Post 70--Is this "enlightened" Vancouver or Meccah?

I know, Ezra Levant is considered worse than a rogue in "main stream" journalism.  Of course, anyone who attacks that tradition is bound to "earn" such a reputation. But to me that epithet can be a badge of honour such rogues will pass on information our main streamers will not touch or twist the story to suit their ideology.  Perhaps Levant could be a little more gentle in conveying the same news, but that does not appear to be his character. But I understand, for I am somewhat the same way--and have burned a few bridges along the way.  It took me 80 years to come to that realization. I don't know Levant's age, but I do hope it won't take him that long to discover that in main stream journalism, it may be wise to act like a wolf in sheep's clothes!

Anyhow, read this Levant story. You can hardly believe that this is happening in my "enlightened"--read "liberal"--Vancouver and someone is getting away with it. Ah, that Islamophobe accusation is always just around the corner like a hidden sword. Few there are like Levant who dare to ignore it and say what they see or hear. It could lead to getting fired or being hauled before a human rights "tribunal," I am told, the accused pays for the expenses whether found guilty or not. To be honest, I cannot quite believe that, not in our democratic Canada.  Right?  You answer that question yourself.

Okay, here's Levant in person:

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You wouldn't believe what happened in this Vancouver mosque

A Vancouver mosque knew what to do with a single mom. Have her get married again. To a Muslim man who already had a wife. It’s illegal in Canada — that’s called polygamy. But it happens all the time in Canadian mosques. That’s just one of the crazy things I learned in my feature interview with Yasmine Mohammed, the daughter of that single mom.  If you can believe it, her story gets even worse — including her own arranged marriage, and how she was imprisoned by her husband, and forbidden from leaving the apartment without his permission. All in Canada. The worst part was when she told me about what a Canadian judge said to her — you’ll have to watch it to believe it: That’s an excerpt from my daily show, the Ezra Levant Show.  I thought the interview with Yasmine was important enough to make available for free for the whole world to see. I mean, let’s be honest: an interview like that, with a person like Yasmine — that simply wouldn’t be allowed in the mainstream media. P.S. Please click here to subscribe now — and catch all of our interviews that would be banned on the CBC. They’d probably call Yasmine an “Islamophobe”, wouldn’t they? Click here to sign up as a subscriber, and remember to use VANCOUVER as your coupon code to get $20 off.

Islamic Banking (3)

Post 32  

While the last two posts presented you with two different Nigerian viewpoints on Islamic banking, today I begin to share with you some of my own perspective.  My material is laced with quotations from my book Christians and Muslims: Parameters for Living Together (Vol. 8-2 of my Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, ch. 9.  Remember, you can access it free of charge from  < www.lulu.com > by just typing  < jan h boer >).  Since it is both a rather complicated and important subject, I will be dealing with it in a number of posts, though I have not planned it well enough to predict how many.  

Wisdom of Islamic (and Canadian) Economies

That Chapter 9 begins with a quotation from Amr al-Faisal, a board member of a holding company that owns several Islamic banks and other financial institutions:

The ugly side ofWall Street is exposed; it’s always been there but

covered by a layer of glamour that is now stripped away. We are

more conservative and sober in our investments. That used to be

considered a handicap. Now it’s considered the height of wisdom (p. 313).

I know, quoting is a kind laziness, something that will get me nowhere, as the saying goes.  But I did want to share this quote from the midst of the recent economic tsunami—November, 2008.  If you did not know the origin of this quote, you might have surmised that the speaker was describing the Canadian situation at the time.  Canada, too, had been more conservative in its investment policies and was sometimes sneered at by its more adventurous cousins south of her border, but it came out of the tsunami with comparatively flying colours, more so than any other major Western economy.  It turned out that “adventurous” really was a mask for recklessness, a feature that Islamic banking allegedly avoids.  OK, so laziness will get me nowhere, but a bit of patriotism won’t hurt.  With those overwhelming and boastful neighbours to our south, our Canadian self-image needs such a lift occasionally.  So far the digression.  Phew! Got that off my chest!

Why the Call for Islamic Banking

Returning to Nigeria, why would her Muslims clamour for Islamic banking?  That call was heard from way before the recent tsunami and way before anyone had ever heard of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the scholarly chief of the Central Bank of Nigeria who is currently spearheading the drive for Islamic Banking.  For the latest here, I encourage you to check the internet under headings like “Nigeria: Islamic (or: Sharia) banking” and you will get an eyeful. 

A Nigerian Muslim scholar, Ibrahim Sulaiman, explains what initially prompted the call of Sharia banking:

  

Colonialists found a viable legal and economic system in place in what became Northern Nigeria. The British undermined the sharia legal system and largely replaced it with foreign British Common Law.  That is indeed what happened, but not only in the legal world. Sulaiman explains that the same process took place in economics. The British replaced the indigenous Muslim economic system with capitalism. Among the educated elite with their colonialized mentality, the Muslim approach to economics was slowly forgotten. He wrote, “If Nigeria does not know the nature of the Islamic economic system, then she has an obligation to learn it with a view to applying it. Ignorance of a system which still influences the lives of the majority of this nation’s people is an unspeakable national disgrace. Must anyone be surprised that Nigeria has sunk into an economic disaster?” Please turn to volume 4 of my series, appendix 6, where Sulaiman argues for Muslim corrections to Nigeria’s economic system. Among others, he proposed that Muslims must create a Muslim banking system (pp. 314-315).

Call for Decolonization

Having written that 8-volume series as well as a tome of a doctoral dissertation on colonialism in Nigeria and a couple of other books on related subjects (see the Boeriana page on my  < SocialTheology.com > ), I can vouch for the accuracy of Sulaiman’s explanation.  That’s exactly what happened.  And that’s a major reason I am sympathetic towards the Muslim call for Islamic banking, for the Nigerian experience is a common one where, over the decades and even centuries, capitalism in its colonial and subsequent editions suppressed Islamic economics and imposed its own Western system. Many Muslims now have woken up from their slumber and recognize the poison pill they had been dealt.  The call for sharia banking is at least partially a call for the continuing liberation of the Muslim world from colonial shackles. 

Need for Christian Support

Though Christians largely supported colonialism in the past, they have since come to recognize colonialism for what it really was and therefore now recognize it as an evil arrangement that should never have been and that they should never have supported to begin with.  Since Christians now sympathize with all attempts at undoing colonial situations, including those practiced by non-Western nations, they should also be more sympathetic towards the Islamic banking movement, since that is part of the de-colonization movement, of the liberation that Sulaiman is talking about.

Liberation, de-colonization, allowing a people their own culture are today recognized as issues with which Christians would naturally sympathize. They have become part of our “common sense” or “shared values” that few people will challenge today. That being the case, Islamic banking should get a more sympathetic ear from them. 

Of course, this is not the only issue.  Others will follow in succeeding posts.  Curious? Stay with me.

What Christians Can Learn from Islam

Post 27 

Offer of Free Lecture

Today we deal with question no. 5 in my Christian Courier series.  Once again, I apologize for the interruption.  Life sometimes becomes too hectic for me to cope.  I take on too many responsibilities or obligations and then find I need to temporarily change course.  This time around it was a trip to Ibadan, Nigeria, where I was invited to deliver an annual lecture to Christians about sharia.  My title was “Re-tooling Our Approach to Sharia: A Wholistic and Pluralistic Perspective.”  Readers interested in that issue may contact me at < boerjf@hotmail.com > to request an electronic copy.  If you do forward this request, please be sure to mention this blog post and tell me what province or state and what country you are from.

Islam's Reminding Function

So, what can Christians learn from Muslims?  Many things, actually.  If you have read my earlier post “The Muslim Within You,” you have already become aware of how, far back in history, the Western world adopted various major ideas and institutions from the Muslim world.  Today my concern is not something that took place way back there in history but what is taking place or could take place today in your own life.  

Years ago, in Nigeria, I met a Muslim biking along the long driveway leading to our mission compound. I greeted him in the local style and he stopped to chat in the Hausa language. In the course of the conversation, I told him about my plans for the next day.  I was going to do this and that, I confidently announced.   He was silent for a moment, cocked his head slightly and then asked, “Allah fa?”  “What about God?”  Does He not figure in your plans? 

I felt deeply embarrassed.  Here was a Muslim for whom I was paid to bring the Gospel and he brought the Gospel to me!  I was brought up in a culture where the term “Deo volente,” Latin for “God willing,” laced daily conversation.  Immigrating to Canada where that term is rarely used, I had dropped it somewhere along the line.  And, now, here was this Muslim reminding me of a neglected component of my own inherited worldview and language. 

Presence of God

That seemingly insignificant interchange has stuck with me ever since.  “Allah fa?”  Yes, indeed, what of God in our ordinary daily lives?  His name interlaces most Muslim conversations, not, as in the West, as barbaric profanity, but as an expression of our dependence on Him in everything. Of course, deep down I knew that God is there all the time, but the secular culture in which I grew up on Vancouver Island made me careless and drop the lingo—and with it blunted the edge of this spiritual awareness. It was still there, but marginalized, so that this Muslim gentleman was offended. He reminded me. 

A major function Muslims can play for Western Christians is that of reminder.  We have been so deeply influenced by the pervasive secularism around us that much of our Christian sensitivities have been blunted and Christian standards marginalized, if not plain forgotten, or, worse perhaps, actually rejected as outmoded or politically incorrect. Politically incorrect they most assuredly are, but outmoded? We know the Name of Jesus is holy and needs to be revered, but when He is insulted in public life by sheer derision or outright exclusion, we shrug our shoulders. Muslims cannot tolerate such carelessness and infidelity. A few years ago the Anglican Church in the UK was silent when someone publicly insulted Christ, but the Muslim community stood up and denounced the insult.  After all, Jesus is seen as a Muslim Prophet second only to Muhammad.  When someone is perceived as insulting Muhammad, even non-practicing Muslims can get on their high horse and cause riots.  But Christians just shrug their shoulders in indifference as if it were an inconsequential matter. 

Pioneer Reformed Challenges to Secularism

The generation that founded the Christian Courier, the semi-monthly that originally published this series, was deeply offended by Canada’s secularism and challenged it by establishing Christ-honouring alternative social institutions. They took their issues to the highest courts of the land and achieved some remarkable victories.  Half a century later, the structures they built still exist not only, but are fully Canadian, flourishing and effective institutions. Today, only half a century later, most of their descendants know little of and care less for those issues.  Some of them are now run by Canadians from other Christian traditions that became excited by the broad vision of these early Reformed pioneers.

Muslim Challenge to Reformed and Other Christians

Muslims continually challenge this secularism and remind us of God across all of life.  They have their prayer times and little stops them from performing them.  Certainly not shame or embarrassment.  Neither are they embarrassed about being identified as Muslims and, thus, religious.  In fact, they are proud to be Muslim.  We may sneer at some of their female fashions, but who sees Christ in us with our fashions?  Where has modesty gone?  Women, without any apology on my part to those concerned with the politically correct, do you realize how many of you befudge the reputation of Christ among Muslims with your fashions?  Muslims remind us of modesty not only but of the general need for morals, both private and public.  Of course, men who casually ascend Christ’s pulpits in torn jeans and flip-flops similarly downgrade His holy Name by their lack of respect, another concept we have almost forgotten (Unless it is a conscious decision to identify with a population where such dress is standard.). While many Christians have largely succumbed to the secular demand for separation of religion from both politics, government and the market place in general, Muslims boldly march into the market place with religion up front, even with Muslim banks. In contrast, we deride such banks that uphold moral standards that go beyond the financial bottom line.  When Muslims speak mission, they do not talk merely of church planting; they actively claim the entire world for God.  To the descendants of those early pioneers I ask, “Does this sound familiar to you?  Are you reminded of some things from your background?  Might you even experience some slight twangs of conscience?”

Muslims serve to remind us of the need to re-install God in our daily lives at every level. I should put it differently, for God does not need to be re-installed, for He is there and everywhere, whether we are conscious of Him or not.  He needs to be re-installed in our consciousness. Islam reminds us of that.

We Reformed ought to respect them for it, observe them, listen to them and be reminded once again of our roots.  Perhaps we can even cooperate with them at selected fronts.  

Islam a Threat to Christianity and West?

Post 21--:

Before reading this post, please reread the introductory paragraphs to Post 19. That introduction holds for this one as well. Though in most of these posts, my main reading target consists of Muslims and others interested in Islam, in this series I am addressing Canadian Christians and their concerns about Islam. But you, my Muslim friends, feel free to read and consider. Reading this series of posts originally published in Christian Courier (CC) may help you understand your Christian neighbour a bit better.

In a 2002 “Identity Statement,” my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) identified secularism, not Islam, as “the primary enemy.” This is supported by a statement of the Reformed Ecumenical Council of 1991 as well as by Reformational or Kuyperian philosopher, Bennie van der Walt. The reason for this view is that, if you will permit me a Dutchism, Islam comes in wooden shoes, while secularism sneaks up on you in socks. Wooden shoes clatter; you can hear them clearly. Anyone coming up from behind you cannot possibly hide himself. But you can’t hear someone sneaking up behind you in socks. Islam is the wooden shoes that makes its presence known everywhere. Secularism is a sock; it sneaks up on you. It is so interwoven in Western culture that we have largely become immune to its effects in our minds and hearts.

Islam is a threat in some way, but not the most dangerous one. Various forms of Islam are indeed threatening the West for a number of reasons. I have in mind here mainly Fundamentalist, militant and terrorist versions.

Secularism has created a spiritual vacuum in this culture and has blinded Westerners to the essence of religion. If it were not for secularism, Islam would not have made the inroads it has in the West. And to the extent that secularism has made its inroads, to that extent we are handicapped in our response to Islam. Secularism has led its adherents to assume that Muslims coming to the West would become ”reasonable” like the rest of us! That is, become secular like us. Forgive my bluntness, but I consider this a “stupid” approach by which a certain ignorant “philosopher-king” shaped our multicultural philosophy on which subsequent emigration policies were based. Designing a national policy on basis of ignorance is dangerous and thus a threat, a threat even to the very secularism that welcomed those Muslims. Too bad dead philosopher kings are beyond the reach of earthly judges!--except of course of self-appointed ones, like myself.

Terrorism of any stripe among us, whether intellectual or violent, is an undeniable threat to all of us. The creeping influence of Wahabism and the presence of other forms of intolerant militant fundamentalism, sometimes in the form of violent hidden cell groups, are dangerous. They inculcate intolerance and hate in their schools in the West, especially Europe and the USA. They plan violent attacks on innocent crowds. Antonides has done well to warn us in his CC articles.

More moderate forms of Islam reject violence and have said so repeatedly. Their approach includes a philosophy of mission that will use all the tools of Western democracy to infiltrate our entire culture, especially Canada’s human rights instruments. They are supported in this effort with oil money from Muslim governments and by the efforts of the Organisation of Islamic Conference via the UN. They target especially Western concepts of freedom of speech under the guise of protecting their religion. There is an undeniable threat component to our Canadian secularism as well as to legitimate Christian activity in their legally legitimate approach.

I have been a missionary for 30 years in a country with over 60 million Muslims. Those Muslims consider Christian missions a dangerous threat, especially because they associate it with colonialism and its aftermath—and they are partially right. Most missionaries do not understand the legitimacy of this charge and do not consider themselves a threat to anyone. If it is legitimate for Christians to send missionaries to Muslim countries, then it is also legitimate for Muslims to do their mission work among us, even if we also tend to identify theirs with a kind of Muslim imperialism. So, is their legitimate mission a threat?

I would rather think of the da'wah mission of moderate mainstream Islam as a challenge, a serious challenge. Our challenge is not to prevent them from carrying out their mission. Rather, it is for us to cleanse ourselves from our secularism and once again read the Bible afresh, with an open spirit not restricted by the dictates of our Western worldview. That way we may begin to acknowledge our own imperialistic history and what our countries have done and continue to do among Muslims. This cleansing above should lead us to demand that our governments and corporations reshape our relationships with the Muslim world on basis of justice and equality for all people and to quit supporting oppressive regimes for the sake of oil.

Yes, some Muslims present us with threats; others, with challenges. Imperialistic and missionary urges have always driven Islam. However, the West has been equally imperialistic and missionary with respect to the Muslim world. We should recognize that their current hostility towards us is at least partially a response to our imperialism. We have evoked it. We are seen as a threat to them as well!

I do believe that Islam is a threat to the West as it is. It is generally acknowledged that the West is drifting away from its religious, historical and cultural foundation and is left with a spiritual and cultural vacuum that Islam is rushing in to fill. Its leaders are adept at using the democratic institutions of the West for their own ends.

The West is built on a bubble that could burst anytime. Insufficient births coupled with abortion, collapse of the family structure, loss of sexual restraint and modesty, rape of the environment, outrageous materialism, a culture of entitlement and human rights devoid of any degree of responsibility, extremely high pay for less work, political correctness—all these and more will lead to collapse if allowed to continue. Muslim leaders are watching it happen from the sidelines and in the meantime preparing their community for what seems to some as the inevitable. It has happened before. Why can it not happen again?

Islam is definitely a threat to Western Christianity in so far as the latter is defined in terms of the current church institutions without a vibrant faith and personal commitment that come from being born again. People are dropping church membership by the droves. The original ancient Christian world has been overtaken by Muslims long ago with few traces left of the Christian church that once thrived there. With hardly any exception, wherever the Christian faith has had no roots in the hearts of the common people, Islam has been able to supplant it. It is poised to do it again, this time in the heartland of the former Christendom, not with the sword, according to Ghadafi, but with the womb.

It is impossible to predict the future or God’s plans. He has created unexpected revival of His people before and He can do it again. No reason to reject that possibility. In fact, we should pray for such a revival. Expect it even. But such a revival, to be effective, needs to move beyond the so-called spiritual to wholistic reformation across the entire culture, including but reaching beyond the family by reducing abortion and divorce, restoring our sexual mores and modesty, accepting more realistic incomes and “lower” our standard of living, healthy politics. Islam challenges Christians to do that. Islam is a challenge to Christians, more than a threat.

Canadian Press Owns up to Muslim Persecution of Christians

Post 15—

While the media, especially the Canadian press, is quick to publish reports and discussions about discrimination against Muslims in Canada itself, the USA or in Europe, that same press is remarkably silent about discrimination or, worse, persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries. Sometimes such persecution is due to government policy; sometimes, simply to the local citizens, often with the connivance of government agencies like police and court. Today, such persecution is due to Muslim angry reactions to Western violation of their sovereignty and interference in their affairs. Whatever the reason, no one can deny that such persecution is widespread in these countries, for in the previous two posts we record government acknowledgements of this tragic phenomenon.

So, it is a relief to note that there are signs the media may be opening up to reports about the persecution of Christians. The past few posts seem to indicate that there is some relief in this area. Another recent indication is a guest editorial in the Vancouver Sun (Nov. 17, 2010) borrowed from The Calgary Herald. The opening salvo: “Respect for religious beliefs is supposedly a universal value applicable to all faiths, making the world’s silence on recent attacks directed at Christians so puzzling, and so very unacceptable.” Then: “This lack of action is especially lopsided considering the willingness of governments and organizations to attack anyone offering insults to Muslims.” The article then goes on to catalogue a whole series of cases of persecution against Christians by Muslim. I should really summarize each case the article reports on, but I will spare my Muslim friends the embarrassment. The writer of the editorial writes, “Not one of these incidents has garnered even a fraction of the attention the proposed Qur’an burning caused. This begs the question: Why?” Indeed, why?

He suggests that perhaps this situation is “because Christians rarely riot in difficult circumstances.” Glad that the word “rarely” qualifies the assertion, for I know of circumstances where Christians have rioted—in Nigeria, for example. And if in the USA Christians do not usually riot, ultra-rightists and fundamentalists have loudly demonstrated and elicited Muslim violence by threatening to burn Qur’ans. In Canada, of course, Christians are far "too polite" to go beyond occasional domesticated demonstrations. Or would "too scared" be a more accurate description?

The Calgary writer ends his piece with a strong statement: “By cherry-picking causes for concern, governments and groups expose the hollowness and hypocrisy of their vaunted values. It’s justice for all or justice for none.” Hooray! Thumbs up for the writer and the Herald for bringing this situation to the attention of the general public as well as for the Sun for picking it up. That’s pretty courageous for main stream media. The last post contains reference to an article about Christian persecution printed in Vancouver’s other daily, The Province. Thank you, reporters and editors. Is there is change in the wind? Keep it up!

Of course, if the main stream media have (consciously?) suppressed such stories, there are agencies that exist for the very purpose of reporting on such developments on their websites., while others collect funds to support the victims of such persecution. For some reason they have not managed to penetrate the main stream media, at least, not in North America. It is time the general public become aware of them. This is not the day for me to bring them to you attention, but it is on my agenda for the near future.

The next post will feature a Nigerian Muslim columnist who uses some tough language to explain the lack of democracy in most Muslim countries and their oppressive practices. So, hang around. I’ll be back.