Book extract: Rash words

The following is an extract of chapter one from Tony Payne’s newly released Brief Book, Can We Talk About Islam?. Some GoThereFor members may have read it already as an ebook. If you liked it, soon you'll be able to easily give it to a friend.

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (Prov 12:18)

Never has the wisdom of this proverb been more urgently needed than in our society’s current conversation about Islam.

Tensions are running high. The threat of Islamic terrorism is now a real and daily reality in the West. In the Middle East, the deadly conflicts involving Islamic fighters in Syria and Iraq drag on with no end in sight. Atrocities against Christians and other non-Islamic minorities are now so common that they don’t even move the needle in our 24-hour news cycle.

How can we have a conversation about this as a society in a way that is truthful and constructive? How can we talk about Islam with our neighbours and work colleagues and friends in a way that brings life and healing rather than division and conflict?

At present, we seem to find ourselves caught between two dissatisfying alternatives.

On the one hand, we have no wish to speak with rash words that damn all Muslims for the violent actions of those who act in the name of Islam. The last thing we want is to see the large majority of moderate Muslims who live in the West alienated or mistreated as a result of sweeping inflammatory statements about Islam—such as comedian Bill Maher’s recent comments, where he described Islam as “the only religion that acts like the mafia—that will f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book”.

As a Christian, I know how that kind of rude, sweeping generalization feels. I feel it keenly when the name of Christ is dragged through the mud because of the actions of some who bear his name—like the corrupt televangelist fleecing the gullible, or the Christian protest group wielding ‘God Hates Fags’ signs at a soldier’s funeral, or the horrendous sexual abuse in church institutions.

“Please don’t blame or judge me because of what some ‘Christians’ do!” I want to protest. “And don’t draw your conclusions about Christ from the lunatics who sometimes claim to act in his name.”

So as a Christian, I should be slow to speak rashly, such as by using the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS as a blunt instrument to beat Islam with.

And yet, on the other hand, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that the political leaders and opinion shapers of the West are protesting rather too much when they claim that there’s nothing remotely Islamic about Islamic State. This has been the steady refrain, ever since 9/11. It is vigorously stated that the rising tide of terrorism and military action and violence committed in the name of Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, despite the repeated, explicit and coherent statements of those involved to invoke the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad to justify their actions. “They are really just criminals, extremists and madmen”, say Western leaders, “who are playing on widespread resentment at Western foreign policy, and political and economic alienation, for their own purposes”.

“No religion is responsible for terrorism—people are responsible for violence and terrorism”, said President Obama at a White House summit on combating terrorism. David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, has said much the same: “These people in Iraq and Syria doing these appalling things, they have nothing to do with the great religion of Islam, a religion of peace, a religion that inspires daily acts of kindness and generosity.”

This repeated insistence that Islam is in essence a religion of sweetness and light, with no connection whatsoever to war and violent jihad, has the smell of spin about it—especially if you compare that spin with the mainstream teaching and practice of Islam over the past 13 centuries.

So where does that leave us? It seems hard to know how to talk constructively in our communities about Islam if these seem to be our only options:

• to blame Islam for the militancy and violence committed in its name, and run the risk of not only being unfair to most actual Muslims in the West, but of stirring up ethnic tensions in our community
• to not talk about Islam at all except as a sanitized religion of peace; to insist that the current tensions have no connection with Islam.

In the pages that follow, I want to suggest that these aren’t the only options. There is, I believe, an honest and constructive way to talk about Islam—whether that conversation is with Muslim friends or with our neighbours or in the public square.

I also want to suggest that Christians have a particularly important role to play in these conversations, for reasons I’ll get to soon.

However, the place to start a rethink of how to engage with Islam is by understanding who we’re talking with. And there are two groups or conversation partners that will comprise the vast bulk of people we talk to: Muslims and secular humanists.

If we’re going to talk about Islam, we need to understand both.

To read more of this new book from Tony Payne, order it online from Matthias Media Australia, Matthias Media America, or 10ofThose in Europe.