Conversations between Christians and Muslims: Jesus, witness and "conversion"

I have recently been part of a fascinating email interchange among a group of people which includes both Christians and Muslims. We have been talking about the issue of conversion, and the fact that within most Muslim contexts, Muslims are not free to change their religion. I would like to pick up on a particular strand of thought that for me has central connection to the issue of faith in context. To quote from our email discussion, from the views of one of the participants:

… several of you… have pointed out that “conversion” is the real issue… No one wants to feel targeted for conversion by another. Here are [some further] thoughts on this....

1. Jesus came full of grace and truth according to the gospel of John (chapter one verse fourteen).  We need both grace (love, compassion, understanding) and truth (integrity with who we are, freedom, directness).  I try to live this way (in the context of this discussion) by saying something like “my religious heritage is Christian, but I’m working at believing in and following Jesus Christ. You are free to believe whatever you like about God and his messengers and books, but I’ve found there to be something very special in Jesus that I think you’d miss if you didn’t explore.”  That feels both graceful and truthful to who I am and who the person is I’m talking to.  

2.  We’re going back and forth in the discussion as to how we use the word “conversion.”  If conversion means – as most think it does – to change your religious identity, then we have problems.  I imagine most of us on this list agree that it’s not about changing your religious identity (although that itself is a hugely controversial topic).  But if by “conversion” we mean that God wants to change (convert) our hearts from the inside out – I think we’re open to that.  Right?  So it’s not that we’re “against conversion” - I need to be converted every day...
Therefore, in a perfect world, we might like the freedom in each country to convert from one religion to the next if someone so desires – we don’t have that and we don’t like to see that happen. What we DO want to see happen in our lives and in the lives of all 6.8 billion people on earth, is a true conversion to God by his spirit.  All of us on this list think Jesus has something to do with that. A classic Evangelical position is that it is by the death and resurrection of Jesus that this sort of conversion is made possible.  Our Muslim friends on this list (and many others among them) would agree that there is something special and unique about Jesus the Christ and that he shouldn’t be ignored.  

And my response:

As an Anthropologist who follows (seeks to follow) Jesus, one perspective I have on the issue of conversion is that we as human beings live in community with others (generally, who are "our people," who are like us). We grow up within a community, learn the culture and ways of life, internalize the "worldview" of that particular people, etc. We are all, naturally, "ethnocentric" - i.e., we see everything from the vantage point of our particular people; and we don't realize that there are other ways of "being human."

All of us tend to think that other people will be better, more fully human, if they become like us. We may not say this out loud, but we act as if it is true. The only way we know of being human, or of being "Christian" or "Muslim" or whatever, is to be like us. And so, if we share our faith, we tend to do it by trying to draw people into our community (and this can be with the best of intentions). But as we all know, most Muslims don't want to become Christians, or vice versa (and you can insert most peoples, most religions - E. Stanley Jones, when he went to India to evangelize the Hindus, found their response to be, "we don't want your religion, we have our own; we don't want your civilization, we have our own," etc. - this had a great impact on how he ended up sharing his faith there, as related in Christ of the Indian Road.)  In fact, Christians do this to each other, too - Protestants try to get Catholics or Orthodox to be Protestant, evangelicals try to get everyone to be evangelical, etc. And again, people don’t appreciate this attempt to change what is (in the deepest sense) their culture, their way of being.

It can be very different though, if rather than trying to get people to become like us, to become part of our community, we acknowledge the fact that they are and have a right to be who they are, part of a different community, and share (mutually, both ways) what we have found to be significant (e.g., in our following of Jesus, our faith in God, our religion) that they can take into their lives in their context, if they so desire.

Another way I think about this is that no one has to become like others to follow Jesus. No one has to follow Jesus, in the way that I do (in fact, that would be impossible, because my following of Jesus is inextricably bound up in my total sociocultural identity – it is only possible to follow Jesus in a specific context). Jesus, rather, enters into any and all human contexts, and walks our roads with us (this became Jones' message in India, that Jesus would "walk the Indian road" with people there). And what it might look like for Muslims to follow Jesus, in their context, could be very different from what it looks like for “Christians” (or any others) to follow him in theirs.

(With Christian groups I often ask, “Do Muslims have to “become ‘Christian’” to follow Jesus?” to which I argue, no, they don’t. What it might mean or look like for Muslims to follow Jesus in their own sociocultural context, is a matter for further discussion.)

Thus, as the author of the above email advocates, conversion is not about changing religion; conversion is about God changing our hearts, so that we can live out his life in the particular sociocultural context in which we find ourselves. And that, to me, is what faith in context (or contextual living) is all about.

In addition to the above, one of the things that makes this discussion and process hard (between Christians and Muslims, or Christians and anybody) is that many of us have come to a personal conviction and experience of Jesus as the source of life (in his own teaching, he said he is the bread of life, the way, the truth and the life, the resurrection and the life, etc.). With that conviction, our call is to bear witness to Jesus as the giver of life. And given our makeup as cultural human beings, that tends to get translated into an invitation to "become Christian," because it is in our context as Christians (for the most part) that we have come to know Jesus as the giver of life. So I want to say, while everyone is free to think what they want of Jesus, and responsible to respond to him (or not) out of their will and choice, we who know him also have an obligation to bear witness to what we have found in him (but need to learn to do so in a way that is good rather than bad “news” to people – this taking off on the fact that the word gospel means “good news”). And I would also maintain that knowing Jesus as the giver of life has nothing to do with being "Christian" (i.e., Muslims or anyone else can know Jesus as the giver of life, within their context).

To be or not to be "Christian"

There is an interesting article by Brian McLaren (author of “A Generous Orthodoxy” and “A New Kind of Christian” and several other books which I find to be fascinating studies in the relationship of faith and culture, or the living out of the life of faith “in context”), on novelist Anne Rice’s decision to “quit Christianity” (see http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/02/my-take-why-i-support-anne-rice-but-am-still-a-christian/?iref=allsearch).

I would like to add another perspective both on Rice’s decision and on McLaren’s comments on that decision. (I would recommend the article for the full details of McLaren’s discussion.)

From an anthropological perspective, what Rice is reacting against is a parochial, ethnocentric, naturally human phenomenon of creating and protecting one’s group and boundaries – in this case, “Christian” and “Christianity” (however broadly or narrowly defined) – against those perceived to be outside of the group or the boundaries. She came to conclude that to be “Christian” means to be “anti-gay … anti-feminist … anti-artificial birth control … anti-Democrat … anti-secular humanism … anti-science … anti-life.”

I would comment that (a) that definition of “Christian” is one particular group’s definition, not by any means shared by all those around the world who go by the name “Christian”, and that (b) were we to explore the roots of those various beliefs, we would find a mix of Biblical texts / values / principles and cultural interpretations (which would also differ from the interpretations of other groups of “Christians” at different times and places). In other words, there would not be agreement, through time or around the world, that to be “Christian” is to be all of these things. And I would argue, as a person within the broad category of “Christian,” that on several of these points, those arguing that to be true to Jesus is to be these things which Rice feels that she cannot be, are simply wrong – wrong, that is, in arguing that these beliefs are indisputably “biblical,” divine, of God, universal. The human and the divine, in this case (as in many others), have gotten mixed up, in ways that are not relevant to all people in all contexts.

And what Rice is doing, in trying to emphasize attachment to Jesus rather than his followers or what they consider to be “Christianity,” is trying to separate the human and relative and changing from the divine and absolute and universal.

Her reasoning, and McLaren’s in response to her decision, is reasoning that I share. As someone who wants to know and be true to God, through following and living by the teachings of Jesus, I am concerned not to bind up that which is human, connected specifically to a particular group of people or time and place, with my faith. Someone may be a follower of Jesus and (happen to) be anti-Democrat or anti-secular humanism, but those beliefs are not necessarily dictated by Jesus, and other followers of Jesus may have different perspectives on those (and other) matters.

(On the side from this conversation, one of the reasons that I value multicultural “Christian” community and settings another topic, is that we gain insight, through comparing similarities and differences, into what is shared and perhaps absolute, and what is human and culture-bound.)

I would add, further, that “Christianity” is a human religious construction. It has some (perhaps much, in some cases) of Jesus and his teachings wrapped up in it, but also much that is human and cultural. I do not see “Christianity” in the Bible or in the teachings of Jesus, and do not think it helps us to talk about people “converting to Christianity” or “believing in Christianity.” We convert to and believe in and live in relationship with Jesus, not the broad complex of religious ordinances and principles and regulations and rituals and practices, etc., which have come to be known as “Christianity.”

I agree with McLaren that “there’s no escaping the human condition,” with our fallenness and failings. I also agree with him that all religion – which I understand as the complex of rituals and practices, etc., that people have constructed, as they attempt to seek and honor God – is failed (at least, in the sense that all religions have failed to truly change or reform people through an emphasis on external practices and controls, and in the sense that all religious groups have failed to love their neighbor as themselves, to live according to God’s highest ideals for human relationships). And I appreciate his “redefining Christianity” so that it doesn’t mean that he feels superior to anyone by being a “Christian.” (I think he’s onto something in talking about the “Kingdom of God” – a concept which Jesus talked about nonstop – rather than “Christianity.”) His thoughts remind me of what the Korean-American pastor Jin Kim of the Church of All Nations (www.cando.org) calls being “penitently Presbyterian” (or “Christian”) – i.e., accepting one’s background and rootedness, but not being triumphalist, acting as if that way of being “Christian” (or human) is better than that of other groups.

If more of us who go by the name “Christian” were “penitently” Christian (and beyond that, focused more on being true to Jesus, and less on establishing and defending our brand of “Christianity”), perhaps fewer people would feel the need to distance themselves from us. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter so much whether people are distancing themselves from “Christianity,” as whether they are drawing closer to Jesus. The greatest tragedy, I think, is when “Christians” have the effect of pushing people away from Jesus.