ETRE CHRETIEN EN TERRE D'ISLAM ...

Navigating the divide between Christianity and Islam

By Jerry Hames,
November 04, 2009

[Episcopal News Service]

Since an early age, Paul-Gordon Chandler has lived his life in the Arab Islamic world, in western and sub-Saharan Africa and in the Middle East. As a teenager, then a development worker, with religious publishing groups and now as an American Episcopal priest, he has experienced daily the rich and varied culture of Islamic societies.

He has observed that many Muslims perceive Christ as a Westerner with no relationship to Eastern culture, and he has heard many Christians in the West talk about Islam with fear, suspicion and hostility.

In November, the rector of St. John's Church in Cairo, Egypt, comes to the United States to participate in multiple preaching engagements and lectures at theological colleges, sharing his experiences and the knowledge he has gained and about which he has written in Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road (Rowman & Littlefield, 215 pp., $15.95).

While passionate about sharing the life and revelation of Jesus Christ, Chandler says he maintains a great respect for Islam as a religion and for those who follow its teaching.

He talks with discomfort about the dislocation that Muslims often experience, usually at the encouragement of Christians, when they leave their own community for a Christian culture, a "foreign one," and lose their sense of identity.

"My strongest desire for them is to clearly see Christ and examine his life and message without all the sociological, religious, cultural, political and historical barriers that often exist," he writes.

This "divine tension" that Chandler himself experienced led him to read E. Stanley Jones, an early Methodist missionary and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who wrote about "how Christ is naturalized on the Indian road," and Sadhu Sundar Singh, a follower of Christ who kept his Sikh culture and became a wandering Indian holy man, writing Eastern short stories and parables that captivated thousands in India.

In his book, Chandler describes how Christianity and Islam, which share a common heritage, can coexist and enrich one another by focusing on Mazhar Mallouhi, a Syrian writer and novelist who lives in Beirut and calls himself "a Muslim follower of Christ."

"Mallouhi's unorthodox way of following Christ can provide Western Christians a great freshness for their own faith," Chandler says. "As one who truly lives within the clash of cultures and beliefs, he has much to teach us."

Chandler says the tragic events of 9/11 resulted in a growing interest within Western churches in learning more about Islam and better understanding Muslims, but at the same time it created growing discord between Christians and Muslims, often leading to what he describes as "Islamophobia."

"This, of course, all the more hinders Muslims from ever seriously examining the claims of Christ, the great bridge builder."

Chandler's newest book, published this month by Morehouse, also draws on the legacy of the Christian churches' Middle Eastern heritage.

Songs in Waiting is a reminder that the Christian faith is Middle Eastern in origin. "When we forget that ... we lose our true sense of identity," Chandler says.

-- Jerry Hames is past editor of Episcopal Life.

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