Evangelicals and Islam
I’ve seen friends and even family circle the drain of bigotry, and sometimes even go down. Arriving in that sewer where dehumanizing whole peoples is done by rote is a slow insidious journey bordered with fear and insecurities that slowly scratch away reason, truth, and adulthood step by step.
It starts with little jokes that become sharper, more cutting jokes over time, and proceeds to vicious remarks on any and every failing of that “other” tribe, real or imagined. It then proceeds to lies, blood libel equivalents, and sweeping condemnations of whole peoples, religions, and cultures.
Fearing and demeaning the other tribe becomes the bigot’s first priority, and they lose all proportion and ability to order their life based on reason. The adult ability to order their life or shop or even do anything becomes so difficult for them because of the rants, the bile, and the cursing and fearing of the other.
It’s always a good idea to intervene early if you see your friends headed that way, because once past a certain point the bile and whining become a way of life; so ingrained that you can’t separate the bitterness from the person any longer and it becomes too painful to be with them.
That’s why the bigots cling together in cliques and minuscule tribes of their own — like that viciously drunk couple in the dark corner of the bar who just drinks and makes ugly catty remarks about anyone in the club who is having fun, nobody else can stand them but their fellow vicious drunks. It’s not mead and honeydew they drink, but rather bile and their own blood as they eat away their reason. That’s why it is good that they are so few, it would be horrible to live in a society where their attitudes were accepted and encouraged, for in that society we would all be the vicious drunks in the dark corners of the club.
Richard Cizik, founder of a new movement of evangelicals he describes as “young in spirit” (the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good) gave some clues as he spoke Monday. Quoting from a post-2010 election survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, he noted that while 45 percent of Americans said they thought the values of Islam are at odds with American values, the figure was much higher (57 percent) for white evangelicals who responded to the survey. This was the highest recorded percentage among the defined groups (Catholics followed with 53 percent). We must, Cizik said, combat the lurking and dangerous idea that Islam is the new “evil empire”.
So last weekend’s event, which builds on a several-year partnership with the Moroccan government, was intended to eliminate some of the mistaken ideas, to build a sense of a shared common interest, and to dig into some topics that generate both misunderstandings and genuine disagreement.
Nuclear threats, the perils of climate change and terrorism were discussed as common, shared interests, and it did not prove difficult to establish the sense that there is indeed a shared concern.