I’m just now coming off of three solid weeks in the Muslim world. In this case specifically Jordan and Turkey. Now I am very well aware that as Muslim countries go, Jordan and Turkey are both pretty soft-core. They are “
Laodicean” Muslim contexts, to apply a term that might resonate with many Adventists. But soft-core though these two places may be, this trip has underscored for me, first, the fact that my work has come to increasingly take me to Muslim places and increasingly put me, in different ways, working with Muslim people.
And while I don’t claim to be an expert on Islam or to have traveled as widely within the Muslim world as many, I do know a bit and I have been around: Indonesia, and not decadent Jakarta or Bali, but mostly
Banda Aceh – the only Indonesian province that has institued
sharia law; Malaysia; significant time in eastern Sri Lanka – a place where civil disturbance, bombings and
poya days routinely interrupt business; Bangladesh; Dubai; Yemen – typically overshadowed by Saudi Arabia, but quietly one of the most conservative and hardline of the Islamic republics; northern Sudan; west Africa in general; Azerbaijan; Tadjikistan; Afghanistan… Even during the time that I lived in Thailand – well-known as a Buddhist country – I lived in Bangkok’s largest Muslim neighborhood.
I have heard the calls to prayer enough times and in enough places to have an opinions about whether the Imam does it well or not. I have seen enough women in
hijabs or
burqas to have opinions about which ones are stylish and which are not.
Spending the kind of time that I have in the places where I’ve been, not just meeting but often working closely with the people that I’ve had to work closely with – Muslim people – has made it hard for me to be a hardline Adventist. Of course I was never really wired to be an Adventist hardliner, anyway. Over the last almost 20 years, not just the amount but also the quality of exposure that I’ve had to other people and places and ways of life has had the effect of diluting even further any sort of loyalty I might have had to Adventism as a dogma or even as a set of doctrines. It’s not all black and white, “accept this or you’ll be eternally lost.” I
do believe that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain, that every person must find her or his path, and – further – that the choice of this path or that often includes an element of preference.
I am, probably, to Adventism what many Jordanians or Turks are to Islam.
* * * * *
One thing that strikes me as I spend more time in the Muslim world, in the company of Muslim people is how very much they are like us. Yes, there are the obvious differences. The cultural packaging has a way of emphasizing those. But in the ways that matter, it seems to me that we are more alike than we are different. We’re alike in both positive and negative ways. Of course we all love our children and supposedly want a better world for them. Everyone says they want some never-explicitly-defined thing called ‘peace.’
In recent years it has been common for public figures from the West (okay, mainly the USA) to emphasize that they have no issue with Islam, per se, but with “
radical Islam” or “
militant Islam.” But when you look carefully at what is commonly understood to be “radical Islam” at a grassroots, community level, you see that it is not so very different from some of the Christian movements now gaining momentum in the West. Including, in many ways, Adventism. And you have to look past the obvious differences: many will be quick to point out that
we don’t sponsor
terrorism. And while it may be true that secondary school kids don’t learn to fire AK-47s or improvise explosives at Adventist schools, the mentality of belief that there is a mortal enemy out there against whom we are all on the front lines of combat is similar.
Broadly speaking, acts of violence and terrorism by radical Muslims are often committed as retaliation for what they perceive as the illegitimate invasion of Muslim lands by the West. (And you can kind of see their point.) But their primary program is about
evangelism. They want a Muslim world. And if you look at it that way, the difference between rich Saudis funding
madrasas in Pakistan or Nigeria, and rich Adventists giving money to support Adventist colleges in Africa or Asia is really a difference of
degree more than actual
substance:
the Saudis have more money.
(Conservative American Adventists, in particular, will likely be very intrigued by a discussion about exactly how the Saudis came to have so much money…)
Is Al Queda (or some other radical Islamic group) starting up quiet “cells” in different places around the globe so very different from Adventist underground churches in _______ (
insert name of country where A.F.M. withholds the name of it’s ‘tent-maker missionaries’)? The difference, again, it seems to me, is one primarily of degree. Al Queda is willing activate it’s cells to go into battle. Literally. Whereas Adventists only talk about ‘battle’ in metaphoric terms. Both are about winning converts. One goes a step further by being willing to take out it’s opponents.
And I could go on. The comparisons are many. Adventist youth going on mission trips to the Philippines (something I find amusing, since the Philippines is, by and large, a Christian country), has become something of a rite of passage in our Adventist culture, not wholly unlike the
hadj for good Muslims. Our essentially male-dominated, basically hierarchical local church organizational structure resembles that of local Muslim parishes. Although they’re fading now, our historically highly ritualized Sabbath-keeping practices were not so dissimilar to Muslims praying seven times daily. Although the cultural practices vary in some obvious ways, our traditional, foundational views on adornment are not so far from those of Islam. Even our highly canonized views on diet – something many Adventists take a great deal of pride in, and the part of our culture that perhaps more than any other we offer to our non-Adventist acquaintances – are very similar to Muslim beliefs. No pork, no alcohol…
Of course some will be quick to point out that Al Queda is “
bad”, while Adventists starting prayer circles is “
good.” God is on
our side.
Oh, really?* * * * *
One area where I think that Adventists have consistently failed is in articulating a coherent, unified, somewhat believable vision for the future. The future on
earth. What is our end goal for our time here? Are we just sort of marking time until Jesus comes?
This is one area where we could learn from the Muslims. The Arabic language and culture, and by extension, the culture of Islam has a lot of rhetoric and mystique that is culturally unintelligible in the West. When Saddam Hussein went on about how America was the “Great Satan”, he seemed over-the-top in a way and to an extent that most Americans simply wrote him off as a looney. The common belief in the West that Muslim suicide bombers believe they have 70 virgins awaiting them in Paradise is too out-there for most of us to take seriously. (When you think about it, what’s harder to believe: “70 virgins” or “streets of gold” and a “sea of glass”? But I digress…). But all of this cultural packaging basically distracts from a very important and central point:
The Muslims may have some views about the afterlife which seem far-fetched to us. But their views about the earthly life are crystal clear. They want everyone to be Muslim.
And I have to say, when I think about whether Adventists might articulate a similar view I am torn. Do we
really believe that our overarching task here on earth is to get as many people as possible to regularly attend Church on Sabbath and, preferably, not eat bacon, wear jewelry, or go dancing? While I don’t agree with the Muslims that the world would be a better place if everyone in it were Muslim, neither do I believe that the world would necessarily be a better place if everyone in it were Adventist.
Curious to hear your thoughts…
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