Changing Faiths, Part II

Changing Faiths, Part II

    These days, talking about the Koran in the U.S. is a bit like talking about gun control.  Often, you just never know if you're offending someone's deeply held beliefs.  It is much the same when visiting other countries, for until you become aware of the customs and expectations, it is best to just play the part of the naive tourist...observe and learn, but don't offend.  With faiths and beliefs, however, the equation sometimes goes deeper and can hit harder.  Jokes one made find funny might truly grate against another person's emotions.  And this is somewhat how Garry Wills (a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who specializes in religion) began his piece in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books.  Not long after President Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, I was asked by a friend if I had ever read the Koran.  I was embarrassed to answer her, “No.” I have spent most of my life studying in one way or another both Jewish and Christian texts and practices.  It was ridiculous that I would remain completely ignorant of what a quarter of the world’s people not only believe in but live by (in different ways).  Jointly the two leading religions, Christianity and Islam, number over half the inhabitants of the globe—2.2 billion Christians (31 percent of the population), 1.6 billion Muslims (23 percent of the population).  By 2050 the numbers will be roughly equal.
 
    To add my own disclaimer, I have not read either the Koran or the Bible (although I've read a good portion of the Gnostic Gospels), and am impressed when people have memorized vast portions of each and can quote direct passages such as Matthew 5:44 or Surat al-Mumtahana, 8.  Regardless, the article pointed out many similarities in the two practicing books and religions (the author was raised Catholic).  From the outset I recognized its variations on stories I already knew—of the first man and woman and their fall from divine favor, or accounts of Noah’s flood, of Moses’s passage through the Red Sea, of Shaytan (Satan, also called Iblis) as a fallen jinni, and many others.  These stories intrigued me by their twists on the familiar (as in a funhouse mirror).  I should not have found this surprising.  There are many more prophets than Muhammad in the Koran: Abraham, Aaron, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Lot, Jonah, Solomon, David, and Jesus.  Even Adam is a prophet, with whom Allah formed his first covenant...It will be noticed that all the prophets down to Muhammad are from Jewish scripture, and that Muhammad knows what Christians sometimes forget, that Jesus was a Jew...Though some people are now resentful of the hijab, we should remember that religious ties are often expressed in shared clothing.  When I was a child, no woman could enter a Catholic church without covering her head, and no man could enter without uncovering his.  Sometimes the clothing is not normally visible—our Catholic scapulars (bits of cloth with holy pictures strung around our necks), or Mormon baptismal whites.  Many Christians wear crucifixes around their necks.  Why should we wonder that the Koran prescribes modest dress as a sign of community with the believers?...Some Muslim women carry the modesty code to an extreme by wearing the niqab, which leaves only the eyes exposed, or the burqa, which veils even the eyes behind a mesh, though this is a minority practice and has no basis in the Koran.  Even those practices do not seem so odd to me, since I was educated in grade school by Dominican nuns.  Their uniforms (“habits”) were evidently designed to obliterate any sign that they had breasts, or waists, or hips, or hair on their heads.  Their faces were tightly framed in starched linen.

    I've known people who have given up their birth faith for another faith, a difficult decision, especially in later years.  In many cases, beliefs are so strongly held that resentment forms (my relative lost his best friend when he changed faiths).  Some of this might be due simply to a lack of understanding of the views of others, something that likely affects even the casual observer.  Picture this (from the article): It is easy to get a distorted impression of the Muslim religion from the loud words and actions of their extremists.  Some attributed the September 11 attacks to Muslims in general, or to Islam itself.  The Gallup organization tested this notion in one of its most extensive and expensive international polling operations.  It mounted surveys in thirty-five predominantly or prominently Muslim countries, representing over a billion Muslims, asking tens of thousands if they approved or disapproved of the attacks on September 11.  Fully 93 percent of the respondents disapproved of the attacks, while only 7 percent approved.   Significantly, the 93 percent disapproved on religious grounds—that is, because of Islam.  On a side note, Gallup polls in the U.S. are usually conducted among hundreds or perhaps thousands of people...but never, to my knowledge, by asking a billion people.   But this was what I discovered while cleaning out the house of my mother, that there was an overall similarity in people, that of goodness.  Of course they want it, my mother would say about her furniture and things, it's free.  And maybe that was the case.  But still, a beautiful but unwieldy oversized desk?  A set of old lamps or old towels?  Some of her items were quite beautiful and showed little if any wear, while others were things even people at a thrift store would pass by.  But the impression that my brother and I picked up was that these things were going to people who not only really needed them, but to people who would really use them.  In our need-something-new society, it was refreshing to find so many people who appeared to have little, be so willing to help others who had even less.

    One comedian pointed out his own lack of understanding about the Muslim faith, saying that he had to note the contrast between a faith whose followers almost universally visibly stop and pray en masse some five times a day while we in the U.S. almost never do so, at least and nowhere near as frequently and not as a country.  In his sketch, he points out that the last time this seemed to occur (more or less praying together as a country) might have been after the attacks of 9-11, a surprised God being told, "America on line 2" and God wondering what on earth had happened to cause such a change in character.  Says the conservative author Garry Wills in his piece: I do not want to make my attempts at understanding the Koran become an apologia for it.  I am repelled by some aspects of the book—the acceptance of slavery, of polygamy, of patriarchy, of war—but I take heart from the fact that many Muslims are repelled by these things too.  After all, there is slavery, polygamy, patriarchy, and war in the Old Testament—and Jews have even more reason to be repelled by that than I do.  To understand others’ religion is to empathize with the problems he or she has concerning it...When I hope that others will sympathize with my religion, I am counting on them to hate as much as I do the systematic rape of young boys carried out by Catholic priests worldwide, and the systematic protection of these rapists by cowardly and careerist bishops.  That attitude is not “anti-Catholic,” any more than condemnation of Arab terrorism is “Islamophobic.”

    Why bring all of this up now?  Partially because many of the people arriving at my mother's were devout Christians, each attending different churches but each extremely respectful of the other.  The "real deal" is a description I would hear about each person.  The network was vast, but never preaching or condescending.  And it was much the same while I stood in line for two hours at my caucus, patiently waiting as the sky darkened and the temperature began to drop to near freezing.  But people were chatting away, a similar goodness pervading the crowd.   It was democracy in action, as blatant as a peaceful protest; and we were all both diverse and united, almost feeling the commonality that we shared in just wanting to express ourselves.  It didn't matter who we were voting for or what religion we were...we were all cold, all excited, and all just human.

    To be honest, I don't understand many (if any) of the religions or faiths, at least not thoroughly enough to say that I am well-versed in them.  I've attended the services of many of them, often only once; but perhaps if one added it up, I would have not attended more services than those that I have attended.  I've witnessed elaborate shrines and cathedrals, as well as pueblo-like dwellings that, even in their bare-wall structure, were equally impressive.  And in each, I have never felt judged or condemned.  And my feelings back were the same...there was no judgement or condemnation for my beliefs.  Perhaps I didn't understand why their faith was so strong, or how they came to have such a strong conviction, often in later years.  But it was their life and their belief and their faith.  The only thing I could see was the commonality, the willingness to help.  This wasn't the news reporter trying to turn the small negative incident into a larger group story.  Stand in a long line and actually meet people and those incidents are few.  Adds Wills:  Though Christians and Jews have reciprocating ignorances, I think we Christians begin with the greater deficit of knowledge—certainly I do. I knew really nothing about the Koran.  But those who do know the Koran have quite a bit of knowledge about Torah and Gospel, since Allah sent them both to earth before he sent the Koran.  They belong together.  Not every Muslim remembers that; but we Westerners cannot even remember it unless we learn something about the Koran. 

    In yesterday's speech to some 1,100 invited guests in Cuba, President Obama said this: I’ve made it clear that the United States has neither the capacity nor the intention to impose change on Cuba.   What changes come will depend upon the Cuban people.  We will not impose our political or economic system on you.  We recognize that every country, every people must chart its own course and shape its own model.  But having removed the shadow of history from our relationship, I must speak honestly about the things that I believe, the things that we as Americans believe.  As Marti said, “Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.”  So, let me tell you what I believe.  I can’t force you to agree.  But you should know what I think...I believe that every person should be equal you should under the law.  Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, health care and food on the table, and a roof over their heads.  I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear (and) I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faiths peacefully and publicly...Not everybody agrees with me on this, not everybody agrees with the American people on this.  But I believe those human rights are universal.

    What I found at my mother's was something I think and hope might be universal, something that perhaps was always there but something that I had been less able to see due to my own vision becoming cloudy.  Or perhaps my vision was clear and it was my mind that had become cloudy.  Either way, just as my drive back would prove, the skies were clearing, even as the dark clouds and snow chased behind me.