law with the convictions of those who opposed abortion or homosexual adoption. He also claims that Sharia Law needs to be better understood and that originally it was more enlightened in its attitude toward women than other legal systems.

His remarks were publicly criticized by Senior Tory MP Peter Luff, who said: "This is a very dangerous route we should not go down." Not surprisingly, Archbishop Williams was praised by Mohammed Shafiq, Director of Great Britain's, Ramadhan Foundation.

Rowan Williams is often at the center of controversy. He is a serious and trained academic theologian but maintains quite liberal views on a number of points. I personally find reading him both scintillating and frustrating.I found myself feeling the same when I listened to this BBC broadcast last evening. Listen for yourself if you want to ponder his very controversial comments.

The Brave Story of a Child of Islamic Martyrs

Now They Call me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror
Nonie Darwish.
Sentinel, Penguin Books (2006)
Cloth, 258 pages, $23.95

A Book Review by Shirley W. Madany

From my first encounter with Nonie Darwish, through her articles and web site, I felt that she was someone special. I was attracted by her open and obvious love for America.  That web site disappeared, only to reappear as  www.arabsforisrael.com , with its unique opening statement:

To Muslims and Arabs across the globe: Reject hate, embrace love. Bring out the best in Islam by showing your compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. Make the holy land truly holy by giving Israel and the Jewish people the respect they deserve in their tiny little country. This is not a crisis over land. It is a crisis of the soul; a crisis in our faith, judgment and self confidence. Israel should not be regarded as an enemy, but as a blessing to our neighborhood. We need not fear peace, but embrace it.

These are remarkable words coming from the daughter of a “shahid” (a martyr for jihad) who was assassinated while serving as a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed in Gaza specifically to be of assistance to the Palestinians.

The September 2001 attack on the twin towers in New York was life-changing for many people. From that moment on Nonie Darwish felt compelled to take a stand. It led her to write her life story “Now They Call Me Infidel” which is a pure gift to all of us. She also stepped out into public life with all its demands of speaking engagements, and the disapproval she was bound to experience.

After reading her book with eagerness, I would suggest that it is the perfect book for supplemental reading by all high school students.  Let them hear about Islam from someone who has experienced it fully from birth and has turned to Christianity and America for a better life. Let them sense her loyalty and love for her new country. As she describes it—“Many immigrants come to this great nation in search of material gain, which is fine; however, the biggest prize I gained was my religious freedom and learning to love. For me it was nothing short of cataclysmic. I had turned from a culture of hatred to one of love.”

In her book she describes her impressions of America. We Americans need to see our country through someone else’s eyes, so that we can withstand the propaganda that insinuates that we are the culprit and instigator of all the troubles of the world. It is eye-opening to read through the chapter “A New Beginning in America” and find out why the following words are in italics; and learn just how much our culture differs from the Muslim culture in Egypt. This is specially applicable to the difficult life programmed for  women. She considers  “friendliness and helpfulness”,” courtesy”, “diversity and multiculturalism”, “self-sufficiency, pride in labor”, “generous, honest, and open”, “informality”, “women’s relationships”, and “child rearing”.

Gradually, to Ms. Darwish’s horror, she discovers that her beloved land of refuge, her America which means so much to her, is being attacked from within. She is painfully aware of those old patterns of hatred, as they emanate from mosque after mosque.

She lashes out at terrorists who are invading the Western countries: “America’s Islamic enemies and critics—even those who love living in the United States–are nothing more than pirates. That’s what Islamic terrorists are–pirates. Instead of building their own society as a model of what Islam should be, they leave it in ruins and look to conquer hard-working successful lands. . . . They cannot stand to live in a Muslim culture, and they have their eyes set on beautiful and welcoming democracies, not to blend in, but to rob those democracies of their soul and ruin the value system and culture that made them great. . . . ” p. 185. You need to get hold of this book and sense the depth of Ms. Darwish’s feeling as she begs you to save our precious country from the onslaught she sees coming.

She describes her shock at the Arab world’s response to 9/11. They dared to rejoice over the tragedy. When she phoned family members and close friends, whose opinions she had formerly trusted, she could not believe that many thought America deserved to suffer.

The last chapter is “Jihad Comes to America”. Nonie dismisses the popular and over-used definition of jihad as merely spiritual pursuit: “there is only one meaning for jihad, and that is:  a religious holy war against infidels.” p. 201. She remarks that she is shocked by the radicalism she encounters on the American campus. “I am stunned to see them choose to revive the worst of Islamic culture in America rather than be part of America and demonstrate the best of Islamic culture.”

On page 159 there is a moving description of Nonie’s introduction to Christian worship when she and her husband and family attended a church and “listened to a message of compassion, love, acceptance, tolerance, and prayer for all humanity.” There had been some violence in the Middle East and the pastor prayed for everyone—“Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It was very different message from the prayers to ‘destroy the infidels’ that I grew up with. . . . I learned the most important command in scripture was ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Nonie had found what she was hungering for:  “In this church, that day, my soul was revived and nourished with the love of a tolerant and forgiving God.” Knowingly she was willing to be called an infidel.

After a remarkable experience of visiting Israel Nonie explains:  “I now fully understand why the United States supports Israel and rightfully so. My love of America now extends to Israel.” Hence the name of her new web site! 

We salute another brave woman, and heartily recommend that you read this extremely important book.

Author

My good friend Shirley Madany has been involved with her husband, Rev. Bassam Madany, for many years in a radio and personal ministry to countless Muslims. She celebrated her 83rd birthday today, August 11, 2007. You should check our Shirley Madany’s excellent Web site at Unashamed of the Gospel and you can email her through the Web site.

Lincoln, Tom Brokaw and Radical Islam

Tom Brokaw gave the Remembrance Day address at the Gettysburg Cemetery last Sunday, November 19. I was pleased to hear him in person. He is truly a master speaker and quite frankly a very real presence. He is a tall man, handsome still, and genuinely gracious to all who approached him personally, offering thanks much like a minister at the rear door after a service. Of all the network news anchors in my lifetime Brokaw is still my favorite.

Mr. Brokaw spoke about Lincoln’s time and ours since the occasion called for this comparison on the day that President Lincoln delivered The Gettysburg Address in 1863. He spoke of our “ideological zealots” who are willing to advance their narrow interests at the expense of the larger good of a just and good society. He referred to some politicians, in Lincoln’s time and our own, who are really “money changers in the Capital.” He then argued that it was “the common will to advance our common interests” that had always sustained America in dark times such as the Civil War. Consistent with his idea of “The Greatest Generation” Brokaw then said that he was more “impressed with those Americans who sacrificed something rather than those who simply lived life on the Web site of their convictions.” Ouch! I needed that reminder.

Lest you think Tom Brokaw doesn’t understand the great issues of our generation he concluded by telling us that the present generation was “engaged in a great struggle with Islamic rage.” He has real fear that we just don’t get it. We must keep asking, he said, “How can we really do better?”

I thought: "If this generation doesn't soon become the awakened and selfless generation we may be the last generation that knows these blessings of freedom."

Tom Brokaw wisely concluded by telling us that “It is time to re-enlist as citizens.” Man, do I agree. If we will not awaken to the present danger of Islamic rage, and the determination of a handful of zealous and devoted Muslims to destroy us, we will soon wonder what happened to Western Civilization. The vast majority of Muslims seem to love peace, or so they keep telling us. They profess to want what you and I want in life. But many do not seem to be willing to recognize that their radical brothers are our very real and openly avowed enemies. I ask “why” these Muslims do not seem to get it. I have a few suggestions that I am still pondering. I plan to say a lot more about this in coming weeks. This will be the issue we face for the next twenty to thirty years. Modernists are consumed with financial and emotional security and many postmodernists don’t care since they seem to welcome the destruction of Western Civilization, believing rather that a global culture will be much better than a Western one rooted in Christian values developed for well over a century.