May I Have A Word

MAY I HAVE A WORD? S u san M ichaelson

Which Women?

direction (Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos in Acts 18:26; Junia named as an apostle in Romans 16:7; and Chloe as church leader in 1 Corinthians 1:11 among them) are marginalized.Those of Millions of women and girls in Asia and us who would challenge their hermeAfrica endure overwhelming suffering neutical and exegetical assumptions are because of poverty, greed, ignorance, and dismissed as radical feminists. In their view, oppressive cultural imperatives. That so we are willfully ignoring the clear word much of it is preventable makes it all the of God to pursue selfish, sinful, egalitarmore heartbreaking. Most of us in the ian agendas.They, on the other hand, are West, and especially in the United States, protectors of the purity of the church. are blessed beyond measure by compariI am absolutely supportive of sound son; our women-specific challenges are Christian doctrine but remain noncalibrated on a vastly different scale. For plussed that this frankly minor question evangelicals, that difference invites us to has taken on a life of its own. Ironically, roll up our sleeves and partner with the the most vocal complementarians tend pioneers who have shown us the desper- to view the mid-20th century American ate needs of these victimized women. suburban TV household — think Ozzie Sadly, however, far too many evan- and Harriet or the Cleavers — as the gelicals are embroiled in women’s issues ideal biblical view. Meanwhile, egalitarof another sort to be able to respond to ians are said to be trapped into following such an invitation. Instead of whole- the dictates of our culture rather than the heartedly pursuing the example set by word of God. (I’m not making this up.)

Jesus to liberate and elevate women The problem, of course, is that the trapped in bondage, they are distracted cost of preserving blunt patriarchal subby the effort to preserve men-in-charge mission structures is high. These comchurch- and home-leadership schemes. mitments prevent a church from minisIndeed, to evangelicals so oriented, one tering wisely and well to all its members. of the most serious sins is allowing gifted When only men hold positions of official and educated women to breech the per- authority, women in the congregation ceived divide reserving leadership posi- are deprived of close personal ministry tions and ordained ministry for men. relationships with their pastors and elders.

Following close behind is the failure of The safeguards in place to prevent wives to properly submit to their husbands. inappropriate counseling intimacies from The Council on Biblical Manhood and developing between a male pastor and Womanhood, a standard-bearer for this female congregants have a downside perspective (known as complementarian- (apart from their high failure rate).Women ism), believes that the authority of are held at arm’s length in awkward Scripture, the health of the church and relationships with their pastors and elders the family, worship, and the advance of at times of great spiritual and emotional the gospel all rise or fall on this point. need. In some situations, battered women Adherents spend stunning amounts also face the nightmare of being sent of time, energy, and assets toiling over home to do a better job of submitting turgid books, articles, and blog posts because their male ecclesiastical judges arguing for this understanding of Scrip- either don’t believe them or blame them. ture. In a nutshell, they read 1 Timothy Then there is the squandering of tal2:11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:2-10 and 14:34- ent and resources. Women are encour35 as gender-role trump cards for all aged to get seminary educations — and time. Passages that push hard in the other incur debt to finance them. Graduates can PRISM 2 0 1 0

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teach university classes, present papers at conventions, speak worldwide, and write for the Christian academic and lay world, but if they are caught exhorting an audience including men in a patriarchal setting, they will be publicly rebuked, castigated, and blacklisted. Diane Langberg and Carolyn Custis James are notable examples of educated, accomplished, godly women who happened to have crossed that line.

Of course, a good bit of the effort associated with keeping women on their own side of the line has to do with clarifying where the line is. As is so often the case, when theology hits the street, it’s not so easy. I was once permitted to teach adult Sunday school — as long as an ordained elder was present. What about women teaching teenage boys? Leading worship? Participating in leadership teams?

Then there are the well-known mission field exemptions, where women do whatever is necessary, leading in ways that would never fly at home. The truth is that patriarchal churches cannot function without women doing far more than a restricted reading of the trump-card verses would permit. The resulting silly and self-justifying interpretive hairsplitting consumes absurd amounts of time and demeans all involved. Is this really what preserving the purity of the church and upholding the sacred authority of the word of God is supposed to look like?

In the meantime, those other women and their problems are out there, begging for the church’s gaze and commitment — females who are mutilated, aborted, kidnapped, raped, and sold.Whenever we choose to pour time, energy, and assets into one endeavor, something else necessarily goes begging.Women are indeed a problem for the evangelical church.

The question is, which women? n Susan Michaelson holds an MDiv from Westminster Theological Seminary and an MBA. She teaches New Testament at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pa.

MAY I HAVE A WORD? D o u g S ee b eck

Accessing the Global Pond I can still remember the impact of reading Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

by Ron Sider in 1978. I was an ambitious agri-business graduate seeking to be one of those rich, successful Christians.

I landed a good job consulting with large-scale farming operations where I would become more scientific in soil fertility and water management.Then the Lord threw me a curve ball by calling me to Bangladesh to help the poorest of the poor grow food to survive.

Bangladesh in 1978 was pretty much a disaster. Among other things, it could not produce nearly enough food to feed its citizens. It relied on massive amounts of foreign aid. It scored at the bottom of every quality-of-life indicator used to measure a nation’s development.

But I was surprised by how talented these poor Bengali farmers were. Given access to hybrid seeds, fertilizer, and water during the dry season, these tiny landholders could not only produce up to three crops in a year, they could also match rice yields of their Japanese and US counterparts.

I began to protest the oft-used proverb of “give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.” No, I thought, these folks already know how to fish. They just need access to the pond! They know how to farm, but they own only half an acre to feed seven hungry people!

Today Bangladesh is food sufficient.

Agricultural production has stabilized. Many of the farmers I worked with years ago are now in small businesses and light industry.

What changed? According to Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Bangladesh advanced through a combina-

tion of factors led by economic growth, improved healthcare, increased educational opportunities, plus foreign development aid.

Through all this, the people of Bangladesh have experienced increased access to the pond within their national borders.

After 31 years of involvement in the work of international development, I believe more strongly than ever that what the poor need is access to the same opportunities you and I enjoy. True economic freedom for the poor will come with access to the global ponds as well as those within their national borders.

In his book Creating a World Without Poverty, Yunus calls for duty-free access to US markets for the Bangladeshi garment industry. One statistic stands out: In 2006, on $3.3 billion in exports to the US, Bangladesh paid half a billion dollars in duties — the same amount paid by the UK on exports of $54 billion.

The enactment of a duty-free policy would lead to doubled exports volume in five years, Yunus believes, creating many new jobs in the process.

Rising from Africa are other voices striking a similar note. In a keynote speech at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in August,Andrew Rugasira, founder of Good African Coffee, Ltd. in Uganda, called for North Americans to engage Africans as trading partners, not as recipients of aid.

“You see 900 million poor people in Africa,” he said.“We see 900 million entrepreneurs.

How many of you have figured out how to live on $1.50 a day and take care of your family? We want to partner with you.”

My good friend Gad Bilete worked with me in Uganda during the turbulent late ’80s and early ’90s. At a 1992 conference, Gad left me with this challenge: “Doug, be our ambassador to your country and tell your leaders, ‘We want trade, not aid. We want to relate as equals.’” It was our final conversation, because Gad was killed by rebels in Northern Uganda later that year.

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family back to the US after living abroad for 18 years.Their visions for their countries led me to start Partners Worldwide, a business ministry that encourages, equips, and connects business people in partnerships that grow enterprises and create sustainable jobs, transforming the lives of everyone involved.

This past year, our business partnerships in 20 countries created and sustained more than 23,000 jobs while providing over $2.2 million in loans to 1,885 small businesses.

How can you respond to the call by the world’s poor for access to the global pond?

One way is to become an advocate for free and fair trade all over the world.

The US Senate (S 1524) and House (HR 2139) are each contemplating bills targeted at increasing the effectiveness of foreign aid. Through the Bread for the World website (bread.org), you can send a letter to your senator or congressman urging passage of a bill. You can also advocate for deepening the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) into a full free-trade agreement between the US and Africa.

Other responses include taking a trip to a developing nation to learn about poverty and development, developing a relationship with an entrepreneur on the ground, making a microloan, and joining a business group that is focused on development among the poor.

Yunus, Rugasira, Bilete, and countless others around the globe are our equals who call out for the same economic freedoms that we enjoy in the US.Turning their call into reality may seem impossible. But remember that we were created by an entrepreneurial God who imagined the world and then called it into being. God’s vision is big, so ours can be big, too. Let’s start by walking alongside our friends in Bangladesh, Africa, and around the globe in the call for equality through increased access to the global pond. n Doug Seebeck is the executive director of Partners Worldwide and co-author of My Business, My Mission (Faith Alive, 2009).

MAY I HAVE A WORD? C h u ck C olson

Stop Demonizing Immigrants Did you know that “95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens”? Or that “75 percent of people on the Most Wanted List in Los Angeles are illegal aliens”? What’s more, “Over [two-thirds] of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medicaid whose births were paid for by taxpayers.”

This is outrageous. Especially since none of it is true! Instead, it’s just one example of how we have gone beyond worrying about illegal immigration to demonizing the immigrants themselves.

These statements came from an e-mail that was widely circulated a few years ago — and promptly posted on at least 130 conservative websites. It listed 10 “facts about immigration” and gave as its source the Los Angeles Times.

Not only was the Los Angeles Times not the source, but when the paper examined the alleged “facts,” none of them withstood scrutiny. Some of them distorted the data. For instance, approximately 62 percent of all births in Los Angeles County are to Hispanic women, but this number includes American citizens, legal aliens, Hispanics from countries other than Mexico, and has nothing to do with Medicaid.

The so-called “facts” about illegal alien criminality are even worse: They are deliberate misrepresentations or complete fabrications.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of an often very ugly iceberg. The illegal immigration problem is often called an “invasion” that threatens the existence of the United States. Illegal aliens are depicted as part of an effort to “reconquer” the American Southwest. And it’s not only illegal immigrants: American

citizens of Mexican ancestry are also regarded as part of this plot.

Now, there are a few fringe Latino groups that talk about “reconquista”— that is all they are, however: fringe. To judge all Latinos, including illegal aliens, by the words of these groups is as fair as judging all Christians by the actions of clinic bombers or Fred Phelps.

A concern for fairness isn’t the most important reason that Christians ought to oppose this demonization of “the strangers in our midst.” As theologian T. M. Moore wrote, “God defends strangers. He has compassion for those who have left all and risked all to find new lives in a strange country.”1 Moore reminds us that God expects his people’s “attitude toward the strangers and sojourners in their midst” to reflect his own concern.

Now, this does not mean that Christians ought not to be concerned about the massive lawbreaking, by both illegal immigrants and those who employ them. We must! The rule of law is a Christian contribution, coming out of the Reformation, and it requires respect

for law, just as the Bible does. Nor does it mean that there’s one particular immigration proposal that Christians ought to be supporting.

What it does mean is that Christians must work to see that the immigration debate generates light instead of heat.

We must insist that the illegal-immigration issue be addressed without treating millions of Americans (many of whom have died protecting our country) as a kind of fifth column.

That is the very least we can do if we are obedient to God’s command to welcome strangers. And that’s a fact I got from the highest possible source. n Chuck Colson is the founder of Prison Fellowship, a syndicated columnist, and the author of 23 books.This editorial was adapted from an essay originally published by Breakpoint.org, the worldview ministry of Prison Fellowship. It appears here by kind permission of the author.

T. M. Moore, “Strangers in Our Midst,” BreakPoint Online, April 26, 2006, www.breakpoint.org/listingarti cle.asp?ID=2182.

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The so-called “facts” about illegal alien criminality are deliberate misrepresentations or complete fabrications.

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MAY I HAVE A WORD? A ngela K ays - B u rden

Predestined for Adoption* I wasn’t paying attention in 1994 when the Rwandan genocide happened. It wasn’t until years later, when I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda, that I was twice horrified —first, because of the atrocities that saw 800,000 Tutsis killed by their friends and neighbors; second, because the tragedy had escaped my awareness. The terrible and inspiring stories of Rwandan genocide survivors have helped direct unprecedented attention and resources towards the small African country. Convicted of our 1994 apathy, we have opened our hearts and minds to learn what we can from the past.

It was after hearing Immaculée Ilibagiza share how she survived the massacre by hiding in a 3- by 4-foot bathroom for 91 days with seven other women—and emerged with a profound faith in God— that I decided to take a short-term mission team to Rwanda. I went to Kigali last August with mixed motives—compassion, guilt, and curiosity. I hoped the trip would somehow shake me from my comfortable Christian life.

Our suitcases held small toys and children’s clothing for the orphans we expected to meet. After visiting three orphanages on our first day, it was clear that these things would not be needed.

In preparing for the trip, we failed to fully understand how genocide shapes an individual life and the consciousness of a nation.The orphan estates on our itinerary did not house small children but rather adults in their 20s and 30s. In Rwanda, where family connotes a vastly more elevated and interconnected web of relationships than most Americans can comprehend, anyone who loses a parent, especially if the loss occurs during his or her childhood, is an orphan.

Instead of institutional orphanages, the Rwandan government built estates of homes (called “imidugudu”) where young genocide survivors can live together in communities. The eldest child cares for a family unit that includes siblings and extended relatives. Rwanda has an estimated 101,000 children living in 42,000 child-headed households. There are imidugudu for approximately 6,000 orphans who have organized themselves into formal “associations” to support one another and share common needs.

As we visited each estate, seats of honor were arranged for our team, and the orphans from each community gathered to tell their stories. Each survivor gave his or her name, then ended their introduction with “I am an orphan.” After more than 30 young adults had reminded me that they were orphans, my American sensibilities overtook me. I was agitated.

These were not dependent children, I thought to myself, but resourceful adults who could care for themselves and others.

Many were Christian men and women.

Why was “orphan” the critical identifier, used almost like a last name? Christ’s promise that “I will not leave you as orphans” kept coming back to me.

These young adults asked honestly why we had come, hoping perhaps that we had something to give them. But I had come only with a faith to share and clothes that were too small. A 24-year-old man shook my hand, and I began to grasp a reality that would never be mine. I saw the young man as a 9-year-old in 1994, who, bereft of the emotional/spiritual compass of his murdered parents, had turned for help to those who first visited Rwanda after the genocide.

The orphans before us were fed, clothed, housed, and educated. I couldn’t help but think that they were among the lucky ones. I began to hope for the imidugudu Christians to understand that they were not orphans but rather children who had God as their father. But as I raised a hopeful prayer for the orphans PRISM 2009

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of Rwanda, an awareness began to emerge within me that I ought to be praying the same for myself. Although I have experienced neither the personal trauma of the 1994 genocide nor the private and public abandonment faced by a people recovering from this tragedy, there are many times when I act more like an orphan than a child of God—each time, in fact, that I fear tomorrow, lean on my own understanding, or fail to feed on the Bread of Life. It is not just Rwandan genocide survivors who need a revelation of God as father.What if each of us in relationship with Christ embraced an identity formed, not by our past and present sufferings, but by our future glory? An identity rooted in confidence in the unconditional acceptance, limitless love, and unmeasured forgiveness of our heavenly Father?

Although we eventually met orphans small enough to fit the clothes we brought, I was very much aware that we were mere visitors passing through—visitors with limited resources in the face of great need.

Many had come before us and many would come afterwards.We had no choice but to leave all the orphans in God’s hands.

Did we really believe he would do what he promised? “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). I began to see that embracing an identity as a child of God, in the face of such a past, could restore every heart touched by tragedy. Christ’s love transcends geography, ethnicity, and circumstance for all those who turn to him. He can do the same for us in our own difficult circumstances.

As Rwanda remembers the 15th anniversary of the genocide, may God come as father to every orphan in Rwanda as the country rebuilds its infrastructure and the hope of its people; and may Christ come with his spirit of adoption to each of our hearts as well. n Angela Kays-Burden is a licensed master social worker living in New York’s Hudson Valley. *Ephesians 1:4-6

MAY I HAVE A WORD? A ndrea C u m b o

We Are All Mothers “You really can’t do that,” the baby’s mother scolded me as I lifted her child by the arms. “You can dislocate something—it’s called nursemaid’s elbow.”

Of course I had no desire to hurt this baby, and I was glad to know about nursemaid’s elbow. So why did I feel so irked; why did I feel like crying?

For weeks I wondered, then one day I heard a radio interview with Uwem Akpam. Each story in his new collection, Say You Are One of Them, is told from the perspective of a child who has suffered tragedy: a boy whose family is murdered, a girl forced to prostitute herself to feed a younger brother. I was engrossed in Akpam’s words, fascinated by the stories, devastated by the children’s voices.

And then the female interviewer said, “As a mother, I find these stories very hard to read.” That’s when it all came clear to me. I took a deep breath. And then I got really angry. How dare she claim that because she has children she can understand the pain of these children better than people who do not, better than I? I feel great sorrow for these kids, and, as much as anyone who has not personally lived these experiences, I can enter into their pain. For a woman to claim that she understands this pain more than others simply because she is raising children makes me furious.

Now, I am not a mother. I have never had to care for children for more than a week at a time, and I do not know, personally, the struggles that the life of a mother brings. I grant that.

What I do know, however, is what it is to struggle—and what it is to love children.

Yet for some reason, most women with children act as if motherhood is

the fundamental experience of womanhood, as if you can’t truly understand life if you haven’t raised a child. I see this sentiment in my colleagues when they talk about their children and I— the only childless woman in my department—speak into the conversations with stories about my friends’ children, only to glimpse the patronizing look that passes among them, a look that says, if not “She hasn’t really lived yet,” at the very least, “She has no idea.”

I understand why women in biblical times, like Sarah and Elizabeth, cried out to the Lord for children, why the word “barren” is so appropriate. In a culture that was so defined by family lineage and descendants, these women, unable to fill their assigned “role,” were lesser. God chose to give both these women children eventually, but I imagine there were many other women whose prayers for children went ungranted.

How sad that our culture today continues to perpetuate the idea that women without children are incomplete. Sadder still is how women themselves perpetuate this belief. Is it not enough that we evaluate one another’s appearance so critically? Must we also judge each other by our ability, choice, or chance to procreate or adopt?

I have struggled with the aftermath of a husband who felt the need to leave our marriage and with my inability, for financial reasons, to adopt a little boy from Guatemala. It’s been difficult, but I have hope that one day I will adopt a child. In the meantime, I feel excluded and demeaned because I do not have one.

One night, when I was bemoaning my potential fate of being alone without husband or child, succumbing to the shame that childless women can be so vulnerable to, my friend pointed me to Isaiah 54:1—“‘Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who never were in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who PRISM 2008

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has a husband,’ says the Lord.” God tells us to celebrate, to broaden our tents (v.2), for our descendants will be vast.

That is the message that we women need to carry to and for one another— that we all have descendants, be they biological, adopted, or metaphorical. We all carry life forward. We are all mothers.

I try to live out this idea by being an “auntie” to my friends’ children, buying them books and sharing who I am, listening to their lives so that (if I’m lucky) they’ll know to come to me as teenagers when they’re too mortified to speak to their parents. I live this out by taking joy in the jokes they tell, the way they throw robes over their heads and walk into rooms laughing, the limpness of their tiny arms as they sleep. I live this out by trusting that these are my children, too— mine to watch and raise, not in the same way as their parents, but in a very important way. And not in a way that is lesser, just different.

In my view, every child is mine.

They are my responsibility to keep out of the street when they’re riding their bikes, to pick up when they trip on the sidewalk, to hold their hands when they’re lost in the store. They are mine to love—and mine to grieve for when they are abused or neglected. These are my children, not because I am a mother, but because I am human. Maybe one day I will adopt a child, but for now I will just love the children I do have in my life—“more are my children.”

So when I’m scolded about picking up a baby by her arms, or when someone shoots a look to another mom because I have no idea what it is to love a child so much that you’ll stay up all night rubbing Vicks VapoRub on her chest, I will try not to give in to either anger or shame. I will rejoice in God’s provision; I will scoop up the nearest child and smile, a baby on my hip, laughter on our lips. n Andrea Cumbo teaches writing at Cecil College in Maryland and is auntie to 17 children.

MAY I HAVE A WORD? STEVE CLEMENS

Why I Don’t “Support the Troops” When conscientious people opposing the current war put up signs that say “Support the Troops—Bring Them Home,” they send a mixed message.

How does one “support” those who, for a variety of reasons, have chosen to be trained to kill others?

During the Vietnam era, provocative posters asked: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Indeed, if no one enlisted in our “volunteer army,” our politicians would be unable to go to war on false and manufactured evidence.

Instead, our government is virtually guaranteed new conscripts. As long as minimum wage is set significantly below a living wage and college costs continue to skyrocket while student grants disappear, there will always be some driven by economic necessity to “volunteer.”

Another subset of young people are motivated by the narrow view of patriotism that suggests one of the best ways to serve one’s country is to “protect” it with a gun. A third subset consists of those misguided young men who see the uniform/gun as an extension of their “manhood.”Yet others join the military as a way of seeking discipline in their lives or of avoiding incarceration for a crime.

I believe that some in the military genuinely view their commitment as “service,” but that word just doesn’t correspond to the ways our military is used around the world—for protection of our corporate greed and domination rather than the professed task of national “defense.” Basic training for the various military branches is designed to break down humans’ innate resistance to killing, a process of dehumanization that

passes for molding “a few good men.”

Apparently this training is necessary— studies show that something in the human spirit must be reprogrammed before we are able to kill on command.

Former President Jimmy Carter is reputed to have said in 1980 that our nation needed to reach young men before age 22 in order to influence them to join the military.Today scientific research shows that our brains —including our reasoning and decision-making skills— continue to develop into our early 20s.

It’s no wonder that military recruiters target high schools; they know that teens are more impulsive and subject to manipulation than older folks.

Let me be clear: I don’t “blame” the troops. One has only to look at the posttraumatic stress disorder, suicide rates, broken marriages, substance abuse, and the number of vets who end up on the streets to see that they are victims as well as perpetrators. There is something about killing that scars the psyche of even the most macho among us. Chris Hedges, former New York Times war correspondent and author of War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (Public Affairs, 2002), describes the “addiction” that war often engenders in its participants and that continues to grip them long after they’re home.

Clearly the primary responsibility for the war must lie with those who planned it, ordered it, and voted to pay for it with our tax dollars (or, more accurately, with debt to be placed on future generations).

Soldiers are merely functionaries.We can’t expect them to do in-depth political and social analysis of American geopolitical strategy before deciding to enlist. But when those troops are ordered by Washington bureaucrats to conduct “enhanced interrogations” that may or may not breach the strictures of the Geneva Conventions, can we still “support” those troops? The lessons of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals after World War II make it clear that “followPRISM 2008

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ing orders” is no excuse.

What about the troops who drop cluster bombs and fire rounds and shells comprised of depleted uranium? Is the typical soldier supposed to study the laws of war to discern the legitimacy of using such controversial weapons? Yet if the typical soldier refuses, especially in the theater of battle, there is often a terrible price to pay.

I think the American public in general feels somewhat embarrassed about its unwillingness to directly fight and sacrifice for this war. People sense that those burdens are placed disproportionately on the poor, the less educated, and those with fewer options. It is out of that guilt that we profess special “honor” and “respect” for those who are “willing to die for our country.”

Are those who serve as pawns in the hegemonic games of the political and military strategists, the corporate robber barons, and the economic and academic elitists to be held responsible for following orders whose ends they don’t really comprehend? Whose responsibility is it to educate our young people on those realities before they enlist? Might the church step up and serve that role?

To do so, we must begin by asking ourselves some hard questions about how we benefit from the same system that sends young people off to war. Our churches, synagogues, mosques, and other faith communities must withdraw their chaplains who bless and excuse war. We must actively “counter-recruit,” creating life-affirming alternative opportunities for those presently targeted by military conscription offices. n Steve Clemens is a peace and justice activist living in Minnesota, where he serves on the boards of the local Pax Christi chapter and the Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project.

In December 2002 he went to Baghdad as part of the Iraq Peace Team (vitw.org/ipt/).

“May I Have a Word?” is an opinion column that appears three times a year.

MAY I HAVE A WORD? THOMAS ARE SR.

Take Off Your Shoes and Follow Me Beyond what I had read in a few books, I knew little about Islam. So one Friday afternoon, I decided to visit a mosque in nearby Atlanta. With some trepidation, I approached the entrance, which was surrounded by people who did not look like me. A young Middle Eastern man immediately approached me, stuck out his hand, and said, “Welcome.”

After introducing myself, I said, “I would like to participate in your prayer service. I am not here to join. I just want to learn.”

He smiled. “We sit on the floor, but we do have chairs you can sit in if you would be more comfortable.”

“I think I would like to do exactly what you do, if that would be acceptable.”

“Then take off your shoes and follow me.”

We entered a room the size of a basketball court filled with several hundred Middle Eastern and African American men lining up for prayers. An equal number of women lined up behind us.

The Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam serves a lower-income community on the southeastern side of the city, and yet here were hundreds of people who had found time for worship. A procession of men, young and old, greeted me and thanked me for sharing their time of prayer. By this time, my anxiety was turning into respect.

The service began with prayers in Arabic, but I followed their motions, knelt, put my forehead on the floor, felt a wave of humility, stood up, and then did it all over again.Then the Imam preached in English about the need for Muslims to respect others, especially Jews and Christians. He touched on the foolish-

ness of gambling and alcohol and on the importance of keeping one’s word. All in all, it was an eye-opening experience.

Since that time, I have made some Muslim friends and learned to respect their expression of faith. I have also come to understand that Muslims living in America are afraid, and I don’t blame them. They are looked upon with suspicion every time a terrorist attack takes place anywhere in the world.Two of my new friends, Ali and Aisha, both PhD scientists, are often maligned for no other reason than that they are Muslims.

Lumping all Muslims together, certain talk show hosts, politicians, and fundamentalist preachers induce fear in the hearts of uninformed people because of the real and perceived practices of unreasonable Muslims. In fact, most Muslims are peace-loving individuals. However, there are some—the radical Salafists— who view the Christian West with abhorrence. But how many Americans have even heard of the Salafists? Calling for a return to the seventh century and the Islam of Muhammad’s time, this small group of Islamic radicals supports a militant interpretation of jihad.

Many Americans think that Muslims are envious of Western progress. In fact the radicals hate us for it. “Progress?” they say. “Look at your materialism, divorce rate, sex industry, drug culture, and homeless people. Look at how you destroy the environment! Is that progress?”

Radical Salafism was behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat because of his close ties to America. And in 1979, it was the Salafists who captured the US embassy in Iran and held Americans hostage. Americans could not understand.

After all, the Shah was modernizing Iran.

He ignored the poor, but then, who didn’t? He was a secular ruler installed by the West.

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by modernization and materialism.They had no interest in Western dress, sports, or entertainment. Such things trivialized life and blurred faithful people’s commitment to the will of God. Angered by the Shah’s opulent lifestyle, dictatorial government, and secular nationalism, Iranian students staged a demonstration in January 1978. The Shah responded by sending out his SAVAK troops and shooting to death 70 unarmed youth. Later that same year, the SAVAK killed 700 rioters.Yet, within days, President Carter pledged America’s support to keep the Shah in power.

It was the Salafists who spawned the Taliban in Afghanistan and the al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden. It was the Salafists who crashed planes on 9/11 into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. High on the Salafist hit list was the secular Saddam Hussein, for the radical Salafists hate the “unfaithful” Muslim as much as the trivial American.

Pledging allegiance to no national regime or Islamic division, radical Salafism is a stateless philosophy.These radicals are dangerous, and we as a nation must guard against them. However, on September 11, 2001, very few Muslims supported their radical political agenda. Today, who knows how many? Recruitment to their extreme view of Islam is growing. More terrorists hate us now than ever before.

However, my American Muslim friends are not among them. It is unfair, cruel, and unwise to label them as such.

The West must reach out with understanding to the majority of Muslims who are peaceful citizens.

The 21st century gives us a choice: to make war or seek understanding.

So I invite you to take off your shoes and follow me. ■ Thomas Are Sr. is a retired Presbyterian pastor living in Big Canoe, Ga. “May I Have a Word?” is a new opinion column that will run three times a year.