God was willing to suffer for people who sinned against him, people who used the hands he gave them to crucify him. Not only did he tell his followers, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44 NIV), he exemplified it. If he is the example for Christians, then Christians must be willing to self-sacrificially serve even their enemies, knowing full well that they may be killed for it.
The reason why Christians can follow Jesus boldly into death is because we are not worried about trying to save ourselves. The gospel is that God has already promised us salvation through his infinite mercy and grace. This is the synergy of Christian teaching: Christians can follow Jesus and die for their enemies because the gospel promises and enacts salvation, taking away all fear of death. This frees us to love everyone, friend and foe, enabling us to live according to the image in which we were made, the image of a God who is love in his very essence.
Combining these insights with what we learned in the previous two parts of the book, the gospel calls us to live and love without holding back, according to the image of the triune God in which we have been made, enabling us to follow Jesus, our Lord and perfect example, even in the face of death.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST: A MEGAPHONE TO THE WORLD
Ronnie Smith knew all this well, and when he left this world, he left it an example of a true Christian. What was most saddening as I read his story, though, was that few media outlets gave any clue as to Ronnie’s motivation for being in Libya. Here was a vessel of Christian love, and few were highlighting the source. But days later, the spotlight was wrenched onto the lavish love of Christ.
One week after his murder, Ronnie’s wife Anita wrote an open letter to the men who killed him. Its message was so transcendent, so otherworldly, that it stunned the world. She did not mince words.
To his attackers: I love you and I forgive you.
How could I not? For Jesus taught us to “Love our enemies”—not to kill them or seek revenge. Jesus sacrificed his life out of love for the very people who killed him, as well as for us today. His death and resurrection opened the door for us to walk on the straight path to God in peace and forgiveness. Because of what Jesus did, Ronnie is with Jesus in paradise now. Jesus came not only to take us to paradise when we die but also to bring peace and healing on this earth. Ronnie loved you because God loves you. Ronnie loved you because God loved him—not because Ronnie was so great, but because God is so great.1
Anita forgave the men who killed her husband. She forgave them because Jesus forgave us. She loves them because Jesus loves them.
Read that again: She said she loves them! She loves the men who ruthlessly took her best friend, who killed her husband of ten years, who left her infant son fatherless! How can she love those men? Shouldn’t she want to exact retribution? Shouldn’t she want to hunt them down and take from them what they took from her? This is a forgiveness and a love that makes no sense, that is unlike anything in this world. But as evidenced by the media’s response, it is a love that captivates the world.
Jesus and Muhammad led very different lives and were exemplars for their people in very different ways. The message of Islam is that Muhammad is the best man who ever lived on earth, but I think this world needs an example that is beyond this earth. It needs a heavenly solution, something that makes no sense from a natural perspective and yet leaves all who witness it with a deep sense of awe that this is the answer.
Ronnie’s death was the voice of a martyr testifying to the love of Christ, and Anita’s letter was his megaphone. This love can change the world.
PART 4
THE QURAN OR THE BIBLE?
TWO DIFFERENT SCRIPTURES
CHAPTER 13
THE BURNING OF SCRIPTURE
In 2011, on the first day of April, twenty thousand demonstrators gathered before the gates of a United Nations compound in Mazare-Sharif, a city long believed to be one of Afghanistan’s safest. Hastily scrawled signs carried by the throng bore clichéd reproaches: “Down with America” and “Death to Obama.” They were accorded little time to prepare novel slogans, as it was earlier that very day when worshipers had gathered at the local mosques for Friday prayers, that three imams sparked and stoked a flame among the crowds with one singular intent: Bring Americans to justice.
The people responded en masse, choosing the UN compound to demonstrate their unrest. Very quickly the demonstration became a protest, and the protest became a mob. Afghan National Police did not control the crowd, refusing assistance from a NATO-led security force. The task of defending the compound fell to the UN guards. As the crowds swelled and their confidence in numbers grew, some of the more zealous protesters began rioting and stoning the UN building. The guards proved powerless, and the situation rapidly devolved: Rioters overran the guard towers, toppling them to the ground. Wresting guns from the guards, they first began to beat the guards, then started shooting them. After killing four, they set fire to the compound and began hunting foreigners. The riot did not disperse until Westerners lay beheaded.
Among the slain were two Scandinavians: the first female pilot in Norwegian military history and a Swedish human rights scholar who had arrived in Afghanistan scarcely a month earlier. Additional casualties included the four guards, all of whom were Nepalese Gurkhas; a Romanian specialist in political affairs; and five Afghan rioters.
The loss of twelve lives is tragic, especially when we consider that the UN is a humanitarian organization and that those who join it often do so for the sake of aiding in foreign crises. But what takes this event beyond tragedy is just how nonsensical the violence was. The mob demanded justice from Americans, but instead they slaughtered innocent Europeans and Asians. What happened? Why did they attack the UN?
The year before, an obscure political activist and pastor from Florida announced his plans to burn the Quran “for its crimes against humanity” on the ninth anniversary of September 11. He became an international pariah overnight. Many in the media and government urged him to reconsider, as burning the Quran could lead to American casualties abroad. Under pressure from the White House, the activist asserted that, though he was not convinced, he was considering their words and planned to dialogue with key imams. September 11 thus came and went, and he did not burn the Quran. The media spotlight left him, the situation dissipated, and all went silent.
But off camera, the dialogues failed. Six months later, when virtually no one was watching, he moved forward with his plans. He held a mock trial, condemned the Quran on charges of violence and oppression, and executed judgment by burning it. The video would have remained in obscurity, like dozens of other Quran burning videos before it, except that media outlets broadcasted the video globally. Government officials, in turn, widely publicized their condemnations. As one news source reports, it was through Hamid Karzai’s denouncement of the burning that most Afghans learned about it. In response to the news from the Afghan president, the firebrand mullahs of Mazar-e-Sharif incited rampage and slaughter.
The series of events is so tragic that it is easy to overlook the absurdity of it all. In response to the activist’s claim that Islam causes oppression and violence, Afghan imams demanded he be silenced and precipitated the slaughter of innocents. The media, reveling in their denouncement of the activist’s life-risking behavior, put the limelight on him, thereby themselves catalyzing the murderous reaction from the East. The rioters of Mazar-e-Sharif, unable to discern between Westerners, took the lives of innocent Europeans. They stereotypically proclaimed death to Obama, the American president who has been most vocal in his support of Islam, having said, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” Of course, even having to comment on the relation of Gurkhas to this debacle leaves us shaking our heads.
But let us now take note of the principal matter: Throughout the series of events, no one doubted that burning the Quran would lead to riot and murder. This was such a firm
fact that no one even suggested otherwise. Not the activist, not the media, not the government, and not even Muslim leaders. Everyone knew that the offense of burning the Quran would lead to violence.
We ought to contrast this to a similar event, close in both time and proximity. In 2009, at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the US government announced that it burned dozens of Bibles. A military official provided the illuminating reason: The Bibles were trash, and the military burns its trash.
This bears repeating. The US government officially announced that the Bibles were trash, and accordingly they were burned. I do not repeat this to evoke sentiment, but to provide contrast: In this instance, there was not the remotest concern that any Christians would go into a murderous rampage because the government burned Bibles.
To further clarify the matter, let’s consider how the Bible burning came to light. The Christian soldier from whom the Bibles were confiscated did not publicly complain, nor did the church that sent them stir an outcry, even though the military ought to have simply sent the Bibles back to the church instead of burning them.
The announcement from the military was yet another attempt to appease Afghan Muslims. A news outlet had recently aired a video that showed soldiers at a Christian chapel service, and military officials feared that this would cause local Muslims to think that the military was there to evangelize. To quell their anger, imagined though that anger might have been, the military announced that they had been burning Bibles. They emphasized that they were so committed to not offending Muslims that they chose to burn Bibles rather than return them, on the off chance that the church would try to send them again.
Let us take note again of the principal matter: Throughout all the reports and government decisions, no one believed that burning the Bibles would lead to riot or murder. This was such a firm fact that no one suggested otherwise. Not the soldier, not the media, not the government, and not even church leaders. Everyone knew that the offense of burning the Bible would not lead to violence.
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE QURAN AND THE BIBLE
Why? Why is it so obvious that burning a Quran in Florida will endanger lives halfway around the world, even if perpetrated by an obscure activist? Why is it so obvious that burning dozens of Bibles and calling them “trash” will not provoke any reaction of the sort, even if perpetrated by a government?
I am not arguing that Afghan Muslims are uneducated and temperamental, easily provoked to mindless rage; nor am I suggesting that Christians are either too indifferent or too docile to be passionate about their Holy Scripture. These are both caricatures that miss valuable insight.
I believe the answer lies, at least partly, in the fact that the Quran has a different place in the hearts and minds of Muslims than the Bible does in the hearts and minds of Christians. Both scriptures are considered holy to their people, certainly, but their uses are different, their histories are different, and indeed, their very natures are understood differently.
CHAPTER 14
COMPARING THE QURAN AND THE BIBLE
When the Quran burning controversy was at full bore, my ministry partner and I decided to publish our official position on the matter: We certainly endorsed free speech, but we resolved that burning the Quran was a poor idea. Apart from being unnecessarily inflammatory, we felt it would be a more productive use of free speech to discuss the teachings of the Quran rather than to burn its pages.
But I had an additional reason for not endorsing the action: The place the Quran holds in the heart of Muslims is beyond the estimation of most Westerners, and so is the offense of burning it. There is nothing flammable on earth that Christians revere as much as Muslims revere the Quran. That is not to say that Christians do not highly revere the Bible, because they certainly do. But the traditional Muslim reverence for the Quran is almost inestimable. To understand this, we have to remember a point from the previous two chapters: The Quran is, to Muslims, the eternal Word of Allah himself. It is the closest thing to God incarnate. To Christians, the eternal Word of Yahweh is Jesus. The Quran holds in Islam the place that Jesus holds in the Christian faith. So let’s put it together: To comprehend the insult of burning a Quran, a Christian would have to imagine someone burning Jesus.1
Truly, burning a Bible is offensive, but not that offensive. Christians simply do not see the Bible as an eternal expression of the triune God. Christians believe that God inspired men to write exactly what he wanted them to write at specific times in history. Thus Christians believe that the Bible is inspired by God but not eternal. Once we begin to understand this fundamental difference, we will begin to understand much more.
Since Muslims believe the Quran is an eternal expression of Allah, they do not think that the Quran was written by men in any sense. It is the very speech of Allah, inscribed on a heavenly tablet, from which it was read by Gabriel and dictated to Muhammad. It is not inspired in the Christian sense of inspiration, but rather it is revealed: Allah revealed it piecemeal to Muhammad, dictating it through the angel Gabriel. Muhammad had nothing to do with shaping the text; he only relayed it.
This is why, as a young American Muslim child who spoke Urdu with his Pakistani parents at home and English with his friends at school, I was taught that Arabic was literally the language of heaven and the best of all languages. So adamant was my mother about teaching me to recite Arabic that I had recited the entire Quran in Arabic by the age of five, before I had learned to read English or Urdu. My mother was serious about the traditional Islamic insight: If the eternal speech of Allah was written in Arabic, then Arabic had to be Allah’s preferred language.
This reverence for Arabic underlies many Muslim practices. It is why Muslims recite prayers in Arabic, even if they have yet to learn the meaning of the words they recite; it is why Muslims are hesitant to call non-Arabic versions of the Quran “translations,” believing that there is mystical value and hidden meaning in the Arabic that cannot be translated; it is why some Muslims look for mathematical patterns in the Quran as proof of divine authorship; it is also why Muslims are confident that the Quran is inimitable in its literary excellence, as Allah himself generated it in the language of heaven.
Christians, on the other hand, are more than willing to translate the Bible from its ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into modern languages. Of course, it is always best to read something in its original language, because the original language may carry subtleties that do not translate easily, especially when translating from more nuanced languages like ancient Greek into less precise tongues like English or the Semitic languages. This is why scholars and students of the Bible prefer to read it in its original languages. But if someone reads a translation, Christians do not assume that some deep mystical value is lost, only exegetical implications that can be explained through study Bibles and commentaries.
By grasping the different natures of the books in the eyes of Muslims and Christians, we begin to understand the differences between the Quran and the Bible: The Islamic view of the eternality of the Quran affects the place it holds in Muslims’ hearts, something that finds a Christian analogue not in the Bible but in Jesus himself.
THE COMPOSITION OF SCRIPTURE
Each religion’s view of the nature of its scripture is closely connected to the history of its composition.
Since the Quran is eternal, it was not composed at a specific time. Rather, it was revealed piecemeal to mankind over twenty-three years through Muhammad. It is reported that when someone asked a question of Muhammad, or when he faced certain problems, he would start perspiring and a recitation would come to him. The Syriac word for “recitation” is quran, and Muhammad would pass this quran on to his followers, usually in small packets of verses. Muslims would then recite these passages in their prayers, committing them to memory. All these recitations were ultimately collected in a book and arranged in 114 suras. A sura can contain verses next to one another that were revealed two decades apart. There may be any number of reasons for its present arrangement,
but from what is obviously discernible, the Quran can be described as having its longer suras toward the beginning and shorter suras toward the end. In addition, Muslim scholars have made attempts to discern which suras of the Quran reflect revelations given to Muhammad during the first portion of his prophethood, called Meccan passages, and those given during the latter portion of his prophethood, called Medinan passages.
By contrast, Christians have traditionally taught that God inspired specific men in history to write his words, using their experiences and their language to convey his message. God masterfully used the speech of chosen men to convey exactly what he desired and has preserved that message through the millennia. The result is the Bible, a collection of sixty-six books written by about forty people over fifteen hundred years. The first thirty-nine books are called the Old Testament, and the final twenty-seven are called the New Testament. Testament is roughly a synonym for covenant, so the Old Testament was written during the time of God’s covenant with Moses, whereas the New Testament was written after God came to earth, upon the advent of the new covenant initiated by Jesus and prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31–33.
THE CONTENTS OF SCRIPTURE
Since Muslims believe the Quran was revealed via dictation to one person, it makes sense that it contains essentially only one genre and one perspective: Allah speaking to Muhammad. Although there are significant exceptions, such as the first chapter, which is the speech of men, the Quran more or less reads in the same manner throughout its text.
No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity Page 9