That one time an ISIS supporter contacted me via Twitter

The other week I posted a piece on my blog and at Sojourners — a progressive Christian publication associated with the work of Jim Wallis — about why Westerners join ISIS. The piece focused on some of the more sociological reasons Westerners choose to connect to such an violent group. The piece attracted some critics. Most notably, an ISIS supporter contacted me on Twitter to let me know where I got it wrong. 

@DarAlHaq, who has an ISIS flag and symbol as his cover photo on Twitter and regularly posts photos and stories from the front in Syria and Iraq, told me, “the article doesn't give the reality of why a young western Muslims wants to leave the comfort.” Fair enough. This is my effort to share his views and problematize my previous presentation. 

Many politicians, pundits, and everyday people are wondering why Westerners are joining ISIS and the answer is not singular, static, or straightforward. Westerners, who some surmise make up a significant segment of ISIS’s some 20,000 - 40,000 fighters, are joining ISIS for various reasons, but three categories of thought are worth considering — the theological, the societal, and the sociological. 

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

Theological

As I argued previously, there is a sense in which (no matter the political rhetoric) ISIS is Islamic. It is Islamic insomuch as ISIS’s leaders, and many of its outspoken supporters abroad, contextualize ISIS’s cause within a theological framework. 

Specifically, many media sources and ISIS spokespeople are explaining ISIS’s thought and action in terms of Salafism. Salafis are Islamic reformists who view their movement as a return to the roots, to the ways of the 'as-Salaf as-Saliheen', the first three generations of Muslims — the pious “predecessors” or “ancestors” of Islam. They hold to a literalist and individual interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah and a strict science of tawhid — the oneness of Allah. Their theological idealism leads them to contest and combat what they see as contaminated innovations (bida’) in Islam — such as veneration of saints, visiting graves, various forms of Sufism and Islamic mysticism, and even other Muslim schools of thought (an extreme view of taqfir, which leads ISIS to murder other Muslims they do not see as “pure” or “authentic” enough).

Salafis have a superiority complex, emerging from their understanding of their reform movement as a pure and perspicuous manifestation of Islam. As Roel Meijer said, “the basic power of Salafism lies in its capacity to say ‘we are better than you.’” This superiority bleeds not only into thoughts on theology, but also in terms of discourse and action. For Salafis, right thought must lead to right moral acts. Of course, not all Salafis are violent, but those who are — Jihadi-Salafists — theire superiority complex is on steroids because of the ultimate demands their philosophy makes of its adherents. This would be the case with ISIS fighters who go to Iraq and Syria and put their lives on the line for their brand of theology. 

Yet, to say ISIS Islam is too simplistic. There are too many other Muslim communities and expressions of glocal (localized forms of the one global faith) Islam throughout the world. Islam is a diverse global faith, which takes on a different form, with varying interpretations of the Qur’an and the tradition of Muhammad where the local Muslim community deals with dissimilar concerns about local realities and contrasting views on religious violence and Westernization. It is unsophisticated to simply posit that ISIS represents Islam or is Islamic in a general sense with no further discussion or clarification. As Alireza Doostdar shared via Sightings at the University of Chicago, not only is there great theological diversity within Islam in general, and Salafism in particular, but also within ISIS itself. Furthermore, he opined, “the view that one particular religious doctrine is uniquely extremist will not help us understand the cycles of brutality that have fed on years of circulating narratives and images of torture, violent murder, and desecration.” Theology alone does not explain the allure of ISIS.

Societal Ideology

This is where my Twitter pal @DarAlHaq comes in. His handle name means, “Land of Truth” or, perhaps, “Land of the Right” or “Land of God,” depending on the translation. He is, evidently, in search of the “Land of Truth” where he feels he can live out his faith without the corrupting influences of modern, Western, society. 

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As Olivier Roy wrote we underestimate just how much Westernization contributes to the radicalization of Muslims and other extremists. @DarAlHaq is not alone in struggling with how to authentically practice (according to his view of what is “authentic”) his faith and remain pure in a context he is convinced is corrupting at its core. 

In response to why he thinks Westerners leave “comfort” to join ISIS where “death and constant war” are guaranteed, he said to me: 

these young [ISIS recruits] are fed up with [the] West and its lies, they don't want to see Muslims die and humiliated. They feel the [sense] of responsibility to protect them and free them from [the] hegemony of [the] U.S. and it’s corrupt agents and puppets who rule Muslims and plunder the little food they have left. They are sick and tired of western life. They are constantly bombard[ed] by prostitution, clubbing […]. The young muslims who knows their religion love to live a life of piety and faithful muslims, but the society they they live in is full of evil and that is [why] they seek salvation and join [a] group who truly believe in the same goal they want to establish a society where there is zero corruption, full of piety and [a] high standard of morals. These Islamic movements offer them a structural society where God[’s] words are above everything. They believe in the freedom of people, [but it has turned them] in[to] animals [who] have no second thought as to what the purpose of life is.

Because of this, he challenged, “we are eager to meet death, but what about you?”

@DarAlHaq’s sentiments echo a broader revitalized, and reformist, call from many Muslims whose lives are fragmented by Westernization. They see “the West” as responsible for immorality, widespread death, and a loss of purpose for life. Their ideological interpretation of Western society leads them to join groups like ISIS who, at the moment, are the foremost adversaries against “Western hegemony.” In this way, @DarAlHaq and others like him buy into the identity politics of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” binary between “Islam” and “the West.” In so doing, they mirror the multiculturalists and “Islamophobic networks” in “the West” who and form a strange partnership with them in promoting the idea that “authentic” Islam is not compatible with modernity and vice versa. 

In the past, those who wanted to join anti-Western movements would have become communists, joined leftist political or military organizations, neo-Nazi camps, or trained with al-Qaeda. Now, as ISIS seeks to establish an “Islamic state” in the Levant and the Middle East these young men and women fed up with “the West” join their ranks to combat the society they feel is degrading and destroying their lives. This sentiment is not necessarily Islamic, but could stem from various ideological sources including non-conformist sentiment, leftist creeds, or even Christian fundamentalism. Because of ISIS’s Islamic rhetoric it recruits Muslims, but any number of organizations opposing the “Western world” (notably, the anti-globalization camp) attract people from other backgrounds with similar attitudes toward the unethical lifestyle of “the West.” 

Sociological 

As I mentioned in my previous blogs, many Westerners also join ISIS for social reasons. Most notably, because they are isolated and lonely. In his book Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, Olivier Roy says that in the passage to the West, Islam as a religion (and its practitioners) undergo a deterritorializing, deculturalizing, and destabilizing process that, both of us argue, leaves individuals feeling rejected not only by Western society (see above), but by their fellow Muslims. Thus, these isolated men and women go in search of a new ummah (global Islamic community, on the macro level) and a new local community (on the micro level). Enter ISIS. 

*To read more about this, read my previous blog, “Why do Westerners join ISIS?” 

This list of reasons why Westerners join ISIS is not comprehensive nor entirely cohesive. There are other reasons why Westerners leave their homes to fight in the deserts of Syria and Iraq alongside other ISIS recruits, ranging from the psychological to the criminal. Furthermore, our understanding of ISIS and its fighters is limited. My contact with @DarAlHaq is just an initial foray, but gaining further access is fraught with difficulty and danger. Thus, intimate knowledge of ISIS recruits’ motivations remains scant. Moreover, understanding why Middle Easterners join ISIS is an entirely different consideration, but I surmise that theological neofundamentalism, societal struggles related to the increased pressure of Westernization, and deculturalization, destabilization, and deterritorialization still play a significant role even there. 

Whatever the conclusions, the situation is complicated and in need of further investigation and fine-tuned perspectives that attempt to summarize the multifarious motivations for Westerners to join the ISIS cause. Without thoughtful and nuanced discussion we run the risk of oversimplifying ISIS and its philosophical compatriots, which inevitably leads to exacerbating the issue we set out to solve in the first place.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

Why "world religion Bible studies" are awful

The U.S. is suffering from a case of multi-generational and multi-cultural  religious illiteracy —what Stephen Prothero calls, “religious amnesia.” The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles. Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even our own. It seems, “[m]ost Americans remain far more committed to respecting other religions than learning about them.” 

To the rescue come "world religion Bible studies" that attempt to help Christians navigate their world's stunning religious pluralism.  The problem is, most "world religion Bible studies" are terrible. 

While most of the leaders of these studies start with the intention to help their parishioners learn more about the world's religions, the way they go about it usually leads to nominally increased religious literacy. Even worse, these studies often exacerbate pre-existing prejudices or presuppositions about studied worldviews. 

Granted, not all world religion studies are horrible, but many I've been to, or heard of (and, admittedly, some of the ones I've taught), were dreadful. While I confess that I'm a culprit of creating crappy curriculums for a "world religion Bible study" or two, I humbly suggest that I have learned the error of my ways (mostly) and want to propose some strategies to remedy the oversights of well-meaning pastors and educators.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

So, below are THREE REASONS WHY WORLD RELIGION BIBLE STUDIES SUCK and a few accompanying action points to make them better:   

1) Unschooled teachers 

The number one issue with the vast majority of these studies is those who are teaching don't know much about the world's religions in the first place. Furthermore, they are not in the least bit trained in how to properly engage in religious studies, which is a topic altogether distinct from the task of theology.

While teaching can be a wonderful way to learn, we should not feign being an expert when we really have not spent the time to gain expertise in one religion other than ours, let alone multiple world religions. And do not, for a moment, think that because you read one book, watched a movie, or visited a temple that this makes you an expert on Buddhism, Islam, Scientology, etc.

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This is the cover of a book I wrote on "twenty major world religions" in New Zealand. It isn't the best, but what was great about it was that I submitted every chapter to a practitioner of that respective belief system. They corrected much of what I got wrong and provided deep insight into how to (re)present religion. 

Admittedly, several pastors confessed to me that they do not know much about the world's religions, but decide to teach on them anyways because, "my parishioners are asking me to." Granted, you, as a pastor or teacher, are in a tough place when people ask you to lead a study in an area you feel you know little about. I feel for you. But then there are other pastors who took one class on world religions, watched one documentary, or read one book and decide, "My people need to know this!" and like a crusader gallivanting off to slay the pagan hordes they announce a study to equip their congregants for the spiritual battle at hand. #Facepalm. Maybe you are the former, maybe you're the latter. Either way, you aren't an expert — I implore you to stop acting like one. 

Nonetheless, I feel for you. The problem is that we pastors and teachers are expected to be weekly experts on a wide variety of topics. Every Sunday a pastor is meant to churn out a sermon wherein he/she expounds on a relevant topic from a deep knowledge of the biblical text. People listen to the pastor as if he/she is an authority on the given topic (marriage, parenting, politics, etc.). While most pastors (certainly not all) are adept at interpreting Scripture, they are not mavens in every field. It's unfair to expect them to be an expert on everything — especially religions they were not trained in. Too often we pressure them to act as if they are. Likewise, teachers and educators are expected to cover a broad range of topics week-in and week-out, even if their knowledge on some of these topics is exhausted within the confines of the text they use to teach. This problem becomes paramount in teaching on world religions.

With untrained teachers and unqualified pastors diving head first into a study where they are presumed to be specialists, but are effectively faking even basic facility, what most world religion Bible studies become are cesspools of collective religious ignorance not classrooms prepped for increased religious literacy. 

Sometimes, in an effort to sidestep an educator's insufficiency for the task, an ex-member testimony is favored. Oh Lord have mercy, this is even worse. Certainly, ex-members have a voice to bring to the table and their perspective is a valuable one to appreciate in our study of religion. But it is only one voice and an extremely biased one at that. Ex-members are ex-members for a reason. While they may not "have an axe to grind" they will most definitely present a prejudiced perspective on a religion they now eschew. 

Imagine this -- an atheist meet-up group wants to learn more about Christianity. To do so, they bring in a former evangelical who no longer believes in God to talk about their former faith. Would you, as a Christian, say that the atheists in that group necessarily got a fair picture of Christianity? Would you want them to perhaps balance out their learning with some supplementary teaching or a current member's testimony? If not, you should. Relying on ex-member testimonies or teaching is a sure way to get a skewed impression of a world religion.

So, how do we fix this? Three ways:  

The fix: Get an education. Take a class, keep reading, enroll in a master's program. Become the expert you are pretending to be. Even a few classes on one religion will equip you to better teach that topic. However, do not think that taking one intro class on world religions or reading one book is enough. Dive deep into one religion before you endeavor to teach it. Enjoy that process? Keep going deeper or expand your knowledge to include other religions. Repeat as necessary.

The fix: Study in the presence, or even under, the "religious other." While I do not like the fertile terrain for prejudice that "othering" a people group creates, the reality is that most Christians feel that Muslims and Mormons, Jews, Jains, and Jedis are "the religious other." They feel uncomfortable talking about these other faiths in the presence of "the other" (cue creepy sci-fi music here). So, they round up the wagons, close the parish hall doors, and "study" them from the safety of their own sanctuaries. As an educator, your task is to bust those doors down and make the learning environment an uncomfortable one. Bring in a Muslim to team-teach on Islam, invite an atheist to present their non-religious ways, visit a local mosque, temple, or place of worship to engage in experiential education, make your study public, or at the very least ask a Buddhist to sit in on your teaching to call you out or offer further food for thought. Yeah, it will be awkward, unsettling, and a bit "weird," but that's a good thing. In that environment learning is probably going to take place on all sides. 

The fix: Bring in the experts. f all else fails, ask the experts. Bring in a local professor or your denomination's resident religious scholar, anthropologist, or sociologist. As mentioned before, bring in a Buddhist monk to share their practice, an imam to elucidate their beliefs, etc. Shameless plug: invite me to come and speak. While I can't speak to EVERY religion with expertise, I can at least point you in the right direction or start you off with the right tools/perspective. 

2) The category of "world religions" is problematic anyways

Even if a pastor/teacher is schooled in the ways of the world's religions, what is a "world religion?" Most studies pick out a few heavy hitters among the sundry spiritualities that are held and practiced around the globe. There are some usual suspects that pop up in almost every world religion study. Here's an example from the table of contents of a self-titled "world religion Bible study" curriculum: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Bahai Faith, Spirit Religions, Atheism, New Age Movement, and others. This is a generous list. Another "world religion" study I saw recently (at a Lutheran church) sought to teach the following: Catholicism, Islam, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, Buddhism.... Yikes. 

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This was a fun study that we did at a local brewery in Houston, Texas. While I taught this one solo, I had people who were Christian, agnostic, atheist, "spiritual, but not religious," Confucian, and Buddhist come to the study. They called me out when I needed it. And then we had a beer together, so it was all cool. 

The issue here is that these lists, and most other scopes and sequences of world religions studies make three mistakes: 1) ignore religions and spiritualities on the periphery (e.g. Sikhism, Yoruba, Juche, etc.); 2) lump together multiple world views and practiced spiritualities into general categories that obfuscate more than they educate ("Spirit religions" covers a wide, diverse, range of religions/spiritualities ranging from indigenous religion to hybrid spiritualities, New Age and "others" is necessarily ambiguous, and "Islam" and "Hinduism" obscure realities that exist in the margins); 3) make divisions where they need not do so (is a "world religions" class the proper place to present the differences between Catholics and Lutherans?). 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

These categories, meant to help simplify the study or book (however well-meaning they are) betray a dangerous unsophistication when it comes to apperceiving and appreciating the wild diversity of religious beliefs and spiritual practice around the world. 

The fix: Teach the tools. For years, the archetypal format of religious studies tended to place different religious traditions, typically those deemed to be “the world’s ‘great’ religions,” in their respective silos and investigate them each according to some prescribed rubric based on the author’s own definition of religion. This pedagogical approach tended to dissociate individual traditions from the study of religion as a whole and, even, from the students themselves. Since, as authors George D. Chryssides and Ron Geaves noted, students “rarely come to study religion because they wish to be neutral social scientists or simply to describe religious belief and practice more accurately,” this method bequeaths a superficial knowledge of religion at best and exacerbated stereotypes of the spiritual at its worst. Hence, I suggest an initial approach that involves considering what it means, and looks like, to study religion from a disciplined, self-reflective, point of view rather than a theological one. In lieu of teaching the religions themselves, teach how to study religion in the first place. Teach how to ask questions, be a participant-observer, etc. The rules that apply to training apply here too. If you don't feel comfortable as a religious student, bring someone in who is. 

3) Straw man studies

Now, if untrained leaders and unrefined categories are bad, this problem is the Satan-of-world-religion-studies incarnate. 

I get what the leader of these studies is trying to do: help their flock better understand other religions so that they can witness to their neighbor, coworker, family member, or friend. Typically, the end game of these studies is to help the Christian better evangelize someone of another faith. 

Putting the issues of hegemony, colonialism, and arrogance involved in discussions of Christian mission and evangelism aside for a moment, such an approach in a world religion Bible study is bad for the simple reason that in the rush to get to "what's wrong with this religion" that we usually end up skipping over "what this religion is" in the first place. 

We either misapprehend, or misrepresent, world religions by presenting a "straw man" form of the faith  (a hollow, or sham, version of the worldview that is easily defeated in an artificial argument without "the other" present) or do so by seeking first to pinpoint error rather than attempting first to understand. 

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This shot is from an event called, "Interview with an atheist," in which I invited two local, prominent, non-believers to share their story in front of a Christian audience. We then had a Q&A session that was uncomfortable, challenging, and wonderful in every way. It was not a debate. It was not a "bash the atheist/Christian" fest. It was a charitable dialogue, and everyone walked away changed. 

Sabine MacCormack in her book Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Colonial Peru shared how missionaries in colonial Peru set out to comprehend Incan religion as it was practiced in both in the centers of power (i.e. Cusco) and in the rural Andes. In their accounts, they made two fatal mistakes: 1) by setting out with the primary purpose of extirpating (destroying) these beliefs and practices and 2) interpreting these religions through their own spiritual lenses. These approaches meant that the missionaries completely misinterpreted the religion as it was presented to them. They misconstrued myths, received a false impression about beliefs, and misread rituals.  All the while, the Andean beliefs and practices survived and even thrived, whether under the guise of Catholicism or out in the open, and often with greater emphasis than before. Setting out to eradicate the religion of the Andes, the missionaries misunderstood it completely. Too often, world religion Bible studies do the same. 

The fix: Study in the presence, or even with, the "religious other." Again, there is nothing better for our mutual learning and understanding than having a Muslim present when you teach on Islam. Give permission for them to correct you where they think you are wrong. Maybe you're not and they just don't like the way you put it. But, maybe you are. Have the guts to have a practitioner of the faith you are studying call you out. Assume insiders are the experts, you would expect the same from someone studying Christianity. Your study will be MUCH BETTER because of it. 

The fix: Seek understanding and relationship. The primary goal of your study should be understanding and bridge building, not apologetics or polemic. Before you call the heresy police, hear me out. While we often see our friendships with people of other faith as a means to an end, I am proposing that we see the relationships as ends unto themselves. Part of God's grand plan is a restoring of what was lost in our fall from grace. Part of Christ's redemptive work is to bring together that which was torn asunder. Understanding other religions, and building relationships with "the religious other," is part and parcel to the resurrective, restorative, and recreative kingdom of Jesus -- to bring unity and fellowship where there was disharmony and division. This does not mean forsaking witness, but it does mean not orsaking friendship for the sake of witness. Witness to the worldview, sure. Share your faith, certainly. But the friendship must endure, the understanding must be the primary goal, and the first step in evangelizing needs to be shutting our mouths, and opening our ears, to listen and learn.

*Was this post helpful? Hurtful? Have a suggestion? Want to accuse me of heresy or worse? This blog is meant to be a provocation toward deeper understanding. It's a beginning. There will certainly be revisions in my own thought -- additions, subtractions, and perhaps a crumpling of the entire project and a total re-write before we can, together, build a “strong, benevolent Christianity” (a la Brian McLaren) that can successfully engage other religions, spiritualities, and worldviews in a context defined by religious pluralism. So, please share your thoughts with me below or via e-mail. 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

The danger of crafting Muslim identities for our own purposes

*For more on religion & culture follow @kchitwood

The situation with ISIS/ISIL (Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya) continues to heat up. ISIS continues to post videos of atrocious beheadings of their Western prisoners (two U.S. journalists and a British aid-worker). These digital demonstrations have provoked the Western military powers into intense discussions of reprisals and concrete conversations about constructing a coalition.

*Read "Five Facts You Need to Know about Iraq, its Religious Minorities, and ISIS."

Amidst the flurry of emotion and geo-political crusading an interesting, misleading, trend has re-surfaced: the crafting of Muslim identity by non-Muslims for the latter's own purposes.

President Barack Obama's comments to this effect did not go unnoticed. He said on September 10, just a day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:

“...let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state.”

POTUS's comments echo those of George W. Bush who famously quipped in the aftermath of 9/11, that Islam "is a peaceful religion" (Nov 13, 2002) and that:

“Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.”

— October 11, 2002

Obama used this language before moving on to say, "Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy."

British Prime Minister David Cameron joined in with the ISIS ≠ Islam prose. In the wake of the execution of British aid-worker David Haines, Cameron remarked that ISIS "are not Muslims, they are monsters." He branded the ISIS killings and subsequent videos as acts "of pure evil" and vowed that the UK, "will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice." 

Cameron, and Obama, made comments about what Islam is, and what it is not, that allowed them to justify their actions. Realizing that the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric (the "West" versus "Islam") is not popular sentiment, nor is it conducive to building a coalition that would include Muslim-states and Muslim majority nations, the two Western leaders made sweeping statements about what Islam is, and is not, in order to vindicate their aggressive, military-based, retaliations. 

Response to Cameron and Obama's comments has been mixed. Many from progressive Muslim communities praised them for drawing a line between their peaceful faith and practice and the brutal extremism of ISIS. Many on the far-right of the political spectrum (and even some from among the ranks of the "New Atheists," including Sam Harris) in the U.S. lambasted POTUS for his "ignorance" concerning ISIS and Islam, saying that he "isn't qualified enough to say what is and what is not Muslim." 

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Photo: Shibli Zaman, Loonwatch.com

At the same time, a Twitter handle by the name of "Ahimla Jihada" (@Ahimla2), which spouted seemingly supportive superlatives for ISIS from an "American-Muslim woman" was found to be a fake. Before the account was shutdown, the tweets of @Ahimla2, which declared her devotion to ISIS and love for terror (from within the United States no less!) produced strong responses calling for her death and the killing of many more Muslims in the U.S. Shibli Zaman at Loonwatch.com lamented:

“There are dubious forces from an increasingly belligerent political Right who are out to brainwash, by hook or crook, the American public into hating their fellow citizens of the Muslim faith and to justify a foreign policy in the ‘10/40 Window’ that has tarnished America’s reputation globally and needlessly puts our men and women in uniform in harm’s way.”

While Cameron/Obama/Bush may be lauded for trying to distinguish between ISIS and global Islam and this Twitter scandal may be mourned as an attempt to justify Islamophobia in the U.S., they are both examples of the same error: Western politicians or popular pundits cannot be the ones to say what Islam is and is not. 

*Read "Does ISIS = Islam?"

At issue here is the question -- who has the right to define what Islam is and is not? 

Language has power to shape opinions and to galvanize people to action. These leaders and culture shapers understand this. That is why they use essentializing terminology to declare what Islam is and is not. By becoming arbiters of Islamic identity, Western leaders seek to make essentialist claims in order to provide powerful, and useful, rallying-points for their own agendas. In these cases, attacking and destroying ISIS on the one hand, turning on Muslims in the U.S. on the other. 

While artlessly defining Islam may prove useful for political purposes, it is not conducive to helping non-Muslims understand what Islam is. Concepts such as 'Islam' are not static. There is no fixed form of Islam that can be found or defined, especially by non-Muslims. Instead, Islam is a diverse stream of various forces, persistently in process, forever in flux, consistently contingent on changing cultural, political, ethnic, religious, and economic realities. Really, the language of Obama, Cameron, @Ahimla2 and others who want to say neatly that ISIS is Islamic, or it is not Islamic, is hegemony at work again -- colonial powers attempting to define the "other" in order to exert their own influence or power in the Islamic world. 

My concern here is not political, it is not militaristic. Instead, it is one of religious literacy. Islam is one of the most multi-cultural, multi-generational, multifaceted, and misunderstood religions in the world, especially in the West. In order to understand Islam, we cannot apperceive it according to uncluttered constructs or uncomplicated categories. Instead, the messiness and miscellany of the Muslim world must be explored. This will often mean meeting with local Muslims, observing regional dynamics, and listening, and learning, their perspectives on global Islam. Especially in the West, we need to listen to Muslims speak about their own community, from all sides, before we begin crafting Muslim identities according to our own motivations -- be they benign or malevolent.  

If Western powers or Islamophobes want to say what Islam is or is not for their own political ends, so be it. What I don't want to see is the general population getting carried away with a vision of Islam that is founded more in Western hegemony than it is global Islamic reality. 

Does ISIS = Islam?

Does ISIS = Islam? Does Islam = ISIS? 

In the wake of rising violence and thuggish rhetoric, many are re-visiting the common accusation that terror groups and rogue states such as ISIS are Islam and that any discussion about the varieties of Islamic belief and ritual throughout the world is smokescreen. The assumptive claim is that if you prick Islam it always bleeds terror, hate, and violence. 

Dr. Terje Østebø, whose perspective on global Islam helped inspire this post, is involved in the launch of the University of Florida’s Center for Global Islamic Studies. After The Gainesville Sun published an article on the center’s launch, Østebø suffered vitriol via comments, phone calls, and e-mails. Although Østebø said, “There is an urgent need for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the rich diversity and the complex dynamics of contemporary Islam," many of his critics found the need to point out to him — the scholar in Islam — that Islam is clearly typified by ISIS and that ISIS is at the core of this world religion.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

Unfortunately, these verbal assaults are too often accompanied by physical attacks as well as just last week, a man chased a Muslim American woman into oncoming traffic in Brooklyn while threatening to behead her and her companion. Every time I post an article, like this one, I will undoubtedly receive comments like this from Cowboywill46:

“Once and for all, will someone with a grain of sense admit to the world that Islam is nothing more than a mind-control, anti-social cult bent on world domination. ”

— Cowboywill46

To be fair, Islam is a world religion with a unifying foundation. It may be the Qur’an, or the holy book’s common language — Arabic. The shahada, or profession of faith that “there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet,” is universal in form — all Muslims confess it, it is what it takes, and means, to be Muslim. Mecca, perhaps, as “the capital of Islam” serves as, in the words of Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence, as “[t]he organizing principle of Islamic ritual and imagination.” As such, this Saudi Arabian city is “the defining node for a worldwide community of believers who are linked to the Prophet Muhammad and to Mecca and to one another through networks of faith and family, trade and travel.” Whether knit together by language, profession, text, orienting metropolis, or something else there is a unified, integrated, sense to global Islam and a shared cultural history. To be sure, there are not several, or even two, Islams, but one Islam. 

At the same time, Islam is, in the words of scholar Talal Asad, “a discursive tradition.” There is an ongoing debate, what Reza Aslan calls, “a civil war,” raging over what is orthodox Islam and where the boundary lines of Islam can be drawn. Islam, as a world system, is not static, but is always changing according to the various lines of its own “discursive traditions.” The tone of these various streams of thought about Islam are determined by local realities, Islamic networks, and by external global forces of economics, politics, religion, and culture. 

What do these localizations and various discursive traditions do to Islam’s shared cultural and textual heritage? Local Muslims, sharing in "global Islam," interpret Islam differently according to their socio-cultural, and historical, context. Sometimes accusing the other interpretation or lived religion as not “authentic” or “orthodox” Islam. This is why ISIS, along with killing Yazidis and Christians, also targets Muslims they deem kafir (unbelievers, or apostates) because of their extreme definition of takfir— those who claim Islam but are outside the strict boundaries of Islam that ISIS puts in place. 

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Today is the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11. Certainly, it is a somber remembrance and one with potent emotions and visceral reverberations in our cultural psyche. 9/11’s effect on our the U.S.’s interest in Islam has been a double-edged sword. While more solid, scholarly, work has been done on Islam in the U.S. than ever before, we have also been seeking to essentialize Islam in an effort to have manufacture a clearly defined enemy to combat. We want a clash of civilizations — Islam v. the West — but it’s not that simple. Seeking a “clash of civilizations” we usually end up with what Edward Said called, “a clash of ignorance” wherein “unedifying labels” such as “Islam” and the “West,” “mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality that won't be pigeonholed or strapped down as easily as all that.”

So, is Islam to be represented by ISIS? In one sense, yes. ISIS = Islam. However, ISIS ≠ global Islam. ISIS ≠ Islam everywhere. Not every Muslim living in the U.S., in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, or Southeast Asia is a secret jihadi with ties to ISIS, Boko Haram, or al-Qaeda. Instead, ISIS is an expression of Islam in its locality (Syria, Iraq, the Levant) forged out of a combination of contextual concerns, socio-cultural realities, and translocal forces of politics, economics, and religion. As such, it is competing to be the authoritative voice of Islam and, in many ways, wants pundits and cultural commentators to say that ISIS = Islam. 

Yet, to say ISIS = Islam is too simplistic. There are too many other Muslim communities and expressions of glocal (localized forms of the one global faith) Islam throughout the world. Islam is a diverse global faith, which takes on a different form, with varying interpretations of the Qur’an and the tradition of Muhammad where the local Muslim community deals with dissimilar concerns about local realities and contrasting views on religious violence and Westernization. This is why it is unsophisticated to simply posit that ISIS = Islam with no further discussion or clarification. 

After all, many Muslims claim that ISIS Is un-Islamic. Muslims in South Africa who fought for equality of all races after mistreatment and misrepresentation for centuries under Afrikaaner nationalism and apartheid and Muslims in Houston who advocate anti-gang initiatives and are actively engaged in inner-city education programs would not want to be lumped in with ISIS. They are engaged in a struggle, they share the same Islamic faith, but they are not ISIS. As Jaweed Kaleem reported for the Huffington Post, there is widespread disappointment among worldwide Muslims in how ISIS is often equated with Islam in popular media.

Even so, without any right or proper understanding, many will continue to try and declare what Islam is and is not. They will pipe up and declare that “ISIS is Islam” or ignore progressive understandings of Islam by countering, “but doesn’t the Qur’an actually say _______?” What the Qur’an says, not to be crass or offensive to my Muslim friends, is irrelevant. What is more relevant in this discussion is what Muslims say the Qur’an says. What ISIS says about what Islam is or what the Qur’an says is going to be different than a Muslim community in Miami or a Muslim organization in Indonesia. Muslims’ interpretation of their shared holy text is defined by their local context, their historical moment, their transnational networks, socio-cultural realities, and interaction with global forces.

If we are to understand Islam — and ever since 9/11, 7/7, and other terrible terrorist attacks, it is evident that we must in some way endeavor to do so — our shared starting point cannot be solely those groups that engage in terrorism, persecution, and barbarous bombast. Instead, we must approach Islam as a global phenomenon, with a certain sense of interconnectedness and unity. At the same time, we must come to appreciate and pay attention to its various localities as they wrestle with the shared international socio-cultural forces of Westernization, globalization, and transnationalism. 

Does ISIS = Islam? 

Yes, but it’s too superficial of us to say “yes” unequivocally. It has to be a nuanced affirmation, one that appreciates that as much as ISIS is Islam, it is also equally not Islam. In the end, we must listen to Muslims, and their various discourses about orthodoxy, Muslim boundaries, and authenticity, before we can come to any strong conclusions or make any serious political or religious decisions about Islam as a whole based on the actions of the few who take part in the violent actions of ISIS and its counterparts.  

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

What's it like to 'be both?' An interview with interfaith family pioneer, researcher, Susan Katz Miller

Every day, Americans interact with an increasing number of people from different faiths. With Mormon neighbors, Hindu co-workers, and non-religious friends, it is unsurprising to see a growing number of interfaith marriages in the United States. Indeed, Naomi Schaeffer Riley reported that just less than half (42%) of marriages in the U.S. are interfaith ones. Regardless of geographic location, sex, educational status, or income level interfaith marriages are on the rise. 

Susan Katz Miller's book Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family -- a book that famed author, and interfaith pioneer, Reza Aslan called, "a gorgeous and inspiring testament to the power of love...." -- was written with this growing demographic, and their families, in mind. 

*Pick up the NEW paperback copy of Being Both on pre-order (Oct. 21)

It also speaks to those who are in mono-religious, or non-religious, relationships. For those who  married within their own faith group Being Both introduces another world often judged, and nudged to the margins, by monochromatic religious insiders who look down upon interfaith unions. Odds are, however, that even if you married someone from your own religion, you are related to, or know, someone from an interfaith background and you may be interested in the dynamics at work or wondering how you might best bless your loved ones in an appropriate, and knowledgable, way. Miller's book is an easy opportunity to apperceive the blessings, and challenges, presented to interfaith families. For religious leaders, such as pastors, imams, rabbis, etc. it challenges them to consider a "pastoral theology" for interfaith families. For academics, it presents areas for further research. While Miller conducted her own survey, she suggests the field is ripe for more in-depth quantitative and qualitative study. 

Miller speaks from her own interfaith experience and thus maintains a positive tone throughout. The interfaith maven covers a wide breadth of concerns from interfaith family communities to coming of age ceremonies for interfaith children and their eventual religious outlook during adulthood. The book focuses specifically on Jewish-Christian relationships and is limited in scope when it comes to other mixed marriages with people from Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, non-religious, or other religious backgrounds. However, as Miller notes, she eagerly awaits the publication of other titles that explore the many varieties of interfaith families.

I had the opportunity to ask Miller some follow-up questions about religious fluidity, furthering the interfaith family conversation, and the future of interfaith communities in the U.S. Her answers are worth a long look: 

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You wrote, “[C]hildren, whether or not they are interfaith children, go out into this world and make their own religious choices.” That freaks some people out, why don't you think people should be scared?

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Photo: Susan Katz Miller

Americans are switching denominations and religions at a significant rate, and leaving behind formal affiliation to become “spiritual but not religious,” according to Pew Research. That is the reality of our current flexible and fluid religious landscape, in a country with freedom of religious affiliation. If you want your children to have a particular religious identity, your best strategy is to raise them with that singular identity. So if both parents agree that they want to raise the child in that religion, fine, go for it. But if you have two religions represented in the family, or one religion and one secular worldview, my point is that you cannot simply ignore the second worldview. This child grows up knowing and loving people with two different sets of practices, two belief systems. I believe that this gives them a certain proclivity for universalism, bridge-building, and peacemaking, which I see as an advantage in life, and good for the world. Our complex world is now interconnected by media and internet, shrinking rapidly in terms of our ability to interact in real time. Children who span the traditional cultural, ethnic, racial and religious boundaries have a head start in becoming the cultural translators and diplomats who can help us to make this complex world a peaceful one. 

What’s been the reception of the book?  

This has been a year filled with exhilarating conversations. I have spoken to rooms packed with parents, with college students, with interfaith dialogue groups, and to a room filled with almost 50 rabbis. I’m in dialogue with ministers and priests, Muslims and Hindus. I would love to visit every seminary in America, because clergy need to be prepared for pastoral counseling of the growing segment of interfaith families. And college chaplains, in particular, are looking for tools to help support students with complex religious identities, or in complex religious relationships. I can help provide those tools. Most of all, I am heartened by the fact that Jewish communities are beginning to reconsider the strategy of ignoring the 25% of intermarried Jewish parents raising children “partly Jewish and partly something else.” These are not families rejecting Judaism: they are families who want to stay connected. For instance, this year the venerable Jewish Daily Forward invited me to be on a roster of experts for their new interfaith families advice column, alongside more conservative viewpoints. 

How can someone who is not involved in an interfaith relationship better interact with interfaith communities and create an environment that does not marginalize them?

I would say, try to see that human beings, all of us, have complex religious identities. None of us fit easily into single-label boxes. Even if you strongly identify as, say, Presbyterian, you may or may not agree on various religious beliefs or practices with your neighbor in the pew. Each of us constructs our own religious and spiritual (or humanist) identities out of our family backgrounds, our encounters with the natural world, with literature and religious texts, with other people. People from interfaith families are no different in this regard. We simple start out with a broader range of family influences.

What is the first step for families who are interfaith who want to be more pro-active?

A couple getting married starts from a shared platform of love and respect, and ideally they have had deep conversations and have a shared position on the religious and spiritual life of their family going forward. Unfortunately, often it is the extended family, who may have less intimate experience with people from other religions, who put on pressure about the wedding, about the education and identity of future children, etc. Everyone in this situation needs to work hard to continue to encounter each other out of a place of love, rather than fear and defensiveness. Ideally, rather than a retreat to avoiding each other, spend time with extended family, sharing holiday celebrations and religious rituals without pressuring anyone to convert or to choose a particular pathway for the children.

What are the greatest promises, and challenges, facing interfaith families at the present moment? 

As interfaith families, we represent the extraordinary religious freedom and ability to bridge social boundaries in America today. This is both a promise and a challenge. My own experience, as part of a happy three-generation family, is tremendously positive. The challenge is mainly in explaining my happiness to people, mainly baby boomers and older people, who tell me “you can’t do that.” I find that young people, Millennials and in particular the newer “Generation Z,” often come from complex family backgrounds, and have a more intuitive understanding of religious complexity. 

Some may counter, “isn’t saying someone is “interfaith” like starting a new religion all its own valuing pluralism and tolerance, worshipping some polytheistic amalgamation of gods? Isn’t saying something is ‘both’ just some trumped up form of ‘buffet style religion?’” Respond.

Interfaith is not a religion: there is no specific interfaith theology, or required set of practices. Interfaith is a state of being that results from marriage into, or birth into, an extended interfaith family. The communities that have grown up to support interfaith families provide a way to stay connected to both religions, to teach children the history and texts of both, and to allow them the opportunity to experience religious rituals, when they may or may not be welcomed or feel comfortable in more traditional houses of worship. These communities also provide a place where families can experience their interfaith status as positive, rather than feeling marginalized.

Your book focuses predominately on Jewish-Christian interfaith families. You say you look forward to the books to be written from other interfaith combinations, but you wrote, “each religious recombination creates unique challenges and unique synergies.” Talk a little more about that.

I did interview interfaith couples including Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist practices, so in that chapter of my book you get a glimpse of some of the ways these interfaith families work. What stays the same is the essential role of respect, educating each other and sharing in ritual together, and working to maintain positive relationships with extended family. I can recommend three books that have been published already. The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks on a Mormon and Jewish family, Saffron Cross by J. Dana Trent on a Hindu and Christian family, and a new book, In Faith and In Doubt by Dale McGowan, on Christian and secular humanist families. 

What’s the next step in the field of researching interfaith families and interfaith communities?

My book was the first to survey and interview interfaith children raised with intentional interfaith educations. I think the results are tantalizing, and largely reassuring in terms of refuting the idea that interfaith children raised with “both” will be confused. But I am really hoping that academics now follow up with larger and longer studies on the spiritual and religious journeys of these children. 

For many readers, this is their first experience with the concept of an interfaith community. Break down an interfaith community’s core vision, purpose in three points:

An interfaith families community:

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What does a Jewish-Christian family do in December -- when both Christmas and Hanukkah are celebrated? The answer can nurture children towards greater religious appreciation later in life. 

1. Provides a “third space” in which neither spouse is a “guest,” and couples can deepen their knowledge of and respect for both religions.
2. Provides an interfaith education for interfaith children, so that they can study the histories, texts, beliefs and practices of both family religions in a program staffed with a Jewish and a Christian teacher in each classroom.
3. Provides a space for interfaith families to celebrate holidays together, talk about their experiences, and nurture children who feel positive about being part of an interfaith family.

You talk about the promise of religious "interfaith identity and practice" for individuals, the pitfalls for religious institutions. Expand on that. 

Many American religious institutions are struggling to maintain membership and affiliation, in an era when people are choosing to be spiritual but not religious, or choosing to be neither. Ideally, families raising children with intentional interfaith education would be able to affiliate with two religious institutions, for instance a synagogue and a church, in addition to an interfaith families community, rather than feeling that they are welcome in none. It is really up to these religious institutions to decide whether or not they are willing to accept children who are being educated about both family religions. When these families are welcomed, the couple benefits, the children benefit, and the institution benefits both in terms of getting bodies into the pews, and in terms of bringing the reality of our interfaith 21st century world into the conversation.

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