By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.
Muslims are
considered strangers in Europe and the U.S., and the refugee crisis has raised
the question of whether Muslims can be good neighbors or are a threat to
non-Muslims.
Judaism,
Christianity and Islam all consider the
greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark
12:28-33) to be a moral imperative of their faith. The difficult question is, Who is my neighbor? In Mosaic Law a neighbor is “one of your
people” (Leviticus 19:18) as well as the stranger or alien (Leviticus 19:33,34;
Deuteronomy 10:19). Jesus was a Jew who
answered the question with the story of
the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), in which an apostate Samaritan was a
good neighbor to a wounded Jew while other Jews passed him by. While the Qur’an does not include the greatest commandment, Islamic
scholars have affirmed it as a common
word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
The
perception of Muslims as good neighbors among Jews and Christians in the U.S.
and Europe has deteriorated, perhaps because of continued violence against
non-Muslims and the enforcement of apostasy and blasphemy laws in Islamic
cultures. It seems that most Muslims in
Islamic cultures do not consider Jews and Christians as good neighbors but as unbelievers
who are condemned by God as a threat to Islam, this in spite of the assertion
of Islamic scholars that the greatest
commandment is a common word of
faith. The result is that today fewer Jews
and Christians consider Muslims to be good neighbors than they did five years
ago.
The
refugee crisis in Europe has exacerbated the fear that Muslims are a threat to
Western libertarian values and cultural standards, if not basic security, and right-wing
politicians in Europe and the U.S. are stoking those fears to promote their own
interests. The best way to counter such
suspicion and fear is by developing personal relationships between Jews,
Christians and Muslims, and interfaith dialogue groups provide a means to do
that.
Synagogues
and churches should promote interfaith dialogue groups, but few do, perhaps
because most are exclusivist religious institutions that promote their religion
as the one true faith and ignore the moral imperative of the greatest commandment to love their unbelieving neighbors, or
strangers, as they love themselves. Most
Muslims are also exclusivists who consider it their evangelical duty to convert
those of other faiths to Islam. One of
the first rules of an interfaith dialogue group is to respect those of other religions
and not try to convert them.
The
trend toward religious polarization needs to be reversed before it enables radical
Islamism to claim victory in the first phase of its Jihad, with Jews and Christians
seeing Muslims as a threat rather than as good neighbors, and vice-versa. With the forces of globalism creating more
religious pluralism, religious reconciliation is essential to world peace. While no one religion can dominate the world,
it only takes one religion to bring war to the world if other religions do not
resist religious polarization by seeking reconciliation. Religious polarization has led to wars in the
past, but it should not be allowed to happen again.
No
matter how bad things seem to be in Islamic cultures overseas, the freedoms of
religion and speech in the libertarian democracies of the West should prevent religious
violence. When Jews, Christians and
Muslims can come together and get to know one another, and no one seeks to
convert any others, religious differences can be discussed and better
understood without those of a minority religion being threatened by those of a
dominant religion. That is what good
neighbors are expected to do, and in a world of increasing religious plurality,
people of different religions must consider those of others religions as good
neighbors rather than threats.
Believers
must resist the contentious political and religious rhetoric used by political
and religious leaders to polarize their constituencies and promote their power with
the fear of the stranger among them.
Jews, Christians and Muslims must all remember that to love God they
must love their neighbors as themselves, and that includes their unbelieving neighbors.
Notes
and References to Resources:
Previous blogs on related topics
are: Religion and New Beginnings:
Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God, January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment, January 11,
2015; Love over Law: A Principle at the
Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus
Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and
Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Promoting
Religion Through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness, February 8, 2015; A
Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and
Growing, June 7, 2015; Christians
Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear
and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom
and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; Legitimacy
as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; The European Refugee Crisis and Radical
Islam, September 6, 2015; and Politics
and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015.
Behind a warm welcome for
refugees in Sweden, there is a growing backlash against Muslim refugees. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/behind-swedens-warm-welcome-for-refugees-a-backlash-is-brewing/2015/10/17/b5f4110c-661d-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.
A model for an interfaith dialogue
group is provided in the Resources to the J&M Book at http://media.wix.com/ugd/a8edf7_1502053c58a4441197ed1acade7287bd.pdf.
Some evangelical Christians in
the U.S. are working with Muslims to oppose religious bigotry. See http://www.religionnews.com/2015/10/23/fighting-perceptions-evangelicals-muslims-commit-oppose-religious-bigotry/.
David Brooks has noted the lack
of traditional values that once governed U.S. domestic politics and foreign
policy, and the decreasing influence of religion in shaping those values. See http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/syndicated-columnists/article40497270.html.
Michael Gerson has argued that in
the Middle East and America religion has become more dysfunctional and sectarian
and lost its primary value of helping those in need, regardless of their
religion. He asks, “Is the Christian
faith merely a cover for tribalism? Or
will it demonstrate its essence in service to the refugees of another faith who
did nothing to deserve their fate?” See
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