Review: Pillars

July 29, 2021July 28, 2021 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Pillars, Rachel Pieh Jones, Foreword by Abdi Nor Iftin. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2021.

Summary: An account about how the author’s attitudes both toward Islam and her Christian faith changed as she and her husband lived among Muslims in Somalia and Djibouti.

Rachel Pieh Jones grew up in a warm and thriving evangelical church in Minnesota. A lot of love–and some legalism. She didn’t know any Muslims but believed that they were “violent, backward, and just plain wrong.” Yet in Pillars, after a number of years in Somalia and Djibouti, she writes:

“I had a lot to learn about how to love my neighbors and practice my faith cross-culturally. I don’t identify with the label ‘missionary,’ with its attendant cultural, theological, and historical baggage, though I understand this is how many view me. I do love to talk about spirituality–and what fascinates me is that the more I discuss faith with Muslims, the more we both return to our roots and dig deeper. As we explore our own faith, in relationship with someone who thinks differently, each of us comes to experience God in richer, more intimate ways. In this manner, Muslims have helped me become a better Christian, though things didn’t start out that way” (p. 49).

How did she change? It began with some relationships with Somali refugees in their apartment complex in Minnesota while her husband completed doctoral studies. An opportunity opened up to teach in Somalia at Amoud University. This led to an immersion in Somali life, aided by their housekeeper and the guard assigned to them as foreign nationals–for ten months, when all their plans were interrupted when several foreign nationals were killed and they had to grab their evacuation bags and flee on a moment’s notice. The found refuge in neighboring Djibouti. Over the next years, Rachel and Tom grew close to a number of Muslims, entering into shared life, and observing their devotion to Islam

They didn’t become Muslims. They learned a lot about Islam. When urged to pray the shahada, she was able to say, “No, I love Jesus.” She answered a lot of questions about Jesus. She learned how to live among the people. She celebrated weddings and births and the breaking of fasts.

Jones organizes her account around the five pillars of Islam: creed, prayer, giving, fasting, and pilgrimage. Learning how her Muslim neighbors encountered God made her reflect more deeply on her own faith, and fall more deeply in love with Jesus. The shahada, a call to convert, to submit to God who is one is really a call to revert. It reminded her of Jesus and Nicodemus, the call to be born again. The prayers, which she sometimes was able to join some women in, led her to a renewal in her own prayer life–amid a pregnancy, ever present dangers, and the everyday challenges of life. The practices of almsgiving forced her to face how she also was conscious of reward in giving and recounts her experiences of helping a poor refugee establish an outdoor restaurant. She had rarely fasted but fasted along with others during Ramadan and joined in the joyous celebrations of Eid. Learning about the pilgrimage to Mecca brought her to a realization of her own lifelong pilgrimage.

I so appreciated this narrative. It was earthy and incarnational. Jones adopts an open and learning posture, both with her Muslim friends and toward what the Lord Jesus would teach her. She can recognize difference without “othering.” She’s as open about Jesus as she is to learning from her friends, like Amaal, her spirited maid. And over time she is able to distinguish what is American Christianity and what is the core of the gospel of Jesus.

This is not a book for those interested in polemics against Islam. Jones takes us into the lived experience of Muslims in the Horn of Africa and what a real engagement with them can be like with risk, affection, difference, and real learning. We also should remember her learning journey began with the Somali refugees in Minnesota. Many of us are near Muslim communities. We may have Muslim neighbors or work colleagues or health care providers. This is a valuable book both for its exploration of Islam, but also for its model of humble, open dialogue, willing to make mistakes and take risks, to welcome and be welcomed. And it points to what can happen as we engage those of another faith. We not only learn about their faith. We rediscover our own.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Qu’ran in Context

July 17, 2017July 16, 2017 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Qu’ran in Context, Mark Robert Anderson. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016.

Summary: A study by a Christian theologian of the Qu’ran in its seventh century AD context exploring its teachings in relation to Christian teaching, noting both similarities and points of divergence in the hope of encouraging open and honest dialogue between adherents of these two faiths.

There is a strand of public discourse, drawing both upon the ideas of Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, and incidents of terror, that propose that there is a war or clash between Islam and the West, or at least between elements of Islamic cultures and the west. Then there are others who pursue perhaps a quieter conversation proposing that given the clashes that have occurred and a desire to maintain and protect a pluralist society recognizing freedom of conscience and belief, that some effort needs to be made between Christians and Muslims to find common ground. The most newsworthy was a statement by a group of Muslim clerics, “A Common Word,” with responses from other major religious bodies, calling for interfaith dialogue and action based on commonly shared teachings around the love of God and neighbor.

Some who would take the former view criticize, in my view justly, some of the efforts of dialogue that minimize or altogether mute differences or take at face value assertions about Islam without careful textual study. In The Qu’ran in Context Mark Robert Anderson offers a resource grounded in a Christian perspective that seeks to read the Qu’ran both sympathetically in its seventh century AD context, delineating its teachings, noting both similarities with Christian teaching and places where these diverge. He writes:

“My goal of encouraging dialogue should need little justification from a Christian
perspective. The psalmist says how pleased God is when brothers and sisters live together peaceably and the New Testament calls us to do all we can to be at peace with everyone (Ps 133:1-3, Rom 12:18, Heb 12:14). In our global village, that demands dialogue.

But true dialogue does not deny or minimize difference. Rather, it begins with an honest acknowledgement of difference no less than similarity. Without that, we cannot be truly heard and understood. Using the term neighbor in its broadest sense, Jesus commands us to treat our neighbor as we want her to treat us (Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 10:25-37). Paul also counsels us to do good to everyone, Christian or not (Gal 6:10). So we lovingly speak what we hold to be true and graciously listen as our Muslim brother or sister does likewise. And we remain ready, as Peter charges us, to offer a defense to anyone who seeks the reason for our hope, doing so with gentleness and reverence (1 Pet 3:15-16). So our truth telling is to be marked always by kindness and honor for our partner in dialogue—as a Thou, not an It, in Martin Buber’s terms.”

Anderson proceeds along the following lines to do this. Part One of his book looks at the origins of the Qu’ran and the history of Muhammad and his context. It is particularly fascinating to understand the tribal rivalries of the Arabian peninsula in this time and the mix of pagan religion and contexts with Jews and Christians through trade.

Part Two is the longest part and considers what Anderson calls the “Qu’ranic Worldview.” He explores the Qu’ran’s teaching about God, God’s immanence and transcendence, and justice and mercy. He explores Adam’s creation in an extra-terrestrial garden, and his fall, with Satan, and humanity’s reprieve from the judgment of God. He explores the concepts of sin and salvation, the ideas of prophethood, scripture, and revelation, and the devotional, social, and political dimensions of Qu’ranic spirituality. While noting points of similarity, he also contrasts the aloofness of God, the absence of grace, and the differing ways the two faiths engage the political realm, among a host of other differences.

Part Three focuses on Jesus in the Qu’ran: his origins and person, his words and works, his death, and the community he established. He shows how Jesus is both exalted and marginalized such that the supremacy of Muhammad as prophet is maintained. In particular, it highlights bizarre instances of miraculous works by the child Jesus, while showing him deferring to the disciples as an adult. He also explores the conflicting claims he finds in the Qu’ran about the death of Jesus.

Part Four then summarizes the discussion and explores the relation of Bible and Qu’ran, including the claim that the differences between the two may be accounted for by intentional distortions and falsifications by both Jews and Christians (even though these two were opposed to one another for most of the relevant history). He notes three critical biblical themes running through both testaments and contrasts these with the Qu’ran:

Friendship with God
The free grace of God
The humility of God

One place where I could see this work facing criticism is the approach, which Anderson, drawing on N. T. Wright, calls critical realism, approaching the text in its historic context and prevailing worldview. He does not ignore Muslim interpretive traditions, particularly where they differ from his reading of the text, but does significantly background these, while admitting evangelical and reformed presuppositions in reading the Christian scriptures. I suspect this may work fine where lay evangelicals are in dialogue with lay Muslims where the focus is comparative study of texts and discussion, but would be much more nuanced between scholars of both faiths, whose understandings are shaped by a millenia or more of interpretive tradition as well as study of the text in its context.

However, I would commend this as a helpful resource for interfaith discussions in universities and community contexts. It models both grace and forthrightness of approach without a combative spirit. While trying to meet the Qu’ran on its own terms, it doesn’t pretend to be less than what it is, “a Christian exploration.” Also, it demonstrates another truth often discovered through interfaith conversations: that participants may come to a deeper grasp of the contours of their own faith, as well as that of the other, through these encounters.

Might we avert the much touted clash of civilizations? That remains to be seen. Certainly, there will be violence in the name of religion. What Anderson’s book gives us is a picture of the real work and perhaps the harder struggle that must take place if adherents of Christianity and Islam are truly to understand each other’s sacred scriptures and beliefs, to find ways to co-exist, rather than to fight and seek to dominate each other.

Review: From Bubble to Bridge

February 15, 2017February 12, 2017 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

From Bubble to Bridge, Marion H. Larson and Sara L.H. Shady. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017.

Summary: Explores how to equip Christians for engagement in our religiously diverse multifaith environment, moving out of our Christian “bubbles” and building bridges of understanding without compromising the convictions of one’s own faith.

Many of us don’t have to go beyond our own neighborhood to realize how religiously diverse our world has become. When my son was young, it was not at all uncommon for him to be playing basketball in our driveway with a friend who was Jewish and another wearing a turban who was a Sikh. Meanwhile, we watched an Indian couple, likely from a Hindu background walk down the street and a Muslim family arrive home just up the street.

The authors of this book are professors at a Christian college, Bethel University, in Minnesota and they became aware that it was not enough for them to prepare their students to connect their faith with their particular field of academic preparation. In our multifaith world, they realized that it was crucial to equip their students to be able to engage well with those who believe differently. As reflected in their title, they wanted to use the experience of students in this Christian “bubble” to prepare them to build bridges of understanding with those of other faiths. They write in their Introduction,

“A common goal of education, from a Christian perspective, is to cultivate a mature intellect and faith, one that enables us to lead lives of meaningful service as we actively engage and seek to transform the world. Over the years much has been written by Christian academics about the integration of faith and learning, and this scholarship continues to discuss the importance of helping students learn to weave together the academic, social, and spiritual aspects of their lives. Many recent works on Christian higher education have considered what faith-learning integration might look like in the twenty-first century; however, little attention is given to preparing Christian students to navigate a religiously diverse world. Christians need to be more intentional about preparing to love their neighbors, even (perhaps especially) when those neighbors have different religious beliefs. For those on evangelical Christian college campuses, such preparation needs to include interfaith service and dialogue on and off campus as an important aspect of education and spiritual development.”

This book describes how they have gone about that work. It begins in the first two chapters with an apologetic for the civic and religious imperative addressing how we engage religious pluralism. Failure to do so may lead to prejudice or even violence. More than this, the religious call is to love our neighbor, and to practice what Amy Oden has called the four movements of hospitality: prepare, welcome and restore, dwell, and send.

They then deal in the next two chapters with barriers to multifaith engagement and the question of how one does this without hopelessly compromising one’s own faith. One barrier is the seeming “conflicted Christian identity” that is unsure that one can be simultaneously hospitable and yet true to one’s faith. There are also tensions between Christian “privilege” and our own perception of being an embattled minority. Sometimes we are just fearful. The authors invite us into a model, drawing on the thinking of Martin Buber and Miroslav Volf, that avoids either mere tolerance or complete acceptance, but strives for inclusion that pursues genuine dialogue and relationship without jettisoning our own beliefs.

Chapters five, six, and seven explore how, practically, students on the Christian college campus can be educated for this kind of engagement. Chapter five focuses on cultivating three virtues: humility, commitment and empathy. Chapter six explores how these can be developed on the Christian college campus and chapter seven provides a number of practical resources, exercises, and experiential learning opportunities that develop the skills needed. Then chapter eight provides practical steps that can be taken in going into another’s religious “home”–attending a feast or observing a religious service, engaging in service together, and learning from partners from another faith.

Each chapter ends with one or two stories of students engaged in various interfaith experiences, emphasizing both the increased understanding of other faiths, and the greater confidence in and appreciation for one’s own. Surprisingly, even though such dialogue is not “proselytizing,” many of the Christian students speak of how profound it was for them to speak honestly of their own beliefs as well as understanding those of others. The end of each chapter also provides questions and “Give it a try” ideas for groups working through the book.

This book struck me as a very helpful resource, whether for an educator in a Christian college, or a ministry leader working with a collegiate group in a public setting. It is striking, as Eboo Patel, a leader in interfaith work on university campuses has observed, that evangelical Christians have often been the most reluctant to engage in these efforts. Yet many students have been alienated by instances of religious prejudice, and long for an expression of their faith that doesn’t confine them to a bubble and wall them off from their religious neighbors. Instead, they want to build bridges of understanding and find ways across differences to pursue common goods. This book is a helpful guide.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The First and the Last: The Claim of Jesus Christ and the Claims of Other Religious Traditions

July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

The First and the Last: The Claim of Jesus Christ and the Claims of Other Religious Traditions by George R. Sumner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the challenges of being a convinced Christian in a pluralistic society is how we engage with people from other religious traditions. Most thoughtful Christians neither want to just say, “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and you are wrong” nor do they want to say “you have your truth and I have mine and can’t we all get along?” The first statement fails to take the beliefs and truth claims of other religious adherents seriously. The second takes no one’s truth claims seriously. Both in fact are patronizing to the other party.

George R. Sumner’s book proposes a third way that considers the different strategies the church has used throughout history to address other religions and arrives at the standard of the “final primacy” of the person and work of Christ and then explores how other religions in some sense similar to the Old Testament anticipate or have points of connection with the Christian message. This effort seeks to take both the internal system of a particular faith seriously and acknowledge that there may be much of worth in that system while adhering to the person and work and claims of Christ as the final standard against which the claims of other traditions are measured.

Sumner tests this proposal in the theologies of Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg, three of the twentieth century’s foremost theologians. He then follows this with a consideration of the economy of salvation, that is the working of Father, Son and Spirit in salvation and explores whether there is in fact a detectible Trinitarian logic to reality and to the human condition. He then explores how “final primacy” drives a theology of mission and explores the working out of final primacy in Indian theology and in theories of inculturation.

What I appreciated about Sumner was his nuanced approach to “redemptive analogies” and connections often made between Christianity and other faiths. He is not dismissive of these but he is also careful to distinguish genuine from merely perceived connections. He recognizes how critical appraising these things from within the logic of the other belief system is so that spurious connections are avoided and other faiths are truly understood on their own terms.

Many Christians refrain from inter-religious dialogue precisely because they believe to do so means that they must forfeit what is finally primary in their lives, their allegiance to Christ. Others are concerned to not offend believers of other faiths with Christian truth claims. The recognition of what is finally primary in Christian faith actually allows for the forthright discussion of “final primacy” for other religions that moves our conversations beyond niceties and vague commonalities. It takes the truth claims of each faith seriously rather than relativizing them and respects all the parties in a dialogue without asking any to compromise deeply held beliefs. At the same time, real, non-coercive dialogue has within it the possibility that one may grow in the understanding of another, or even become convinced of the truth claims of another. Sumner’s “essay” (his term) points us toward the substantive dialogue where these kinds of outcomes might be realized.

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Review: Reading Scripture Together: A Comparative Bible and Qur’an Study Guide

February 18, 2014February 18, 2014 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Reading Scripture Together: A Comparative Bible and Qur’an Study Guide by Barbara J Hampton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While scholars and pundits debate whether in fact we are facing a “Clash of Civilizations” (in Samuel Huntington’s words) between the West and Islam, there is a different kind of encounter that is possible in universities in many parts of the world. Christians and Muslims attend classes together, form friendships, compete on intramural teams, and stay up late together sometimes, talking about the deepest questions. While such conversations can’t resolve the violent clashes occurring elsewhere, no one knows what might happen where conversations of respect and mutual understanding across religious differences occur.

Barbara Hampton has given us a wonderful resource to foster such conversations in her study guide, Reading Scripture Together: A Comparative Bible and Qur’an Study Guide. This guide was developed out of Barbara Hampton’s work with College of Wooster students while she served as faculty advisor for the InterVarsity chapter at this school. The guide consists of seven studies, each of which parallels a text from the Bible and the Qur’an, along with a summary “Challenge” and paired “Witnesses” from Christian and Muslim perspectives. These studies can be pursued over seven weeks, or if participants elect, fourteen, doing Christian scripture one week, and the Qur’an the next.

The studies are organized around seven key aspects of Christianity and Islam where the two faiths both touch and differ: Abraham and Isma’il, the Name and being of God (and what can be known of this), Jesus as Incarnate Son or Prophet, the nature of salvation, whether Jesus was in fact crucified, the nature of the scriptures of each faith, and the ethics of the faith, captured in the beatitudes versus the call to jihad understood both as spiritual struggle and at least defensive war with unbelievers.

The person considering using this guide should be forewarned: Hampton has sought to be extremely even-handed in the presentation of these texts and witnesses. Some of the “witnesses” include former Christians who have embraced Islam and well as former Muslims who have become Christians. Equally, her questions about each text follow an “inductive” format and deeply probe the meaning of each. This makes sense as a prerequisite to genuine dialogue, yet may be unsettling for some committed believers of either faith. Yet a genuine search for truth as well as a human rights commitment to a person’s freedom to change their beliefs recognizes that changing one’s beliefs may be the consequence of such dialogue.

This is reflected in Hampton’s own premises. She believes the search for truth matters and that different religions are not “different paths up the mountain.” She is a convinced Christian and this comes through in the leaders notes and bibliography (forty pages of this hundred page book). While the leaders notes provide in depth commentary from both Christian and Muslim perspectives, it is evident that she envisions this dialogue being initiated by Christians who are at least open to or praying for their Muslim friends to embrace the Christian faith. What she advocates is not aggressive proselytizing or argumentation, but thoughtful consideration of the differences between the two faiths, as these emerge from the texts, in terms of what makes more sense out of one’s life and the world. What the leaders notes do not discuss is the possibility of Christians embracing Islam, and it occurs to me that perhaps she may have refrained from dealing with this issue in her attempts to remain as even-handed as possible while writing this guide as a committed Christian.

If one is looking for an absolutely “neutral” resource for such a dialogue, this is not that. Hampton believes that religion concerns matters of truth about which we ultimately must choose. At the same time, this guide represents the fruit of field-tested, respectful Muslim-Christian dialogues around scriptural texts that is an important resource in promoting respectful understanding between Christians and Muslims that takes the truth claims of each faith seriously.

[In the interests of full disclosure, the reviewer has had a long time friendship with the author including collaboration on various projects. However I purchased my own copy of this book.}

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