It was fairly said that the modus operandi of the Moral Majority and other Christian right activist organizations was often "Ready, shoot, aim." Over a decade ago, evangelical historian Mark Noll noted this tendency toward unreflective and hurried activism as evidence of a "scandal of the evangelical mind." The haste with which the letter, "Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to ‘A Common Word Between Us and You'", was endorsed by evangelical academics, activists, parachurch leaders, and several mega-church pastors is evidence that old habits die hard.
No one typified this hasty attitude more than Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals. Anderson confessed that while he was not happy with parts of the document, he was encouraged to endorse it by others more knowledgeable in Islam, because "there was simply no easy way to process the complexities of this inter-faith communiqué on short notice."[i]
His statement raises a number of questions. Why should we look for an "easy way" in the first place? If there are "complexities," then what is the rush? Why not take the time to deal responsibly with the complexities, rather than hastily signing a problematic response on "short notice." Rather than calling for a careful review by the church and parachurch organizations he supposedly represents, Anderson indeed took the "easy way" and signed on to a profoundly flawed document based on informal conversations with those supposedly "more knowledgeable on Islam." Ready, shoot, aim.
Since the initial flurry of responses following its publication in November, 2007, more careful measure has been taken of "Loving God and Neighbor". The document has received withering theological criticism for its assumption of corporate Christian responsibility and corporate Christian guilt for the Crusades and war on terror; for its failure to articulate adequately the radically distinct concepts of love in Christianity and Islam; for its uncritical acceptance of the claim that love of God and neighbor are at the core of Islam; and for its uncritical acceptance of the term "Prophet" for Mohammed (a designation no Christian can accept without compromising the sovereignty of Christ).[ii] Each criticism alone is sufficient reason to withhold endorsement of the document, or at least to give it more careful discussion and thought. Collectively, they amount to a moral and intellectual embarrassment.
In terms of political theology, the greatest failure concerned the issue of religious liberty. The Muslim scholars assert in "A Common Word" that "justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part of love of the neighbor." Given the theologically rationalized persecution of Christians and Jews in many Muslim-majority countries (where mere discrimination and second-class citizenship rather than outright persecution for non-Muslims is considered "moderate" and even "progressive"), the failure to call public attention to the contradiction between word and deed is nothing less than theological malpractice.
Had the authors and signatories to the Yale statement taken time to reflect more carefully about this obvious contradiction, they might have avoided the embarrassing revelation brought to light by Mark Durie, a noted Australian Anglican scholar of comparative theology and linguistics. Durie, suspicious of the Muslim claim that "justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part of love of the neighbor," decided to take a little closer look.[iii] And what he found was quite telling.
The "Common Word" letter from 138 Muslims was the product of Jordan's Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. Durie discovered that at the time "A Common Word" was issued (October 13, 2007), the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute had several disturbing fatwas-Islamic legal verdicts or edicts-posted on a website that it sponsors (altafsir.com, which provides free online access to a large collection of primary Islamic texts).[iv] These fatwas condemned people to death who have left Islam, including Muslim-background Christians. If these Christians are not killed, then these so-called ‘apostates' are to be treated as legal non-persons, having no rights before the law.
These fatwas, complete with justifying citations from the Qur'an and hadiths of Mohammad, were written by none other than Shaykh Sa'id Hijjawi. Shaykh Hijjawi is not only a prominent signatory of "A Common Word";he is the chief scholar of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute and was the Grand Mufti of Jordan (the highest religious authority in a Sunni Muslim nation) from 1992-2007. Durie notes that given his status, it is quite reasonable to suppose that Shaykh Hijjawi played a considerable role in writing "A Common Word".
Evangelical Christians might be tempted to overlook this as mere hypocrisy on the part of one of the most prominent Muslim authors of "A Common Word". But this is not a matter of taking the log out of one's own eye. This is one of those "complexities" that should have been more thoughtfully addressed in the first place. It is not something to be applauded. Indeed, the most likely interpretation of this evident disconnect between word and deed is that the Grand Mufti and his followers genuinely believe that the demands of justice and freedom of religion in Islam are not incompatible with persecuting non-Muslims, nor with treating them as second-class citizens or as non-citizens. Nor are the demands of justice incompatible with legal prohibitions on public worship, evangelism, or converting from one religion to another. If it were otherwise, all 138 Muslim scholars could agree without much ado to the religious freedoms enunciated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Evangelicals missed a golden opportunity to call attention to the contradiction between rhetoric designed for Western public consumption and statements made within, and for, the Islamic community. Rather than again pursuing "inter-religious dialogue", they could have taken the opportunity to publicly confront the theologically sanctioned violations of religious liberty in Muslim-majority societies.
Evangelicals could have contributed to the public debate had they offered up something like the following: "If you believe that freedom of religion is rooted in love of neighbor (assuming that Christians who affirm the Trinity and deny that Mohammed was a true Prophet can still be considered neighbors in an Islamic state), then please join us in a public endorsement-a "common word"-asserting the right of individual human beings to choose, proclaim, and change their religion without fear of legal sanctions. Won't you join us in a "common word" calling upon Saudi Arabia, Iran, and all Muslim-majority countries to allow the public free exercise of religion, including the right to convert without legal sanction? Won't you publicly join us in denouncing all those who have issued fatwas calling for penal sanctions for ‘apostasy'? Will you publicly join us in a "common word" to repudiate by name any past fatwas calling for the discrimination and persecution of ‘apostates'?"
Such a statement might well have been "scandalous," but that would have been a scandal worth embracing.
[i] See http://www.nae.net/index.cfm?FUSEACTION=editor.page&pageID=500&IDcategory=1.
[ii] "A Common Word Between Us and You" has an official website (www.acommonword.com), which includes links to responses. For a short summary of the theological problems expressed by evangelicals such as Albert Mohler, Patrick Sookhdeo, Mark Durie, John Piper, and others, see Richard Osling's article "Can We Talk?" at http://ricklove.net/commonword/article_worldmag.htm. Mark Durie offers a helpful list of theological reasons why Christians might not wish to sign the Yale statement here: http://acommonword.blogspot.com/2008/02/reflections-upon-loving-god-and.html. John Piper's theological objections to "A Common Word" can be found on video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTY-9FY13kw. It is worth noting that one evangelical who did sign the document admitted in response to Piper that, "It is true that I would not interpret Islam as it is described in the ‘Common Word.' I do not see love as being the heart of the message of the Qur'an." But he signed the document anyway, explaining, "who am I to tell Muslim leaders how to interpret their faith? If the Muslim leaders of the world want to put love at the center-as the touchstone of true religion-then we should be delighted." See http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1036_rick_love_responds_to_pipers_thoughts_on_a_common_word/.
[iii] See Durie's post on the "Apostasy Fatwas" at http://acommonword.blogspot.com/2008/02/apostasy-fatwas-and-common-word-between.html.
[iv] According to Durie, as of February 18, 2008, the apostasy fatwas had been removed from altafsir.com.
