Break Fast

Sometimes when I watch people of other faiths live out their rituals and practices, I feel inadequate, like my faith is nullified by my lack of piety.

Case in point: A few weeks ago I went to an iftar celebration at the Istanbul Center, a cultural institution in Atlanta that a missionary here described to me as a sort of "soft power" way for Muslims from Turkey to introduce their views into the community.

The iftar is the breaking of the daily fast during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is observed during the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. During the entire month, Muslims abstain from food, drink and sex during daylight hours. When the sun goes down, everyone gets together and eats a meal to celebrate the passing of a God-filled day.

You see, the idea behind Ramadan is that by forgoing bodily necessities, the practitioner is able to wean himself from self-dependence and focus more on devotion toward God. The idea is basically the same as Christian fasting: giving things up makes us realize how much they detract from our worship of God. Not eating makes us focus on Jesus as our food, just like he said we should do.

In Islam, the Qur'an requires that worshippers pray five times per day toward the holy city of Mecca. During Ramadan, they are expected to observe this minimum prayer threshold and even up the ante a bit. All the extra time that could have been spent eating is often devoted to what Muslims sometimes call "remembrance"of God through prayer.

Sins, already considered intolerable on normal days, are especially frowned upon during Ramadan. The facilitator at the Istanbul center read us a verse (or ayat) from the Qur'an that basically showed how God does not consider your hunger or thirst worthwhile if you're showing no regard for his commands. I see this as an echo of Jesus' call to avoid becoming like the Pharisees, who always wanted to pad their pride by making it obvious when they were fasting. To fast for personal gain - just like sinning while fasting - is a negation of the promise that the ritual represents.

The outside observer might assume that the special Ramadan month and the Islamic faith in general imposes considerable obligations on the adherent. That observer would be right, but it's the same in Christianity, and I think both are beautiful in that they point to this basic tenet: Loving God requires obedience, which often requires submission.

But here is where I get the most troubled about this whole thing. As far as I understand Islam, under its system the believer can never really tell whether he or she is saved. You can say the shahada, that there is no God but God and that Muhammad is his messenger, but that proclamation is not a fail-safe formula for salvation. Works and faith are needed to escape the great wrath of God.

To complicate matters, Islam has no doctrine of Original Sin. Instead of being an ingrained condition as it is in Christianity, people are considered inherently good, but they sin when they fail to remember God, when the devil draws them from the right path with his crafty temptations.

So, in my outsider's view, the act of faith in Islam is never a cold-turkey turn from death to life or the regeneration of spirit through grace that Christians believe occurs when we trust Jesus to repair our broken relationship with God through his sacrifice. In Islam it seems that salvation is always a guessing game, and those dreaded scales that weigh our deeds must be appeased.

Which brings me to my point (putting aside the question of how "backslidden" one must be to lose his Christian salvation or validate that it was never real in the first place). If Muslims can love God enough to sacrifice him even as they (on some level) try to earn his approval, shouldn't Christians, who have supposedly already received an unconditional pardon through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, be able to give up a few things for God?

Jesus said that if we love him we'll keep his commands. I feel like I love him, but in my experience, the second part is of that statement is much more difficult act out. But maybe that's the beauty of how we Christians believe that God dreamed it up. My lack of piety doesn't nullify my faith. It shows why I needed in the first place, why I keep returning to it when the scales aren't tipping in my favor. And that trust is the key to salvation. As the Bible says, perfect love casts out fear.

I welcome any corrections in the comments on this site about my interpretations of Muslim belief. I want to get it right, and I've been careful here to say "as I understand" as much as possible.

Captions: A tour through this mosque in Amman, Jordan, gave me a new appreciation for Muslim architecture - and modesty. I wore shorts that day and was forced to wear robes like the women.

Left: Ever wondered how people determine the direction of Mecca from 30,000 feet in the air? This screen is your answer.

Historic Chinese Religious Delegation Visits Atlanta

The first-ever American-Chinese Multi-Faith Religious Exchange brought top leaders from China’s five government-recognized religions—Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam and Protestantism—to Atlanta last week for four days of meetings with government, civic and religious leaders.

The trip was organized by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group of about 3,000 churches and individuals that conducts evangelistic and community-building efforts all over the world. The difference between CBF and many other Christian groups with regard to China is that it works in conjunction with the Communist government rather than with underground house churches.

Covering the delegation for GlobalAtlanta, I was able to meet Gao Feng, president of the China Christian Council. His organization is the umbrella group that supports all the government-registered Protestant churches in China. To talk with him for 15 minutes was an amazing experience for me. I have long read about his organization and its partner, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in books about Chinese Christianity, and now I have his business card.

Read the full story here. More about the forum and CBF to come.

Photo: Gao Feng

The War on Passivity

Strange how great friendships work. I've seen my friend Chuck only a handful of times in the past few years. Since 2004, we've gone to Jordan and Panama together, and it seems that our paths cross only when one or both of us is traveling.

Building up men is the keystone of Chuck's ministry. When I was in Panama for business in May, he was coincidentally there to lead a men's retreat. I met with him in a small Panamanian church, where a small circle of men had gathered to pray for the weekend event. He humbly asked God to work in spite of his weakness, and he specifically requested that God shake the men of the church from passivity and awaken them into the fierce battle for which they were called. The prayer was refreshing for a variety of reasons. For one, it was in English and I could understand it. Also, as I listened, it touched me with its candor and relevance. Men, including myself, too often allow the tides of the world to carry them and lose the dominion and life that God offers through that strange combination he requires: personal fortitude and reliance on him.

Chuck despises the idea of passivity and does his best to live by design, insomuch as his plans fit into what he believes are God's purposes for him. Usually, his thought process yields some dangerous adventure that make you want to thank God for safety and pack your bags at the same time. Last week, for example, Chuck passed through Atlanta en route to Dubai, where he'd catch a rickety plane bound for war-torn Afghanistan. He's reporting on the war effort, and gathering material for CBN features and possibly another book with Oliver North. North's first book with Chuck as editor, "American Heroes in the Fight Against Radical Islam," recently hit stores to great success.

I caught up with Chuck for a meal during his layover. While asking blessing for the food, he asked God to remove every semblance of passivity from my life. He prayed that God would allow me to lead my family with the strength he provides. Chuck's words are often powerful. He makes his living through speeches, articles and books. But he'll be the first to tell you that they're nothing without the influence of the Holy Spirit. For me, his short prayer was a whisper from God, calling me back into the adventure he's mapped out.

To check out the one God has mapped for Chuck in Afghanistan, visit his blog here. Check out his "Boots on the Ground" CBN news blog for the most recent updates.

The Real Aga Khan?

I recently wrote an article about the Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the supreme spiritual leader and imam of (some say) about 20 million Ismaili Muslims around the world. I hadn't heard of them before, but I found out that the Ismailis are a Shi'a sect mostly found in South Asia - India and Pakistan - and in pockets in more than 30 other countries around the world. The Aga Khan is revered as their 49th generational imam and is said to have descended directly from the Prophet Muhammad.

Although I'm not clear as to Shi'a beliefs in general or those of the Ismailis in particular, I know that the Shi'a/Sunni split originated in a dispute about the who should succeed Muhammad as spiritual leader of the Ummah, the Muslim community. Sunnis believe the Caliph, as they were first called, should be elected from the community, while Shi'as hold that he should be a relative of the Prophet stemming from the line Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law.

As the holder of such a pious office, the Aga Khan is an interesting character. He's not only called "Your Highness" and regaled with head of state status as he travels the world, but he also has a huge bank account stockpiled with billions of dollars gleaned from the offerings of his Ismaili followers. He's received countless awards for his philanthropy, and he founded and chairs the multi-million-dollar Aga Khan Development Network, a conglomeration of nine separate but overlapping agencies that focus on alleviating poverty throughout the developing world.



He recently came to Atlanta, and I was able to listen to him speak about education in an age of increasing globalization. I found him quite eloquent, and it was easy to see why many have labeled him a modern and progressive Muslim leader. He engages crowds with a light European accent. He gives off an air of humility, and he calls for peace and tolerance from his followers while encouraging them to engage with their communities for the good of humankind. He wears western suits and travels by private jet, a walking contrast to the extremist, militant Islam that many Americans mistake as the only interpretation of the 1,400-year-old faith.

The Aga Khan is a pretty popular guy. Nearly 1,000 people have viewed the article I wrote and more than 2,000 have watched the video on YouTube that we posted of his speech. Just so you know, those numbers are huge for our small, local publication.

But according to one reader all the way from Denver, Colorado, the Aga Khan is just a bit too popular, especially among Ismaili adherents. Although they are reticent to reveal this to the outside world, some actually call him God, said a man who made a cross-country call to tell me the "true story" behind the Aga Khan. While he refers to himself as the Ismailis' imam, the Aga Khan is an extortionist who demands the worship of his Ismaili followers and uses the amount they give as a gauge of their devotion. Believers must buy their way into certain congregations, and they sometimes ask the Aga Khan for the forgiveness of sins. The Aga Khan and his forefathers are carousers and cult leaders, according to the caller, who identified himself as Alex.

Alex claims to be an insider, a Bombay, India, native and former Ismaili follower who was chosen by Jesus Christ to be brought into fellowship with the true and living God of Christianity. He said he had personally bowed the knee to the Aga Khan and to pictures of him. His family made the same mistake. Alex said were often transfixed by Satanic spirits as they participated in the mindless incantations that he says are a regular part of Ismaili worship. But they never received the truth, and they died in their sins, without the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Aga Khan, Alex said, had "stolen the eternity" of his mother, father and sister. Now, Alex wants to expose the Aga Khan, not for revenge, but so that the leader and his followers might shake off their ignorance and come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

So who is the real Aga Khan? Is he a cult leader who earns billions of dollars a day by keeping people in spiritual bondage? A rich guy who does good with the offerings entrusted to him? A shameful liar who builds the legitimacy of his regime on the salaries of his constituents?

Whatever the answer is, I hope to find out, and I think I'm in the right place to do it. I'll be in contact with Alex, whom I like to think of as an "apostle to the Ismailis." And I live less than five minutes away from the largest Ismaili community in the Southeast, the Ismaili Jamatkhana (house of worship) on Dekalb Industrial Way. Anyone out there who can offer some clarity on the true nature of the Aga Khan, please leave your comments, and stay tuned for more...

The Kurds

This is the second in a series of profiles of international residents in Decatur. The first installment tracked the story of a Colombian now working at an apartment complex here.

Mustafa can’t read Arabic. A Kurdish Turk from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, where more than 90 percent of citizens call themselves Muslim, it’s almost a given that he considers himself the same. But the nine-year resident of the U.S. and co-owner of Café Istanbul in Decatur is far from fanatical about his religion. He abstains from pork, mostly because disdain for it is so ingrained in his culture, not because he really thinks it unclean. He says all the food at his restaurant is halal. In Arabic, the word means “permissible,” but it has come to describe an Islamic food classification similar to Jewish kosher laws. He serves it not because he believes it imbues his restaurant with holiness. It’s enough for him that it brings in profits from the consumers who want their food that way.

We had come to research the halal phenomenon as a business story for my job. Any city’s ability to attract international business will be directly correlated to its ability to make foreign businesspeople feel at home, and we wanted to investigate the accessibility of halal food in Atlanta. Café Istanbul is close to the office, and it was rated by a halal Web site as adhering to the dietary restrictions on at least some level. The food is amazing, and the atmosphere is top-notch Mediterranean. Customers can choose normal, Western-style tables or opt for a more exotic experience: reclining on posh cushions at low tables throughout two other exotically decorated rooms. Not ones for the status quo, my co-worker, Katy and I plopped down on cushions in the corner in a room with tufted, plum-colored silk covering the ceilings and half-walls and columns separating this middle section from the other two rooms.

After feasting on kebabs and other Turkish dishes, I approached Mustafa and dropped the name of a guy I met at a Turkish event a few months back. He runs a Turkish cultural association in town and told me he knew the owners of Café Istanbul, two brothers who were Turks but Kurdish in ethnicity. Introducing myself, I asked Mustafa to confirm what I’ve heard and told him that we wanted an interview once he finished cleaning a mess left by a party of 10 next to us. He was probably glad they were gone. At first hesitant to puff the hookah, one of the girls persuaded herself to partake by muttering, It's an authentic cultural experience, over and over again.

A few questions in, it was obvious from the rapid-fire intensity of his speech that Mustafa was a passionate guy. He was fiery, and not because he had just demonstrated to the big party how to really suck in and exhale the hookah's flavored tobacco smoke. He had an uncanny way of exuding intensity while maintaining a cheerful disposition, even as he volunteered information about the grave situation underway in his home country. The PKK, a Kurdish rebel group classified by the U.S. as a terrorist group, is fighting against the Turkish government from outposts in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Mustafa seemed to think that such extremism gives peaceful, loyal Kurds like him a bad name in their native country. “They might not like me very much right now, but I love Turkey,” he says.

Mustafa also loves the United States. He came three months after his brother Kamal, who while we spoke picked up Mustafa’s slack, scurrying around the restaurant wearing a shirt that said “Got Hookah?” Kamal had won the green card lottery, but Mustafa had to wait for his permanent resident status. When he first got here, he and Kamal worked in an Italian restaurant, but in a strange turn of fate, the brothers decided to visit a local Turkish restaurant they had heard about one Sunday night. The restaurant was closed, but when the Turkish owner came to the door and saw fellow Turks, he ushered them for some drinks and conversation. By the end of the night, Mustafa and Kamal somehow became the proud owners of part of the building that now houses Café Istanbul.

Now a proud green card carrier, Mustafa can’t believe it’s already been nine years since he first came to America. He already thinks a little bit like an American, and that’s gotten him into trouble on occasion. Some stricter Muslims have taken issue with his decision to serve beer—which is forbidden in Islam—in a supposedly halal restaurant. “It’s not their business,” he says, becoming defensive when I ask how he weighs his customers’ varying standards of piety. “If they want to be like that they shouldn’t come to this country. It’s a free country, you know?”

The back wall in Café Istanbul’s largest room is covered by a painted mural. A portrayal of a large, keyhole-shaped doorway topped with a pointed arch draws eyes to a central point in the wall. I ask if this represents the niche in the wall of a mosque that shows devotees the qibla, the direction of prayer toward Mecca. Impressed that I even knew about the qibla (which was originally pointed toward Jerusalem), Mustafa says it’s just a door, but it does have an interesting story. The mural’s painter, a friend, originally included an Arabic phrase above the painted doorway, Mustafa says, scribbling his best impression of Arabic on a pad. One day, a patron complained that Mustafa could not defame the Qur’an by having such words scribbled on the wall. Although Mustafa thought it was just a generic Arabic name, he asked his friend to come back and paint over it to avoid any more disputes.

The few fits of ire the restaurant has drawn pales next to the fanfare it regularly attracts, especially on the weekends. A lively night spot that features belly dancers, imported Turkish beer, knock-you-down Turkish coffee in a somewhat out-of-the-way Decatur location, Café Istanbul threatens to break fire codes every weekend. Mustafa shuffles back over to a table where he had been calculating figures earlier. Grabbing the guest list for the coming Friday, his index finger trails down the page, passing parties of 10 and 15. It stops on a party of 80. “And that’s just from 7 to 9 p.m.,” Mustafa says with pride. Halal or not, Turkish or American, these Kurds must be doing something right.

Bible Translation - Getting the Word Around the World

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, but the Babel debacle threw a wrench into the process. Since that linguistic diaspora, believers worldwide have been left to figure out which translation of this Word to rely on.

As is the case with most American Christians, I have more than a few Bibles lying around the house. I bought a few for different translations, but most are simply the product of years of accumulation in a culture where more is better and a scriptural surplus exists. This is not the case in many other parts of the world. Even where the Word is widely published, translations are sometimes disseminated with faithful intentions but little cultural knowledge or concern. (A domestic case in point: warm-hearted, suit-clad Gideons who continue to distribute King James New Testaments on college campuses in America.)

I recently read an article about the World Bible Translation Center, a 34-year-old organization based in Arlington, Texas, that focuses on getting the scriptures out to literate but little-educated people around the world on a conversational and culturally appropriate level. According to the article, the center has translated the Word into more than two dozen languages - including Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Yi - and has completed New Testament translations in 20 more. Such widespread production and distribution is an enviable achievement, considering the fact that the World Center's translations take almost seven years of painstaking study to complete. The Center puts in the effort for clarity on the front end so that those receiving the scriptures aren't forced to do all the work, i.e. making interpretations they aren't educated enough to make. "Responsible translation means communicating the meaning, the ideals, as opposed to the literal words," Ervin Bishop, the senior translator for the center, says in the article.

But some aren't so sure that this is the way to go. King James Only advocates believe that the Authorized King James Version is the closest approximation we have to the inerrant word of God. A translation that has been so well accepted for 400 years should never be put to shame, these critics say. No matter that scholars have shown the King James to emphasize the oratory aesthetic more than literal translation, and don't worry about the fact that it's hard to understand. God doesn't change, so why should the scriptures? they ask.

I see more than a few problems with such a view, almost to the point that I almost don't want to dignify this movement with a response. The first thing to notice is the xenophobia it fosters. One Web site says snidely that a team of scholars were assembled by God "to translate His word into the world's most popular language, English." This statement comes packed with all manner of insincerity, implying that English is the language of God and the Western world is privy to some degree of spiritual privilege. The author of the same article "debunks" the myth that we should go back to the original Greek and Hebrew to translate. One wonders about the lineage of the texts used by the King James translators. And by the way, although English might have been popular at the time, it's arguable as to whether or not it was the world's most popular language. Also, despite the fact that English has already started along the path to becoming the lingua franca of global trade, Mandarin Chinese boasts the most native speakers of any language in the world, and China has its own translation issues, as I point out in a recent post.

Another problem is one I think the World Center nails on the head. King James advocates, and anyone else who makes one translation their sole epistemological resource, value soliloquy more than the soul, the message behind the words, which are the skeleton upon which God adds the meat. Check this quote from the World Center's Web site, from Bishop again, "The Bible is the Word of God. 'Word' in this usage, however, is not the same as 'words.' The Word (logos) of God is His 'Message' conveyed to us, the people of the world using our 'words,' that is, whatever human language we use. This means it has to be expressed differently for different people."

The article cites an example that I think drives home the need for a reasonable degree of innovation in the field of biblical translation. The center's Arabic translation takes the word "Christian," which has a negative connotation in Islam, and makes it "Christ follower," capitalizing on the respect that Muslims have for Jesus while more accurately relating the true meaning of Christian discipleship. If such cultural concern can be replicated throughout the whole of scripture, why should we place unnecessary impediments to understanding in the way of those who could be seeking God?

In fairness to the King James folks, who I think are well-meaning but grossly misguided believers, the center of the debate is the extent to which we can become all things to all people (1. Cor. 9:20-23) without watering down or completely changing the essential message of the scriptures. With the wealth and prosperity message catching fire as yet another American Christian aberration, enough of that is going on already, and the issue is that more translations breeds less uniformity and more confusion. While I believe this may be a valid concern in a liturgical setting, it's hardly a problem in translation. Easier translations will give more people access to the message of Jesus, which at its core has to be received like a child anyway. And with more people reading, more people will discuss the Truth, and the every believer can be pleased with the end: God gets more glory.

Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets by loving the world. He reserved his sharpest critiques for those who were the most well-versed in the letter of the law, but had little regard for the spirit behind it. Although sometimes he spoke in parables to avoid being understood (in alignment with prophecies about him), he also used everyday illustrations so that common people - like fisherman, farmers and tax collectors - could understand the deep truths of God's kingdom. And many times, Jesus is cited as using Aramaic, the vernacular, rather than Greek, Latin or even Hebrew, which were all in use at the time.

The World Center distributed 2 million Bibles last year through missionaries and foreign outposts, but they don't only deal in languages other than English. The government of Uganda, the national language of which is English, is helping distribute 283,000 of the World Center's user-friendly translations to be used in elementary schools, the article said. As long as the Word is not compromised, I welcome the efforts of the World Center and pray that they will be used effectively for the spreading of the kingdom abroad and at home. I continue to collect Bibles from each country I visit to remind me that my language does not have a monopoly on the Word, and that (gasp!) Americans have no divine right to scriptural superiority.

To support the World Bible Translation Center, click here.

For recent posts on Pastor Bill Shorey's blog about the importance of using different English translations to hear the meaning behind the words, click here.

Photo: An Arabic New Testament given to me by a Jordanian believer who had been persecuted for his conversion from Islam to Christianity (left) and a Chinese Bible I bought at a rare Christian bookstore in China. Copyright Trevor Williams, 2007

Remembrance

When God won a great victory for the Israelites against the Amalekites, Moses built an altar. When the waters of the Jordan walled up on both sides so the Israelites could walk through, Joshua built an altar. Just before Jesus was turned over to the Pharisees for judgment, he instituted a sacred meal and said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

The purpose of an altar is to provide a visual reminder of the faithfulness of God, and every time we partake of the Lord's supper, we look toward our altar: the body and the blood of Jesus shed for us. This act of remembrance refocuses our hearts on the sacrifice it took to cleanse us from sin and helps us to look forward to the day we'll drink the fruit of the vine anew in the kingdom of the One who died for us.

So why does God put so much stock in remembrance? Namely because he knows that we are so forgetful. And when we forget how good God is, we often run to idols, lovers who coax us with empty promises but never fulfill our longings.

Right now I'm taking a class on the Qur'an, the Islamic holy book. Muslims view it as the physical manifestation of the uncreated, direct word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. According to the tradition, Muhammad did not write down the contents of the book. During the first instance of revelation, the angel Gabriel came to him and commanded him to "recite" the words he was given. The Qur'an was not compiled in full physical form until after the Prophet's death, when all those who had memorized the Qur'an came together and somewhat standardized it.

To this day, Muslims still emphasize memorization of the Qur'an, and they advocate what they call dhikr, the remembrance of God. According to my teacher, Islam has no doctrine of original sin. Adam and Eve's fall was a result of forgetfulness rather than outright rebellion. People are basically good, but they are also inherently forgetful. While we as Christians will take issue with the theology of these claims, one thing is for sure: When we remember the greatness of God, we are less likely to sin. Don't wait until the next communion of service to remember Jesus. Build an altar every morning, and make every day a celebration.