Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Doing the unthinkable

I was listening to this discussion on YouTube last night while I was making dinner. Aayan Hirshi Ali was being interviewed by Susanne Pari, and made some interesting comments. I've listened to Hirshi Ali speak before, and I had heard her make similar comments in previous interviews. Hirshi Ali is the writer of "Infidel" and collaborator with Theo van Gogh on "Submission," a short film which criticized the treatment of women in Islam. Her collaborator, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered following the airing of the film on Dutch television. Here's the link to the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCaD4FwsVu0, and here's a link to a news story regarding the murder of van Gogh: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3974179.stm.

The lead up to the comment is about 42 minutes in, but I'll cut to the gist of what she said. Her grammar might have been a bit off so I'm paraphrasing, but Hirshi Ali basically said, that if all Muslims were to become Christians, she wouldn't need to travel with bodyguards. In other words, though she was being criticized for saying it, she was advocating for outreach to Muslims by Christians especially, as well as other secular and faith based groups. Her final statement on that note was "let's compete with the jihadists, I believe we can win."

And so do I. I know that not all Muslims are Jihadists by the way, in fact most are not, but in short, I agree with Hirshi Ali, that a competition of ideas in a society is part of what makes for a healthy and free society. It comes down to dialogue, and having the freedom as individuals to make choices, to decide what we believe or having the freedom to change our beliefs if we so choose. I'm in favour of respectful dialogue in that way. I'm not interested in forcing my beliefs on anyone, but I am interested in the respectful presentation of the Gospel as an option to the person who would wish to learn about that option. At the same time I would want to advocate for all people to enjoy religious freedom or freedom of conscience to choose a different option.

The interesting thing for me though as an evangelical Christian, having lived all my life in the relative comfort of the western world: please let me explain what I see happening in the west at this time. I see a historically Judeo-Christian culture that quite arguably has given us much of what we enjoy at this point in history, in terms of our standards of human rights and values. It would be a whole discussion in itself to make that argument, but let me just say this. When I hear secular- minded people in this discussion as in others, they often make reference to the Enlightenment as being the source of all good things. Is it? Well, for me, I find it very interesting that they seem to assume that an emphasis on reason provides that historic basis, while at the same time other secular thinkers are debating the value of innocent human life itself, while still others are concluding that reason will not necessarily lead you to morality. Yet secularists as a culture generally seem to continue in this grand assumption that humans beings are somehow set apart, that we should honour human rights and criticize those who are not living up to our western standards. Why that is exactly, they don't seem to tell us.

But when I hear human rights advocates like Pari and Hirshi Ali talk, two people who have personally witnessed human rights abuses and lived in parts of the world where there have been gross human rights violations, they reflect a deep down gut wrenching conviction that human beings ought not to be treated this way. Says who, while their fellow secularists often seem to be undermining that assumption. Yes, I said "that assumption," that human life has an intrinsic value. Why on a materialistic worldview, where everything corrodes and wears out and flies away should we assume that something material has an intrinsic worth, whether it is small and fragile or not?  It's a Judeo-Christian value folks, that each and every precious human being is created in the image of God, regardless of their state of health, wealth or stage of life. It didn't come from the Enlightenment, it came from the opening pages of the Bible. Alas, I suspect I'll be arguing about that for some time to come. But to all the human rights activists out there, arguing for secularism and against Christianity (unlike Hirshi Ali thankfully), I'd like to point you to a verse in the Bible that's almost a couple of thousand years older than the declaration of human rights, and numerous centuries ahead of the enlightenment: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

On a personal note though, I don't live in a bubble, and I figured out a long time ago that I'm not supposed to talk about this sort of thing. For the longest time, the thought of evangelism struck fear into my chambers of my heart. It rarely worked anyway it seemed, people weren't interested. Jesus was a cliche, telling people about Jesus was the joke of late-night television. Saying to someone that "Jesus loves you" was a great way to get rid of guys you weren't interested in (haha, would I do that), or obnoxious door to door sales people, but not the sort of thing people did if they wanted to be taken seriously in the lunch room at work. And yet, we cling to political correctness in the west because on some level we know it's all we have left, some blase sensibility that we should treat other human beings with decency, even if they're in line for the same opportunity. But why should we, really, if survival is all that matters and gifts are a mere status symbol?

But when Pari says in the interview, alluding to the cool exclusive Christians she has known, was it always like that? I mean, the status quo fundamentalist mindset that Pari alluded to? Was it like that when Wilberforce stood up in the British Parliament year after year pleading to end slavery? Was it like that when the early church stayed behind and cared for the dying through the scourge of plague? Yet isn't it interesting, that despite how comfortable we've become in the west, despite how much we take for granted, how much has become the norm, the fading backdrop of a once Judeo-Christian culture, that in a globalizing world where our assumptions are not the assumptions of so many, that doing the unthinkable, evangelizing, becomes practical, becomes necessary, becomes respectable when we once again see that truly living out the Gospel message, while valuing others more highly than ourselves, makes all the difference in the world.


Thanks for listening,

M.A. Harvey











Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Keep the date

Well that was fun...another discussion with a former Christian on a Muslim debating site. Sigh. I don't know what the attraction is, I really don't, and the arguments, if they are arguments, that to me look more like propaganda by and for Muslims. The distorted images of the Apostle Paul, the select dates to "prove" that somehow Islam is more liberating for women, make me wonder, and wonder some more. Add that to the mature Christians I had heard from that were kicked off the same "friendly" site, while Muslims who seemed to show up to be disruptive to a conversation that are still there, has all left me with the distinct impression that my first experience of inter-religious dialogue was more about converting nominal or naive Christians to Islam, than about dialogue of any sort.

Years ago I remember watching a movie, I can't remember the name of it, it was so long ago, but in it there's this little guy who was tiny...very small, abnormally small, yet he believes that he was meant to do something very big in life. Spoiler alert, but near the end of the movie, this little guy was able to rescue drowning kids on a school bus by getting through a window while the bus was submerged in water. Heart-warming, that after years of teasing, this little guy became a hero, and got his respect back. I don't know if I'm meant to do anything that big in life, but lately I've been thinking about one of those quirky little things about myself.

I've always loved history. Enough people have told me over the years that the reason they never liked history was because they couldn't handle dates. I've thought about that, and for me, that's one of the things I like about history, dates, because dates put things in context. When I think 1920's I think Jazz, when I think 1950's, I think Elvis Presley. Now, if we didn't pay attention to dates and the musical styles that lead up to the 1950's, we might just think that Elvis Presley came out of nowhere, right?

So it's always been one of my quirky little things that I pay attention to dates, because for me, dates put things in context. I remember years ago a history teacher being amused when she handed me a phone number and I noted out loud that it was close to the Magna Carta. That's just me, and how I remember phone numbers. But lately, I find myself repeating dates to Muslims ad nauseum, so much so that yesterday they booted me off, saying I could only get back in if I would admit that the Old Testament came before the New, haha. Something tells me that's not what it was about.

I'm no expert, I don't know all about the Koran, I don't know all about the Bible even...but you know what I think? I think if there is one thing that the church got right, it is that they have always held to and preserved the earliest documents about Jesus. That's what our faith rests on, the earliest records that do not disagree on the core doctrines of Christianity...and regardless of who came around later, be it the gnostics or Muhammad or Joseph Smith....golly gee, which is more likely to be corrupted, the earlier or the later?

My heart goes out to the Christians out there who are confused by all the crap, pardon my English, that is written about Jesus these days. I'm not going to tell anyone what to think here, but I am going to say, check the date, always check the date on the sources that you are being given, and measure that date against the dates for the New Testament in your hand, that you are reading in context. Something tells me that if more Christians did that, and we taught Christians to do that in Sunday school, I'd be having fewer conversations with former Christians in Muslim chat rooms.

In closing, I am thankful for my historical faith, a faith that is based on an historic person who made claims that can be tested against the evidence. I am thankful for the early church and the Jewish people before that for meticulously preserving and translating our scriptures. That can't have been easy, centuries before the printing press. I enjoy reflecting on the contents of the scriptures, as I also reflect on the historic context of when they were written and the dates that have been given, and I keep those dates, as I keep the scriptures, close to my heart.


Thanks for listening,

M.A. Harvey