Last night I made it to Western Michigan University for the second installation of Religious Perspectives: Islam sponsored in part by Lutheran-Episcopal Campus Ministries at WMU. Expecting to hear revered Imam Sayid Hassan Al-Qazwini, instead I was treated to a very different experience. Imam Qazwini was unable to attend at the last minute. Don't worry; he expects to be here in April, and this gives you a chance not to miss him! Plan B consisted of moving up our scheduled April program of a panel of converts to Islam, one a current student at Western and one a graduate who now teaches Humanities at nearby Olivet College.
So two white guys from West Michigan telling a predominantly white Christian audience about their experience of conversion to Islam: yeah, it definitely lived up to the title of this blog. They told heartfelt, often-hilarious stories about experimenting with various culturally-Islamic styles of clothing, about discovering the Qur'an as teenagers, about searching for balance between their white west Michigan Christian upbringings and their newfound communities of Muslims from around the world. It was a truly wonderful evening, with great stories, honest questions, and deepened understanding of faith and culture.
For me, perhaps the most unexpected part of the evening was the kinship I felt with their conversion stories. Each man told us how when he first read the Qur'an, its truth rang out clear as a bell. This holy book, and the tradition it represents, gave these guys a language of faith that clearly expressed truths they had always known, truths that had lived in their bones. Now they had a set of practices, beliefs, and spirituality to express who they were, who they had always been, in relationship to Almighty God. I connected deeply with these stories, and I apologize if my own projection has caused me to misrepresent either of our presenters from last night in the preceding description.
I grew up nominally Christian (Roman Catholic, to be precise), but it just didn't take. I considered myself an agnostic leaning toward atheism until by curious circumstances I heard the Gospel message of God's love for the whole world in Jesus Christ. Sure, I'd heard some of those words before, but they only took on meaning through my years of college, of singing in Christ Chapel and studying religion with diverse friends and working at Bible Camp (hear more about that last bit in my sermon this coming Sunday at LCS). God made me a skeptic, but God also gave me a yearning for authentic relationship with other people and with God. When Lutheran Christians told (and showed!) me that I could not earn God's love, but that God loves me anyway, and that this truth frees me to love and serve God and my neighbor, I was thunderstruck. Here, unexpectedly in God-language, was a truth I had always known, in my very bones: every good thing I have is a gift. From God, it turns out, but I didn't get that last bit until years after I had proven the first part true.
My connection to the speakers at Western last night consists of this deep knowing, this clear sense of divine truth breaking through the haze of questions and concerns, of skepticism and doubt - not that I left those two behind! - to tell me the truth I had always known. In their stories of unlikely faith I heard my own story, and I thank them for drawing me back to my own roots as a person of faith. This may be interfaith dialogue at its best: recognizing the truth of God's presence in another, and recognizing the truth of their story because it is your own.
I recently saw a video produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints featuring Rev. Krister Stendahl, Lutheran bishop, theologian, and hero of mine. This video introduced to me Stendahl's notion of "holy envy," and I thought of that notion at our discussion last night. My own lack of discipline in my Lenten practices gives me "holy envy" for devout Muslims who pray five times daily, and whose fast at Ramadan makes my every spiritual practice pale in comparison. I greatly admire my devout Muslim friends who are able to build these practices into their daily lives, as well as Zen Buddhists, to name but one other group whose adherence to daily religious practice. I envy the communities of accountability that help hold them to their promises, because it is not only individual willpower but also community reinforcement that supports such devout practice.
Christian faith makes sense to me because I know my own weakness, and I cling to God's promise in Jesus that I will receive not what I deserve, but what he deserves. I see my own faith more clearly when I can reflect it off the faithful lives of my Muslim brothers and sisters, and I thank and deeply respect them for this gift.
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