In the current debate about home-grown Islamic extremism it’s important to point out that the average Australian knows as little about the Bible as they do about the Koran. The culture that was established by the Bible now finds itself a complete foreigner to its pages.
We need to remember this as suspicion and fear surrounding the rise of younger radicalised Australian Muslims increases. I’ve been reading letters in the newspapers calling for a better understanding of the Koran, or at least some understanding at all. And that should give Christians who have a missional/evangelistic heart some food for thought.
We are living in a context in which the West is still supported, albeit precariously, on the rotting timbers of the Judeao-Christian framework. It has, until the recent past, informed our ethical and legal systems. There is, as Flannery O’Connor said, “a Christ-hauntedness” in our culture. Now, the spectre is not as visible here in hard secular Australia (and least of all in even harder secular Western Australia), as it is in the USA for example, but it is there, although slowly fading.
And what reason is given for the sudden need for our community to understand the Koran a little better? The extreme difference in values between Islam and the West. Now I say “extreme” not in the specific sense of “extremism”, but in the large gulf in how Islam sees the world compared with how the average Westerner sees the world. The West naively thinks it can appropriate Islam under its late modern umbrella and that Muslims, when they understand it, will come to see that that is a good thing. By and large they don’t. And, as a Christian, I think that by and large they are right.
Ok, ok, so we have democracy and separation of powers, and iPhone6 on tap and Krispy Kremes. But we have hard-core porn on tap too, and hard core self-focus, hard-core marital breakdown and a whole lot of other hard-core things that the Muslim world is astonished and dismayed by. That’s why when I hear people say “If they could just understand our way of life better, the more extreme Muslims would come around.” My answer is that perhaps they do understand our way of life – better than we do because they are newcomers – and they don’t like what they see. They see a vacuousness to the culture that churns up a restlessness that is never satisfied. They see a godlessness in our culture that mocks the sacred and celebrates the profane. They see family breakdown on a colossal scale and a drive for selfish individualism in which “being true to me” is the highest goal.
And here’s the point Christian. We’re just not shocked enough by that. We’re just not mourning enough in a world in which not only do we see all that, all too often we want it, desire it, and baptise it with spiritual terminology to own it. Christians are to behave extremely. Christians are to present such a challenge to the current Western framework that it shocks and offends the culture. In a very real way we should be known as extremists. Not because of extreme acts of violence, but because of extreme acts of peace. Not because of extreme hatred and isolation, but because of extreme love and integration.
Letters should start appearing in newspapers demanding the general populace get to know what is actually in the Bible in order to understand why Christians have become so radicalised. Attempts should be made to make us fit in more. People should be so shocked by our extremism that they start to mine down into what this final prophet Jesus actually said and did, and what he might mean still today. Current affairs programmes should have spirited debates about why Christians are failing to integrate properly, failing to buy into the Western consumer narrative, failing to conform to the social and sexual mores of the culture. Rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth shock jocks should be declaring us a danger to society. So extreme that perhaps even a Muslim in need of the grace of the gospel might pick up the Bible and read it and meet the most extreme man who ever lived.
So how does the writer purpose for us to be Christian extremist? I don’t suppose we will go out there and start conflict?
Perhaps the reader needs to read the article! It’s obvious that you skimmed it. Extreme love and extreme peace for a start. Some of that MAY start conflict AGAINST us, but that would only place us in the stream of the 1st century church that suffered persecution and misunderstanding because of their ethic.
Sorry, I might have like you said skimmed it.
I asked you to clarify is because, I agree with you, it’s just being a practical person, I like to see practical advise, rather than the general, Love and Peace bit, could I make some examples and see if you agree,
actions like: invest time and energy in people without looking for return, seeking to benefit and improve our community by donating to charity without posting it all over Facebook/Twitter… challenge the different view of the world, not by just say it, but also act consistently with our belief (you touched on this point). And of course telling people about the great Love and Peace from Jesus, and continuously praying for them and love them even being ridiculed by them.
Thanks for your article.
Hi again!
yeah I like your thinking! You should blog that 🙂
I am actually writing an article for another publication along those lines, but tend to use my blog to throw stuff out there. Sometimes it sounds a little reactionary.
Cheers for the input
Steve
good one!
The Mosul Christians have lived in Iraq for 2000 years, & for the first time ever they have been wiped out – and they were simply trying to lead a quiet life.
At the 2013 Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), retired Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, warned delegates against the danger of Islam subverting the democratic and legal systems of the Western world. The intrusion of radical Islam into the public arena around the world was partly to blame for this, as Islam does not believe in the separation of religion and the state. For Nazir-Ali this represented a danger to democracy. “Radical Islam is committed to theocracy,” stated the bishop, who questioned its compatibility with democratic freedom. “The true test of democracy is not taking power through the ballot box,” he said, “but being prepared to lose it through the ballot box.” Nazir-Ali questioned the ability of Islam to do this and raised the specter of Mohammedanism hijacking the democratic process.
http://www.virtueonline.org/nairobi-bishop-michael-nazir-ali-warns-against-islamic-threat
It’s like a sci fi horror movie where you shoot the ugly monster dead but then it undergoes a metamorphosis and a hundred replicas appear. Shoot a replica and there’s a hundred more, on and on it goes until they take over the planet. Killing Al Queda has also resulted in a hundred replicas, all trying to gain popular ascendancy through demonstrations of extreme violence.
http://pickeringpost.com/story/what-a-funny-war/3862
“You Are a Muslim, You Just Don’t Know It Yet.
http://www.meforum.org/2104/muslim-strategies-to-convert-western-christians
Vicar of Baghdad: ‘Every Single Christian Wants to Leave’
Canon White described the situation as “sad,” adding: “Last week there was no communion in Nineveh for the first time in 2,000 years. All [the churches] are closed, all their people have run away.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/vicar-baghdad-every-single-christian-wants-leave#.VCsxnahmp1g.facebook