How Would Jesus love a Muslim?
Featured, Social Justice — By Emily Timbol on September 10, 2010 at 8:00 am
I recently wrote about my Grandfather de-friending me on Facebook because of conversations we had on the proposed Park 51 community center (aka Ground Zero Mosque.) I am happy to say that we have resolved the issue, resumed our Facebook friendship, and moved our embarrassing public arguments onto less controversial topics, like Focus on The Family. While he and I have been lucky enough to find common ground, it seems that others involved with this topic have not. I recently saw this article, which was reacting to photos of deactivated missiles that opponents of the community center are driving around, presumably in an attempt to give people a visual of the violence that they see the community center celebrating, or encouraging (or something.) Then of course, there is this event, where a pastor in Florida may or may not (he’s cancelled then said it’s back on) burn Qur’an’s this Saturday at his church, despite pleadings from politicians, celebrities, and Christian leaders not to. Perhaps he’ll listen to the warnings from General Petraeus that this event will encourage violence against our troops, or the message from Obama broad casted on national TV, or maybe even the one from Saint Angelina herself, but let’s pray he doesn’t go through with it. Sadly, all these events helped to provide me with an answer to a question that has been weighing heavy on my mind for the past few weeks.
Why, in the light of how the US government and it’s citizens have previously reacted to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the earthquakes in Haiti, and the tsunami in Thailand, has so little attention been paid to the massive floods in Pakistan?
At first, I thought it was simply the nature of the disaster. Flooding is not as seemingly violent as a tsunami, earthquake, or hurricane, so it’s possible people assume Pakistan might not be as desperate for help. This is not true. As devastating as these other disasters were, they all pale in comparison to how huge of an impact the flooding on Pakistan has been to the people in that country. According to World Vision, 20 million people have been affected and six million are in desperate need of aid. Twenty million people is more than the entire population of Florida, and six million is about the population of Miami, so imagine if everyone in FL was homeless, jobless, and its largest city had people that were literally starving to death. One-fifth of the country is underwater. Think for a moment of a map of the US. Divide it into five sections. Now imagine if one section were gone, underwater, destroyed. Something like that would affect the entire world. This is exactly what is happening right now in Pakistan, yet when we turn on the news, go to our favorite websites, or stop to talk with our friends, the topic does not seem to come up.
The only explanation I can logically come to for the lack of US attention and aid is that unlike the previous disasters, this one happened to a country full of people we normally associate as “our enemies.” This disaster affects a country which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has been rumored to harbor terrorists, and has within it an active element of Al-Queda. It is also a country in which Islam is the national religion.
At a time where nearly every politician feels the need to make his or her opinion known about a building two blocks away from Ground Zero known, is it so hard to believe that we as a country have a problem sending money to Muslims? Is there another explanation for why, with 20 million people homeless and struggling to survive, we haven’t seen even a glimmer of the attention that was paid by America to Haiti? I haven’t seen a single telethon or gotten one lousy text from someone urging me to send $10 to the Red Cross. Maybe it’s that I don’t have cable, or maybe it’s that people are struggling with how to react to a disaster affecting a nation accused of harboring terrorists.
The bigger question is one for Christians in the US. When we look at this verse -
“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.” Matthew 25:42-45
- we have to ask ourselves, who was Jesus talking about here? Is it everyone in need? Even those who might want to cause us harm, if the tables were turned and they weren’t facing devastating floods ? Are we, as Christians, called to provide aid to people who are of a different religion, culture, color, and political ideology from us? If so, what does that mean for how we treat those “others” that we encounter every day who aren’t in need? How should this affect our opinion of “them” in general?
It’s (relatively) easy for us to send money or spend time raising awareness for people who are like us, kind to us, or close to us, but it is significantly harder to love those that in other situations we might be fighting against. If this is an opportunity for us as a people to put the Bible into action, and truly pour love out to our enemies, as Christ commanded us to, what kind of job are we doing?
Thankfully, it’s not too late. We can do something, whether it’s donating money or service to The Red Cross, dedicating active prayer time for the country, or aggressively tweeting at Kanye West to make a telethon appearance, there are things we can do to get involved.
This is an opportunity for the world to see the radical, backwards, loving message of Jesus. I can’t think of any better way to spread the Gospel than to show the world that the love of Christ reaches out to all people, regardless of skin color, nationality, religion, or politics. Let’s get started.
Tags: Christianity, Global Politics, Islam, Missions
11 Comments
I think you’ve raised a great question as far as who specifically should be the recipients of our charity. I have had private doubts about Matthew 25 for a long time. When I teach at my church, I teach that Matthew 25 encourages us to minister generously to everybody regardless of religion or merit. However, I am not sure this is actually the case from a textual point of view.
Most reliable translations have Matthew 25:40 as, “Whatever you did to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did to me.” Not whatever we did for anybody, but whatever we did for Jesus’ brothers and sisters. The question is, who are Jesus’ brothers and sisters? He answers that himself in Matthew 12: “My mother and brothers [and sisters] are those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” In other words, Jesus only seems to be commending the “sheep” in that story for the good deeds they did to the other sheep.
Don’t think for a minute that I believe we shouldn’t help out those who aren’t Christians. I just think, from an accuracy point of view, that you can’t use that text to prove it.
I’m not sure what exactly the reason is for Pakistan’s minimal exposure here. I don’t watch or read the news, so I wouldn’t have known about it at all if not for a Gospel For Asia newsletter. It may simply be that we don’t really have images from Pakistan. The 2004 tsunami and the Haiti earthquake were meticulously filmed and photographed, and seeing the pictures really gave an oomph to the news stories. For some reason, it just seems harder to get good “disaster porn” out of Pakistan. Gospel For Asia’s website has a few photos but even their selection is pretty meager:
http://www.gfa.org/news/articles/taking-food-clothing-and-hope-people-pakistan/
Thank you for this post…more does need to be done to send aid in this disaster.
I wouldn’t call it “disaster porn,” but Boston.com has a slideshow of powerful images from the Pakistan flooding on their Big Picture blog http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/pakistan_in_need.html
I think as a nation or as individual Christians we should do what we can for Pakistan, Few probably think of the parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:29 -37. It makes a difference when we consider that the Jews considered the Samaritans less the dogs, and the Samaritans didn’t think much of the Jews either. One Samaritan however considered one who thought him a dog, as truly his neighbor, He bandaged his wounds, took him to a safe place and paid for his keep. In Jesus words, Go and do likewise.
Agreed Don, I think the parallels between the Biblical Samaritans and the Jews with modern day Islam and Christianity should not be lost on us. Remember also Jesus ministrations to the Samaritan woman at the well. I think we are without excuse in ignoring the plight of Muslims in their distress, and also when it comes to issues such as burning Holy texts.
The answer is simple: the USA are not a Christian nation but a Freedom nation. It’s 2 different religions. United states of America is not even a country name. It’s the start of it… as in United states of Brasil (in America), the United States of Mexico (in America). The USA is in the middle of the world and right now, the enemy against the Freedom (really not the Christian one, but the Mamon one) is the Muslims. Back in the 20s, it was the Germans, the English industry, after WW2, the Soviets. Afterwards, it was the Middle East without the Islamist threat. Now it evolved into an enemy custom-made (Hussein and Lil’Bin) were both friends of the US until they realized how they were becoming Imperialist puppets. For those reasons, democracy is now a mirror that we use to defend ourselves by reflecting the sunlight in the eyes of the enemy. USA ARE NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION. Never was, will never be.
Good work Emily. Thanks for this reminder. It’s a clear demonstration of our politically charged faith as Americans that we don’t really see our neighbors as all people including Muslims.
I think your original point–that we treat people groups differently regarding catastrophes–is a valid one and should raise some questions as to why. I must admit, however, I am uncomfortable assigning a reason with any degree of certainty. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with postulating and speculating, but we must be careful not to fall into false accusations. Fact is that there are likely many reasons why, and many of us who may have given of ourselves to help the people in, say, Haiti, and not Pakistan, have reasons not related to being prejudiced or Islamophobic.
While, yes, the text of Mat. 25 is speaking of our fellow Christians, it does get to the spirit of the appropriate text: “If your enemy is hungry feed him, if he is thirsty give him a drink.”
And there has been some, not nearly enough, U.S aid in Pakistan which is officially an ally. Would that we would mount efforts to help on the scale that we wage war.
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