As Muslims across the world celebrate Ramadan, they’ll be joined in their fast by Brian D. McLaren. McLaren, the controversial godfather of the emergent church movement, says he and a handful of his friends are fasting during the Islamic holy month in order to “come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them.”
At this point in his postmodern journey, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if McLaren were to decide to become a Muslim (though since he’d claim to still worship Christ, he’d be a heretic in two religions). I’m not being facetious: He’s actually hinted at having a willingness to make such a move. In his book A Generous Orthodoxy, he wrote:
I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts . . . rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on . . . To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are), to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord.
But perhaps I am being uncharitable. What say you? Is McLaren’s decision to fast during Ramadan an act of neighborly ecumenism or harmful syncretism? And how do Muslims feel about his sharing in their observances? Do they view his action as honoring their religion or as well-meaning but disrespectful?
(Note: In case you don’t get the title, it’s a play on McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christian.)
Update: Doug Wilson, who apparently appreciates McLaren even less than I do (which I didn’t realize was possible), has an amusing, snarky fisking of the emergent pastor’s post. Sample:
In exchange, each one of these Muslim friends will come over to our houses this Easter for our traditional Easter ham, the kind with the brown sugar glaze . . . oh, they won’t come? Curious. Why not? Something about believing their religion . . .
August 27th, 2009 | 10:21 am
What makes me uncomfortable about McLaren is not so much what he says as the way he says it. Lord forgive me for being uncharitable, but I get the sense from his writings that he’s a tad more interested in the glory of McLaren than the glory of God. Are there any other spiritual writers that use the pronoun ‘I’ more than he does?
August 27th, 2009 | 10:45 am
I am not generally a fan of McLaren, who often seems to be long on diagnosis, as they say, but in this he may have a correct general thought. The general thought is that the Church has throughout the ages taken up offensive cultural practices and redeemed them.
Christians in Muslim areas, or Christians of Muslim heritage, might consider some form of what McLaren is suggesting. This could mean simply increasing Christian discipline in some way during the season of Ramadan, or conversely, modifying their practice of Christians fasts such as Advent such that they make more sense within the culture they find themselves. This can serve evangelical purposes in demonstrating that the difference between Muslim and Christian is not that the latter does not fast, but that the aim of their fasting differs. It can also strengthen the faith of those practicing by drawing even more aspects of human culture into the redemptive work of Christ.
As for McLaren’s Ramadan, it seems to convey a sense of cultural superiority that would be counterproductive to both ends I mentioned. The superiority comes in the unspoken assumption that McLaren is enlightened enought to put on various cultural forms like so many costumes, while the benighted Muslims are trapped and can only see their own forms. I assume he would chide a Muslim who wanted to take on Western Christian cultural practices for neglecting their heritage, and we might chide him, were he to ask, for the same reason.
August 27th, 2009 | 10:47 am
@BW: Although I wouldn’t stake a judgment on McLaren’s motives, the predominance of “I” may simply reflect McLaren’s shool of postmodernism, where truth is experienced personally and shared through personal narrative.
August 27th, 2009 | 11:42 am
Thank you, Mr. Carter for your informative article. As a Bosnian Muslim, I find McLaren’s attempt to get closer to Muslims rather pale and weak. Like many American liberals (or perhaps I should say, leftists), McLaren completely misunderstands the idea of dialogue and compassion. One ought to remain firmly planted in his own tradition while making an attempt (naturally, not through contrivance) to engage in dialogue with another. McLaren is trying so hard to be good and not offend the other that in the end, that is exactly what he does. This sort of behavior, ironically, is borne out of a strange need to appeal to a higher morality, in this case, Mr. McLaren being the morality. McLaren is also really dealing with the “externals” (or rituals) of the religion, in this case, fasting. What I would suggest to him is to actually read a selection of Islamic texts (whether from Qur’an or theological texts) and ponder over them. Only then will he be able to enter into a genuine dialogue with another. Dialogue is not a question of impressing someone else. I believe it was Benedict XVI who wrote that dialogue begins with listening–”to listen means to know and acknowledge another and to allow him to step into the realm of one’s own ‘I’” (Benedict XVI, 33). Perhaps McLaren needs to learn more about Christian theology before he enters the waters of Islam.
August 27th, 2009 | 11:45 am
I think this works if done in a relational context. If done for another reason (medie exposure, “solidarity”, weight-loss), it’s probably not bad, but just basically unproductive.
Now, if Brian’s friend is a muslim and he’s fasting in order to deepen their friendship through shared experience, then it’s probably a useful tool. I’ve participated in similar activities and found them useful for deepening relationships between myself and people of other faiths/beliefs.
However, to publicize it takes away, somewhat, from the relational intention, therefore, since our God is relational, it takes away from the action’s godliness.
August 27th, 2009 | 12:58 pm
I don’t know about Maclaren, but taking the month of Ramadan as a time for prayer and fasting to reach out to and go to spiritual battle for the Muslim world is not a new idea. Check out http://www.30-days.net/ministry/aboutus/ .
August 27th, 2009 | 3:29 pm
Over at the comments on the Wilson blog, a woman named “Angie” offered up the following satirical gem, drawing inspiration from “The Flying Inn” by G.K. Chesterton:
Song of Geez Louise (Lady Folly)
“O, put aside your food and drink
Your bread and wine and beer,
Come, Christians, join your Muslim friends–
For Ramadan is here!”
“O, put aside your wife and bed,
And think not on her charms,
But pray, instead, and you’ll be welcomed
Into Allah’s arms.”
“O, put aside the risen Christ,”
The foolish woman cries,
“A sunless feast, no blood-red wine,
“Awaits those who are wise.”
Nice, very nice!
Here’s a brief review of The Flying Inn:
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-09-049-b
August 27th, 2009 | 4:21 pm
“But perhaps I am being uncharitable. What say you? Is McLaren’s decision to fast during Ramadan an act of neighborly ecumenism or harmful syncretism?’”
I would say you are being quite uncharitable. To join in this difficult fast is good for both commandments–to love God and to love our neighbor. This is hardly syncretism. These are the kind of ascetic practices which Christians of the north would do well to emulate. I think serving at soup kitchens and protesting at abortion clinics are worthy ecumenical endeavors but this is even more edifying because it has both God more directly as its object and the self as the branch to be honed. In fact except for waging war against the Soviets(which our Islamic brothers did quite courageously and effectively), I cant imagine a better Christian-Islamic concordance. I have done this in the past myself and found it a difficult but welcome reminder of what I truly desired. My desire for God is much more weakened than my intellect is darkened. I think there are many of us (and the great majority of First things readers) for whom the training of the will is a much bigger problem than a disciplining of the intellect. Maybe you will be glad to hear I no longer join the worldwide muslims in this holy practice. I found it way too difficult.
August 28th, 2009 | 4:55 am
I adhered to Ramadan last year. I was in Morocco for the entire time and, though I’m a Catholic British, I thought it would be interesting to do, to devote a time to real fasting and prayer. I also thought that it would be a bit rude to walk around some other country – while its people were fasting – drinking from big bottles of water, eating and smoking.
I found it really a great experience. I found that my days, as a tourist, entirely changed in shape. I would get up early with some food and drink I’d bought the night before. Then go and do something in the morning. Because of the heat after mid-day prayers I’d stay in my room, or in the shade and, generally, read. Then at about 1730 I’d join the huge crowd on the street going to cafes or home for ‘breakfast’, which was a simple meal of a soup, dates, orange juice, bread and a hardboiled egg.
Later in the evening I’d eat, and spend much of the night sat around in cafes drinking mint tea or what have you. What was remarkable about it was the seriousness with which people understood Ramadan – which is something I think we miss in Lent – though Muslims explain it in both physical and spiritual terms. It’s a time to purify your soul and body, to settle accounts, as it were. I also thought the sense of community was terrific. No-one who I saw missed ‘breakfast’ in the evening. Even beggars were invited to eat, for free, in nearby cafes. While I was often invited to join the owners and more than once asked to visit someone’s home for breakfast – the stories about Muslim/Arab hospitality are, in my experience, true.
I found it a very useful period and actually imitated the rules of Ramadan for Lent this year (that, between dawn and dusk, nothing but praise for God should pass your lips – no kissing, no smoking, no eating, no drinking, while talking trying to think, at the same time of a prayer). Having said that I don’t know that it would be useful to ‘do’ Ramadan during Ramadan unless you were in a Muslim country or somehow connected to the experience of Ramadan. Otherwise I think it risks being just an odd act of cultural mimicry that fails, following Ramadan rules during Lent would, I think, make far more sense.
Shaun
August 28th, 2009 | 7:57 am
The problem with McLaren’s observance of Ramadan is that Ramadan is “a time for Muslims to fast for the sake of God (Allah)” (from Wikipedia). Allah is not the true God, however. Only the Triune God, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit is the true God and the only God worthy of our worship. To participate in anything that is centered around worship of anything other than the one and true God is blasphemy, heresy, and sin. Instead of particpating in the false worship of other religions, where you have to do certain things in order to become righteous, we should proclaim and live out our worship of a God who sent his Son to save us through radical grace. This “ecumenism” is simply universalism.
August 28th, 2009 | 3:39 pm
Anything you say about the Moslems not worshiping the same God as Christians is to be said of the Jews–for they too are not exactly Trinitarians. When paul saw the statue of the greeks to the unknown God he did not castifate them for not knowing God fully. He told them more about the God they both worshipped but which the Christians understood better for accepting christ. Here is how the Catholic bishops in defining the People of God in the Constitution on the Church(Lumen Gentium) described those who worship God but do not yet know Jesus.
“Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God.(18*) In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(125) On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126); But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
August 28th, 2009 | 7:44 pm
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