The World in Miniature

I recently ran across some interesting numbers on the makeup of the world’s population, as follows:

If the total number of people on the globe were reduced to a 1000, over half of them,  564, would be Asians, 210 Europeans, only 86 North Americans, and 60 South Americans. Of these same 1000 people, 300 could be identified as Christians, 176 as Muslims, 128 as Hindus, 55 as Buddhists, and 47 as Animists.

This means we are all a part of a minority faith and culture of some kind. Unless we were successful in converting huge numbers into becoming just like ourselves, we will have to learn to get along with people of all kinds who differ from us. And increasingly, this diversity of people is right around us, with our local public high school students now representing some 40 different languages of origin, students for whom English is not their family’s native tongue.

Tuesday I had lunch with a community leader who wanted to discuss my op-ed piece on Sharia law in the Labor Day edition of the local paper. He expressed grave concern that the kind of diversity we’ve allowed is a threat to our American values, culture and way of life.

For him, the solution was simple and urgent. Bring our troops home from far flung wars and military bases around the world and have them tightly seal our borders. Period. All immigration should immediately come to a halt, as the only way to keep us from being overrun by foreign elements and from our losing our identity as a genuinely "American" society.

Real Americans, presumably, should speak only English and be largely Caucasian and predominantly Christian. Nations elsewhere would maintain their own distinct languages, races and religions, of course, but for us to be a strong and stable society we should pull up our welcome mat, have Lady Liberty lay down her torch and rebuild the way of life we enjoyed before all of the Asians, Africans, South and Central Americans and members of every European nationality on the map poured across our borders--thanks to lax Homeland Security and Border Control by the native American population!

By contrast, the welcoming vision of the future described in the Apocalypse, in the last book of Christian Bible is as follows:

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb." Revelation 7:9

(The "Lamb" is the name used in the Revelation for the non-violent and redeeming presence of God in the world)

Beware of Sharia Mania

Calm down, America. Radical Islamists are not instituting Sharia law throughout our country. Nor is the president working with them to subvert our Constitution and take away our liberties.

Yet these are the kinds of claims some anti-Muslim groups, funded to the tune of over $42 million by seven foundations around the country, want us to believe, according to a recent report by The Center for American Progress entitled “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America.”

This reminds me all too much of the anti-Semitic sentiment promoted by numerous writers, philosophers, politicians and even clergy in the 1920’s and 30’s. They sought to convince everyone that Jews were out to take over the media, infiltrate institutions of higher learning, gain control of the financial system and soon dominate the world.

We all know the historical results of this kind of paranoia. Adolph Hitler, who came to power in part by whipping up support for scapegoating all Jews, led a movement that annihilated some six million of them and launched a war that resulted in 50 million people dead worldwide and the near destruction of the very civilization he was purporting to save.

Also in my lifetime, some Americans prior to John F. Kennedy’s election became convinced that Roman Catholics were poised to impose canon law on the U.S. Some groups of evangelicals went to the polls in droves because they feared the Vatican would soon hold sway over the affairs of the nation.

Now the focus is on our Muslim neighbors, who make up approximately 0.8 percent of our population, and who have become the focus of our current fears and suspicions, as in recently published reports like “Sharia: The Threat to America.”

Evangelical writer John G. Stackhouse, a professor at Regent College in British Columbia, writes of this book, ”I sympathize with much of the report’s concern. After 9/11, no one doubts that there are Muslims of extreme beliefs and practices who act as enemies of the American state and of many American values” ...(but) “the report shows itself in some key ways to be not only anti-Islamic in far too sweeping a way, but anti-Christian, too.”
 

Jewish author Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, writes, “The threat of the infiltration of Sharia, or Islamic law, into the American court system is one of the more pernicious conspiracy theories to gain traction in our country in recent years... despite the complete absence of evidence of the unconstitutional application of foreign or religious law in our judicial system. “

Examples of specific issues being raised include legal provisions for Muslims to have alternatives to borrowing or loaning money with interest, since usury is banned in the Koran (as it is in parts of the Hebrew Bible and in Christian tradition). But such a provision is not a matter of imposing sharia law on anyone, rather an attempt to permit the free exercise of ones religion, not unlike Old Order Amish being allowed religious-based exemptions from taking part in the Social Security system or from being required to send their children to school beyond the 8th grade. It imposes nothing on anyone, and it can even be argued that it reflects what is best about our constitution. No one is submitting to Amish law here.

Above all, as we reflect on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, let's not make the mistake of attributing to the peaceful majority of our Muslim neighbors the motives of those on its radical fringe.

I welcome your comments on this topic and also on a February blog on the same subject.

Addendum: For another reasoned voice on this subject, check out Jewish writer Eliyahu Stern's 9/2/11 op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled, "Don't Fear Islam's Law in America."

Virginia is for lovers... of immigrants?

I want to believe that our commonwealth and our fair city of Harisonburg are still friendly and welcoming places. But to immigrants, I'm afraid, not so much.

At last night’s Virginia Organizers meeting on immigration legislation, Walter Tejada, a member of the Arlington County Board of Supervisors, reminded us that in difficult economic times, recent immigrants, documented and otherwise, often become the focus of undue suspicion and hostility.

It’s one thing to support and enforce existing immigration laws, of which we already have more than sufficient. But it’s another to create a plethora of new ones that could make Virginia the most restrictive and punitive state in the Union in the way it deals with newly arrived workers and their families.

The effects of such bills as HB 1421, HB 1430 and HB 1934 would be to strain already limited law enforcement resources and to further discourage members of immigrant communities from reporting crimes and cooperating with law enforcement. Education bills like HB 1465, HB 1775 and HB 2332 would do things like deny some members of our community access to higher education and add to the burden of educational institutions having to investigate the legal status of all immigrants.

In the Biblical spirit of “welcoming the alien and stranger” I hope we can find a way to reform our laws to accommodate a reasonable number of workers that our economy has come to depend on (along the lines earlier considered by George W. Bush and John McCain) and for all of us to “do justice, show mercy and walk humbly” toward God and our immigrant neighbors.

This would be a good time to contact Senator Mark Obenshain (804-698-7526), a decent man and unapologetically pro-life and pro-family, to express your concerns.

Christians should welcome their Muslims neighbors

In spite of the words of welcome inscribed on our Statue of Liberty, we Americans have a sad history of showing inhospitality toward new people emigrating to our country. Irish and Italian Catholics, Chinese and other oriental groups, Hispanic immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and more recently, Muslims from the Middle East, have all experienced our suspicion and hostility.

     The following are good reasons I believe all of us, especially professed Christians, should reach out to befriend our new Muslim neighbors:

1. In spite of our differences, we can learn from the faith and devotion of people who regularly pray five times a day, fast daily during an entire month each year, and are taught to give generously to those in need.

2. The only way Muslims, or anyone else, will ever be drawn to our faith is if we offer them a warm hand of hospitality and welcome.

3. Muslims, like the Samaritans of Jesus’ day, share some of the same sacred history and scripture as Christians and Jews, and claim allegiance to the same Creator God.

4. Jesus goes out of his way to respectfully converse with “outsiders” such as the much maligned Samaritans of his time (John 4). At least twice he compliments them for their actions, as in the case of the leper who came back to Jesus to thank him for his healing (Luke 17:15-16), and the real “neighbor” who was the hero in the Good Samaritan story (Luke 10).

5. The Bible repeatedly urges us to reach out to the stranger and alien (Exodus 18:3, Deuteronomy 10:19), remembering that we were all once foreigners and aliens in need of such welcome.

6. The more we make friends of suspected Muslims extremists, and the more we form alliances with the vast majority of Muslims who do not support violence, the safer our world will be for ourselves and for future generations.

     My friend Steve Wingfield recently shared a conversation he had with his cab driver in Richmond. After learning the man was a recent Muslim immigrant, Steve said, “Welcome to our country. we’re glad you’re here.”

     His driver replied, “Wow, thank you. I’ve been in this country for six years, and you’re the first American who’s ever said that.”

     Is that a shame or what?