Eastern Christianity and Islam

More thoughts on visiting Islam...

I was recently asked to revisit a piece that was submitted in my local newspaper. It was a good opportunity as the original piece was quite sanitized of any attempt at critique. A local newspaper is not the place for such a piece. So I highlighted the positive aspects of my experience, a bit glowing, perhaps, but still true.

In retrospect, my conclusions remain. I have recently been re-reading the Qur'an and am still moved by its power. Yet that critical view returns instantly. I am unable to surrender my Biblical context and thus the Qur'an seems skeletal in light of the Biblical stories and their variants laced throughout the pages of the Qur'an.

The Bible tells stories; the Qur'an makes statements. The Bible gives the characters life; the Qur'an does not. I think it is this that is so troublesome.

The Islam I grew to love was the Islam of Western scholars, usually of a more "gnostic" bent. Scholars such as Henry Corbin and Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) dig into the "heretical" stream of Islam and it is here that I find great power and beauty. In fact, I find this one of the strengths of the Islamic current through history.

The power is found in the way the "heretical" strains of Christianity made their way East and would interact with Muslims as they moved out of Arabia and created a very fertile and living tradition that falls outside of the pale of both Christian and Islamic orthodoxy. It's more fun there.

I say this with a caveat: I'm quite "fundamentalist" in what is considered Christian orthodoxy. This isn't in a militant sense as I'm not about to argue with someone about orthodoxy or condemn alternative views.

But I can't embrace what are, from this orthodox perspective, many of the "new age" or "me-centered" Christologies so rampant and popular in today's media. They seem sappy when compared to the deeper things of Christian theology.

As for "my" Islam, it is probably because I maintain an intellectual distance from "actual" Islam that I am able to absorb some of it into my current spiritual path, not as a hybrid or in a syncretist fashion but as an appreciation, a little flavoring, if you will, to my current path. It still provides a viable critique to the excesses of modern day Christendom. Even the "free" worship style of non-denominational churches becomes, after a while, ritualistic.

Four songs, pastor steps out and gives a little "oomph" to worship more, the greeting/guest book, one more song during the offering and the message followed by an altar call and prayer. Same series of events every Sunday. It too is a ritual, safe, comfortable and yet still a ritual. It's the nature of any organized body and is a grounding element in the lives of human beings. Otherwise, you have chaos (and even chaos will, as science has shown, reveal patterns over time).

So Henry Corbin's Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis and Peter Lamborn Wilson's Sacred Drift or even Muhammad Asad's Message of the Qur'an will continue to enlighten in a way that very few Christian books are able to, perhaps because it brings into sharper contrast the Christ of faith, thus making it more clear what is chosen when maintaing a more "orthodox" Christian faith.

Revisiting Islam

I was asked to offer up reflections of my article that was published in my local newspaper, to add more depth and lessons learned of the experience. It has taken me right back to that time, perhaps the last time I can truly recall being spiritually on fire.

This isn't to say that I am not working on developing my faith, deeper and more practically in my life. But I miss the adventure, the excitement, the thrill of discovery and the opening up of my heart, mind and soul. For as confusing as that time of my life was, in hindight it was a time of great learning and growth.

I was talking with a guy I work with who was intrigued with my adventure and he made the comment that he was told that Muhammad was angry. Interesting perspective. I suppose we could easily find verses or traditions, isolated in their context, to support that view. We could just as easily find verses that show Muhammad to be quite passive. Context, baby.

I noticed also the fuss about building a mosque around the site of Ground Zero. We have made an idol out of 9/11. This isn't to dismiss the tragedy. This is to put it in a larger context. Other places around the world have experience tragedies to greater degrees.

But a bunch of militants penetrating right into the heart of America and destroying one of its prominent symbols of power or, if you will, hubris. Considering America's place in the world over the past hundred years or so, no murderous event in recent memory has been as symbolic, on many levels. Even the Oklahoma city bombing, by one of America's own, lacks the significance due not only to power of the imagery but to the religious ideology that has been laid on top of the act.

So a mosque at Ground Zero? Religiously, I have no problem with it. This isn't the controversy. The controversy is the politicized nature of the act. On one hand it is an attempt to heal this rift between Islam and the West; on the other hand, it reveals a certain insensitivity to the symbolic nature of what happened and shows a lack of awareness at the seething rage that lies under the surface of many Americans.

I say move it forward, see what happens. America is a free country. We are free to build a mosque at Ground Zero; we are free to debate it and argue against it. Such is the nature of the freedom granted in the ideals of America. If America is going to become a Muslim nation it is going to become Muslim. Whatever happens is going to happen exactly as it is supposed to happen. If it does become a Muslim nation it is because no other ideology is strong enough to unify the citizens of the United States.

Don't blame Islam; look in the mirror.