Loving Muslims Through Culture

            Conservative critic Dinesh D’Souza released a book in January entitled The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 in which he argues that American culture makes our war on terror as difficult as any American policy. Now let’s stop here and point out D’Souza’s mistake: to give any rational explanation for the actions of people who commit horrendous crimes is, in some way, to excuse their actions and blame their victims. America is no more at fault for the 9/11 attacks than it was for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Terrible evil is committed by people whose thinking is never justifiable.

            That said, should we look at their thinking anyway? There is one reason to answer, “yes”: we want to love our enemies. America-bashing by Americans is not a new thing. Favorite repetitions in the liberal press include the, “It’s all the fault of Western imperialism and greed” accusation, and, of course, the approach of blaming Christianity with its “proselytizing and intolerance of other cultures.”

            D’Souza’s book does something different. While radical Muslims hate America for its military presence in the Middle East, for its support of Israel, and even for the Crusades of a thousand years ago, moderate Muslims, if not hating it outright, are afraid of a culture that exports sin around the world in the form of television, movies, fashion, materialism, the promotion of freedom at every expense, and the marginalization of religion to the private sector. The Enemy at Home points out what the liberal American media never would: that Muslims fear our mass media culture, one whose god is freedom, whose bible is the rejection of truth, and whose morality is “do whatever you want.” In this sense the book is a wake up call. The simple truth is that the pornography you and I try to keep off our television sets or block from our computers is broadcast all over the world, not just to our homes. Folks in third world countries don’t know the difference between American movies and American culture (even we don’t sometimes). So they see us as the products we keep producing: violent, selfish, sexually immoral, and godless.

            Again, I think it unfortunate that D’Souza would call any Americans “enemies,” suggesting they share blame for 9/11. Jerry Falwell made such a claim and had to apologize for his lack of compassion toward the innocent dead. But why then say anything positive about D’Souza’s ideas at all? Because what D’Souza has done was also done by the prophets of old. They called sin, sin. They blamed the nations for their evil. They preached the coming punishment of God which He commanded them to speak. Here also is the major difference between Falwell’s accusations and those of Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel or Jeremiah: God spoke to these prophets. He gave them the message. It is arrogance on our part to assume the same role.¹ But God does tell us to preach and to teach. And for this reason it is legitimate for Christians to say that certain actions are wrong and the things we do as a nation or culture may be offensive, even sinful toward others.

            Even the most American loving of Christians can’t help but get exasperated when we hear people shouting, on the one hand, that pornography should be protected under free speech, and, on the other, that prayer should be banned from public schools. We know God comes first. How much more, then, will those who don’t live here, who don’t know that there are Christians in America as offended as they are by much of American culture—how much more will they be angry, afraid, and convinced that ours is not a nation under God?

            Fear and anger are no excuse for terrorism, but they are reason enough for Christians to ask, “What can we do reach out to those who fear or hate us?” Clearly we need to reach out with love. I was a member of a church in the 90’s that brought refugees from the former Yugoslavia to America when ethnic cleansing threatened whole populations in what is now Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. The refugees our church took in were Muslim. The church put about seventy people in apartments, arranged for clothing and food, set up education in English, and helped them find jobs. Having never been so helped in their own country, many of these people became Christians, not because they were preached to, but because of the love they were shown by people of a different religion and culture. Doubtless some Christian Americans should also go to the people in Muslim countries and show Christ’s love directly to them—this is quite a risk, but one many Christians have already made. As for those of us who cannot go, I have one more idea.

            I write about Christianity and culture. I care about American culture, about popular culture, media culture: books, movies, music, games. It’s hard for some Christians to see why such things matter in God’s kingdom. Here I think we see a very clear connection. If our movies, television, music, and fashion offend people on the other side of the world because those actions are broadcast all over the world, then maybe we can love those who fear us by getting involved in the movies and TV shows, the music and fashion and work toward changing the broadcasts.

¹ D’Souza doesn’t prophesy—he looks at Western media and documentation of Muslim thinking about the West. (back to reference)