Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Matthew Intro 0:00
The biggest issue is fundamentally the widespread belief that Islam is simple, that it's one thing; that I can describe a global faith of 1 billion people in a couple of sentences. To say that Muslims are all “this”, or Muslims are all “that”. Really the biggest problem for American Christians is simple stereotypes. So, rather than actually having a conversation with a Muslim, or reading a book by a Muslim, or just simply listening to Muslims tell their story. We prefer to simply create a stereotype that makes sense to us. You know, so, a simple stereotype like all Muslims are terrorists. Now once you define them as a terrorist, the solution is simple, right? Kill them, throw them in jail or kick them out of the country. Right? Once you've defined them as a simple problem, you're allowed to provide a simple solution.
Seth 1:40
What does it mean to embrace someone that you know, at the onset of the relationship, you most likely will not agree on huge topics that matter for the way that you live? The way that you work, the way that you pray, the way that you raise your children. What do we do when we come to something like that, specifically as a country, and as a church? How do we interact with those that don't share our faith, but do deeply believe in their own? How do we do that with people of the Muslim faith and the people that follow that faith? How do we live and breathe with them? How do we join into community with them? I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Matthew Kaemingk, to discuss just that.
He has written a book on the topic called Islamic immigration and the Christian hospitality in the age of fear. And I will say that is the history of the news if you just turn it on today we live in an age of fear be at North Korea. The anything that is other be at Native Americans be the Syrian refugees or Mexico or Russia anything. And so how do we live with that? How do we enter in a relationship of community, loving our neighbors? And bit about Matthew, e teaches theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and as a scholar in residence for Fuller's Max Dupree Center for Christian Leadership. His research mostly focuses on public theology, religious pluralism, faith, work and vocation. And so with that being said, I hope you enjoy it.
Seth 3:36
Matthew, thank you so much for joining us on the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I’ve excited to talk to you for a while I like the topic and the premise of what you're doing. I like the ministry that you're doing. And I can't see that what we'll talk about today that the relationship between Christianity and the Muslim and Islamic faiths or any other faiths for that matter is going to go away anytime soon. So I appreciate you making the time this afternoon to come on with me.
Matthew 4:02
Thank you for having me.
Seth 4:03
Can you just briefly tell people a bit about yourself; kind of how your upbringing in the church and how you became to do what you do now?
Matthew 4:13
Sure, I grew up in the church in the Christian Reformed Church, to be exact, out in Seattle, Washington, and I was a political science major in college and was always very fascinated by how Christians thought about issues of faith and politics, the Bible and justice, and what God's Will was for our political life together. And I remember feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with the way in which many Christians both on the political right and the political left thought about the connection between faith and politics and really wanted to go deeper. So after college, I went on to study theology and public life and Fuller Seminary, Princeton Seminary, and the Free University in Amsterdam, studying all kinds of issues around faith, and politics,, and economics, and issues of religious diversity and how we live together within deep, deep religious, cultural and racial differences while still being deeply faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ
Seth 5:27
How do we that? I find it hard to be both a committed Christian following after what Jesus tells us to do and still being nationalistic or, or patriotic. I find the two seem to butt heads often. So how do we do that?
Matthew 5:44
Yeah, well, I think maybe division between those two words is important. One is patriotism. The other is nationalism. So I take patriotism to be a love and affection for one's country; a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility to serve one's country. And I think of nationalism as a sort of idolatry of one's country, a placing of one's country above all else. And as Christians, we're taught that we have only one Lord and Savior, not two; and so, Jesus and America cannot both be our Lord and Savior.
And so I very much think of myself as a Christian patriot. I love my country very much, but I will never call my country my Lord and Savior. And so if there are times where the two butt heads, I have to follow Christ over my country.
Seth 6:43
I agree with that. And I find that people don't like that, they don't like that, they like church to be on Sunday only, at least in my experience, and the rest of the week…I'll bleed red, white and blue. Getting to the to the topic at hand. So you've written a book on it's titled Islamic Immigration and Christian Christian Hospitality in an Age of Fear. And I can't agree any more. I recently read, I like the pew research study. And so I recently read that. According to them, there are 19 million people that identify as the Muslim population as of I think, a few years ago, and they anticipate that in 2050, roughly 8.1 million people or the the entire state of Delaware will be a Muslim faith. And the inverse seems to be the opposite for Christians, the Christians seem to be reducing at the same rate that other religions, not just Muslims, but Buddhism and other things, gain. And so why does it matter that we as Christians engage in anyone else's religion?
Matthew 7:55
Well, a number of things. One is that the last thing that Jesus told us to do while he was on Earth was to go out to all the nations and proclaim the good news. And so I don't view Muslim immigration primarily as a problem or a challenge, but as a profound opportunity to share the gospel. It's actually really great news that you don't have to fly a long distance to meet a Muslim and tell them about Jesus. They're coming to you. So I see it primarily as an opportunity. And, moreover, for Christians who respond to those numbers, with a sense of fear…my only response is that if you truly believe that God is Lord overall that he is in control, that Easter is real. If you truly believe in the Spirit's power and the resurrection then how can you live by fear?
So, to me the question is more on the inverse. How can the politics of fear ever connect with the politics of Easter? So it just doesn't fundamentally does not make sense to me. One of my favorite scholars about Christianity and Islam, he says that if you listen to Christians talk about Muslims, you know, when Christians are talking amongst themselves, you won't actually learn very much about Islam, but you will learn a lot about Christians; it'll tell you quite a bit. So if Christians, amongst themselves, are speaking about Muslims with a great deal of fear, you know, a great deal of anger that'll tell you a lot about who they are and about the quality of their faith. But if, amongst themselves, they're speaking about Muslims with the sense of excitement and eagerness to demonstrate the love of Christ, the opportunity to live the gospel, then that demonstrates something as well. So I think of it primarily as an opportunity.
Seth 10:17
I find, at least where I'm at here in Central Virginia and I, I grew up in Texas, I don't find myself often in the same places as people of other faiths. Muslim faith, specifically, I never…either people don't talk about it for fear of being I don't know what the word is persecuted, or maybe I was just in such a small bubble that I was unable to break out of it. And so how do we, as Christians get out of that bubble? Do we need to seek out people and if so, how do we do so genuinely, so it doesn't look like lip service or we're doing this to feel superior?
Matthew 10:56
Yeah, well, I think those bubbles aren't going to last much longer. In a globalizing world, Muslims are moving in quickly. They're moving into Georgia and Tennessee and South Carolina and I live right here in Eastern Texas. And we actually have one of the highest rates of mosques and Muslims of any city in the United States, you know, right here in the Bible belt. So those bubbles aren't going to last long.
And so what my book is really arguing is that Christians need to start preparing and start to think about who they are, and what it means demonstrate the love of God in a religiously diverse culture, because that is the future, that is where this country is going. And they can spend time sort of complaining about that fact or they can begin preparing and asking, who do we need to be to respond to this? And what is Christ calling us to? You know, you can complain that it's not the 1950s anymore, or you can sort of ask Jesus, “Jesus, what would you have me do”? Difference, be it racial, cultural, religious differences, the name of the game and the 21st century and difference is coming at us quickly. That difference is deep. It's close. It's fast and thoughtful Christians need to think really, really carefully about what faithfulness looks like as as difference comes near.
Seth 12:38
Did you lean or have the same thoughts before you went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands or, or was living outside of the country something that was just an eye opener, where you were like, “Oh, my I was I was missing it”?
Matthew 12:51
Well, I think I've always been fascinated by by the question of difference and how we handle it. And I think of myself as a more conservative evangelical. And so I'm never one who wants to sort of water down my faith, or sort of say, “Oh, we all basically agree” or sort of cover over differences. But I've always lived in cities where I was a minority. So Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, you know, these aren't sort of hotbeds of evangelical theology right.
So I've always had to think about it, you know, whether it was with friends who are Muslims or friends who are gay or friends who were African American or Latino, having to think about what is Christ call me to in terms of faithfully loving him because, and them because if Christ made space for me, you know, if Christ loved me then I have a responsibility to make space for others and I have a responsibility to love others and if I don't demonstrate that love and hospitality for Muslims then I'm, I'm somehow saying that that, you know, that that love was not extended to me. And I'm actually dishonoring the cross that made space for me.
So I've always been interested in it. But when it came to the question of Muslim immigration, and Amsterdam and Europe, I was really asking this singular question is, Christians are very, very good at defending their own religious freedom, their own rights, their own dignity, from from oppression, right. We're very good at talking about our our own persecution. The question to me was, are we capable of defending the rights indignity of a faith that is not our own a faith that we might deeply disagree with? You know, I have real differences with Islam, on theology, on politics, on a whole number of issues. But am I capable of defending their rights and dignity? So that was really my question because to me it's a good thing when Christians defend their own rights and freedoms. But when they defend the rights and freedoms of people who are different than them, that's a gospel thing. That's a gospel thing. So that's what really grabbed me.
Seth 15:42
How do we do that without being accused of being lukewarm or being…the way that I was raised it was when you go to evangelize to people. You are inherently in a position of being right. I have something to tell you and once you understand it, you too can be saved. So how do we then register that with someone of a different faith and defend what they believe without obviously knowing much about what they believe? How do we, how do I do that without somehow demoting what I believe?
Matthew 16:19
Yeah. Well, I think just starting out, I would just deny the whole premise and basically say, you're absolutely wrong. That being mean, makes you a good Christian or being full of yourself makes you a good Christian. I would say actually being humble is what Christ calls us to. Being prideful and imagining that you're a Christian because you earned it or you did something wonderful or because you were so right or so smart is antithetical to the gospel. Right. We did not earn this. And so that, you know, that's the first thing. But I'd actually like to tell you a quick story.
Seth 17:09
Sure.
Matthew 17:11
In the Netherlands, there was this hard right wing swing in politics against Islam, there was a terrorist attack. And in response to that a number of Dutch citizens started to burn mosques to you know, set them on fire. And so I think it was about around 20 mosques and Muslim schools were either damaged like graffitied, pillaged, or burned after an attack. And this Christian pastor walked down to a local mosque and knocked on the door and said to the Muslims,
I'm here to guard your mosque for you.
And he walked around the mosque all night long and did so for the next few months to make sure that that mosque was safe. And not only did he do that, but he called his other fellow pastors and they all guarded mosques around the country.
Now when I met this Christian pastor, he was actually a very, very conservative, Pentecostal pastor. And he was very clear with me said,
You know, I, to be honest, I really don't like Muslims very much. I think a lot of these immigrants are making problems in my city.
He says, I,
to be really honest with you, I kind of wish they weren't here.
And so I said, so I said,
Well, why did you do this? You're guarding their mosque, you're calling other people to help. You know, you're putting your own self in danger by trying to keep this mosque safe. Why did you do this?
You know, and he said to me,
Well, Jesus loved me even when I was a sinner, and he commands me to not only love my neighbor, he commands me to love my my enemies too.
He wasn't watering down his faith. He was pointing to Jesus. And he was saying, look, there's a real difference between Christianity and Islam. And I'm not watering down that difference at all. But that difference is the cross. And that's the reason why I have to defend my neighbor. So I would argue that for those Christians who did not defend the mosque, right, those Christians who joined in, in demonizing Islam and attacking mosques. I would argue that those Christians are guilty of watering down their faith. Those Christians are not taking their faith seriously enough. Because if you take your faith seriously, you're actually going to be much more humble.
Seth 20:34
I do want to caveat what I asked you is not necessarily what I believe. What I asked you is…
Matthew 20:42
I understand.
Seth 20:44
…what I hear often just in, you know on the news. You hear it as soon as the gun violence goes away in the media cycle, although the gun violence won't go away. You'll hear it as we talk about refugees again and everything else. So I do want it for those listening. I do not agreeing with what I said, I was playing devils advocate.
Matthew 21:03
I understand, but I would say that it's important to note that that statement, can I mean, that sort of a posture towards Muslims, confirms what secular liberals believe, which is this. Secular liberals believe that Christians are incapable of tolerance. That Christians cannot be trusted to be democratic, and that Christians are a danger to democracy; because they are prideful, because they believe they're right. And so my book is really an argument against that as well; against the arguments on the liberal side that would say that Christians can't love people who are different from them.
Seth 21:53
Well, leaning into that, what are some of-and this is where I'll show my ignorance-I have no idea what are the biggest misconceptions that the church or Christians or American Christians as a whole, get wrong about the faith of Islam. Because we only see one side. We only see ISIS and there's not a mosque where I live, I'm sure there's one across the mountain, but there's not one where I live, so I only get one “channel”, of information for Islam. So what is what are those biggest misconceptions that we think that are just wrong?
Matthew 22:25
Yeah so that's easy. So the biggest one, the biggest issue is fundamentally the widespread belief that Islam is simple, that it's one thing. That I can describe a global faith of 1 billion people in a couple of sentences.
To say that Muslims are all this or Muslims are all that. And really, the biggest problem for American Christians is simple stereotypes. So rather Rather than actually having a conversation with a Muslim, or reading a book by a Muslim, or just simply listening to Muslims tell their story. We prefer to simply create a stereotype that makes sense to us. You know?
So a simple stereotype like, all Muslims are terrorists. Now, once you define them as a terrorist, the solution is simple, right? Kill them, throw them in jail, or kick them out of the country. Right? Once you've defined them as a simple problem, you're allowed to provide a simple solution. Or all Muslims are oppressive…you know, I'm kind of knocking on the political right right now, but I could also knock on the left.
So the left tends to look at Muslim immigrants as people who are in need. So they are in need of economic help. They are in need of education. They are in need of modernization, they're culturally backwards and we need to enlighten them. So, you know, both the right and the left, the Christian Right and the Christian Left stereotype Muslims, and the truth is, is that Islam is just as complex as Christianity. You know, when we look at Christianity, you have everything from Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, to Pentecostals, and, you know, random church plants and…
Seth 24:44
Westboro Baptist
Matthew 24:45
everything to make to the KKK. Yeah, right. That's the KKK claims itself to be Christian. And so you have a wide diversity and a long history of the Christian faith and the same is true of Islam. So I think the biggest problem is is those simple stereotypes that really get us nowhere.
Seth 25:04
Have you found that that goes both ways as you speak to people in the in the circles that you're in, that are of Islam faith? Do they have the same stereotypes of Christians?
Matthew 25:14
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's awful.
Seth 25:18
Yeah. That's awful. That makes me sad, because I feel like to look at it that way would be to say that we're all the KKK or Westboro Baptist, and that's the only avenue that you get to read is we're all that. That's awful.
Matthew 25:29
It doesn’t feel good, does it?
Seth 25:32
No, no. That's awful. You wrote in a post in December of last year for religion news, I think about about Muslim immigrants functioning for us as as a scapegoat. And what do you mean by that?
Matthew 25:48
The United States, you know, has been walking away from the Christian faith for some time now. And for you know, for many decades in our early history, we understood ourselves to be a Christian nation, whatever that means we understood ourselves to be under God and connected to some Judeo-Christian values. But as our nation walks away from that identity, America is having a bit of an identity crisis. Right, who are we? What what are American values? What do we believe in? You know, if we don't believe in God, then who are we going to be?
And so in that vacuum, that sort of spiritual darkness, America is looking for an identity. And a lot of political thinkers argue that when a nation is looking for a political identity, one of the things that can help is if you find a scapegoat, sort of a common enemy around which you can rally. So you know sort of after 911 there was this tremendous unity in America. And that unity was really a fixed on we are against, you know, Muslim terrorists; or in the 1970s and 80s it was communism right as the sort of international threat around which, you know, America could rally.
And so scapegoats play a large role in every single society sort of a way to place blame on one specific group. And it's a great way to ignore all of your problems because you can place those problems you can place, you know, Biblically, you can place the community sins on this small group of people. They may be Mexican immigrants or they might be Muslim immigrants, but whatever it is, we can just blame this, you know, small group for all of our problems,
Seth 28:02
Yeah. How do we make our churches open to those of faith that aren't ours?
Matthew 28:08
That's a great question. I think, you know, preaching and talking about it is one thing, but I honestly, I really, you know, I wrote a book-so I believe in the power of words. But so, you know, obviously, everyone go by the book, and that will fix all of your problems.
Seth 28:28
Buy two copies and give one away!
Matthew 28:30
Yeah, there you go. No, it's seriously beyond words. I really think hospitality is something that we have to practice, and it takes time. And so if I, you know, I was just preaching and teaching Sunday school this last Sunday to a church in Pittsburgh, and they have a mosque in their neighborhood and they were asking, you know, what should we do; should we do some kind of interfaith dialogue with him or something like that? And I actually told them No. I don't think that's the way to go. I actually think that hospitality is something that needs to be practiced through really simple things. And simple things like playing a soccer game together, starting women's sewing group between Muslims and Christian women, having meals together, asking each other to share each other's story. How did you come to this country? How has that been? Has that been hard? What do you love about America? What's been hard for you? What don't you understand about America. Just asking questions and listening. Rather than making these people into a project, actually building a relationship with them and seeking to love them and learn from them and can have a relationship with them. That takes practice because, yeah, Christians are kind of awkward sometimes.
Seth 30:07
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, I found that, at least personally, I had an issue with gay people until I knew some. And I realized, and these are these are people, whoever I have an issue with. If I can get past my my stuff, my problems, and just get to know them, maybe learn with their kids names are when their birthdays are, what kind of ice cream they like. It is really hard to hate somebody that you personally know. Very hard, which is, which sounds like that's what you're saying. And I interviewed earlier in the year, Sean Palmer who said the same thing. Basically I asked him, I said, Well, what do we do to embrace, you know, a beloved community of church, and I think he's at Ecclesia Church there in Houston as well. And he said, basically, just draw a circle around your church. Whoever is within a few miles, five miles, one miles, whatever it is…just own them and say we're going to love these people. And we're going to minister to them outside of the walls of this church with no expectation that they will ever become members that they will ever tithe that they will ever do anything, but they will be loved and they will be taken care of.
Matthew 31:16
Yeah, yeah. And you ask God to move, because you have to say, fundamentally, God owns this neighborhood. God is sovereign over these neighbors, not me. God is the one who saves not me. You know, my profound responsibility is to demonstrate His love and His hospitality and to trust that He will move when and how He chooses. And that's what it means to to give Christ the throne and not to take it as your own. So, yeah, and it just takes practice. You know, I think CS Lewis says that “true friends stand next to each other and they look at something and work on something in common, something that they enjoy in common. They don't look directly in one another's eyes, they enjoy something together.”
And I think that if we're going to befriend our Muslim neighbors are gay neighbors, but you know, whatever sort of whatever different race is near us, we have to find ways to do things together, to practice life together. We don't need to sort of look one another in the eye all the time and discuss all of our differences and sort of like very intense way but actually just live together practice that hospitality.
Seth 32:45
I did have one follow up question and I like to end with grace. I try to ask a similar question to every every guest. So the last question that bugs me is, I am terrified that my church the Christianity that I know and that I love, if it doesn't learn to change, will look like and this is Mennonites and Amish that are hearing this don't hear this as a put down, but we'll look like a quaint old thing that we used to hold to in 52, you know, 70 years if we don't learn to embrace some form of change. And so do you agree with that? What do you see as the future of our church, that you and I are part of now, if we cannot learn to put down differences and embrace other people? What does our church even look like anymore, for your kids?
Matthew 33:38
Well, I think the good news is that God is moving in a very powerful way. And we have an opportunity to be a part of that. And I think that churches that refuse to acknowledge that, that opportunity that refuse to move with the spirit But choose to sort of worship what was, instead of worship the moving and dynamic God? Well, they're going to get left behind. They won't get to be a part of what God is doing, and that's too bad. But the good news is that God's God's moving with or without, you know, certain congregations. And there's that profound opportunity for churches to move. And so that's that's the good news. And the good news is that God is in control. And so whether the church is ready for this moment or not, God is in control and God is moving.
Seth 34:40
So in closing, what would what would be the one thing if there's a pastor listening, a deacon listening later listening, what would be the one thing that they should do this week, next week tomorrow that they could begin to change? What is the easy what is not the easy what is the hard first step to actually begin to learn how to do hospitality?
Matthew 34:58
I think the first thing that they can do is gather their elders, you know, their deacons, their, their leaders, whatever they might be in their specific church and ask this question and really ask it in prayer, who in our community is in deep need of hospitality? Who are those people that God is calling us to make space for? How can we extend the table of God's banquet? And so I would say that the call of the pastor is to ask the question, that's the pastor and the leaders responsibility is to ask the question, and it's the people's responsibility to imagine and to act on what that would be. And so I think if the pastor is not asking that question, the pastor is really falling short. Right? Who are the people in our community that are on the margins in need of hospitality. And we have a Biblical responsibility to look out for them. And we're going to be asked, you know, Matthew 25, we are going to be asked on judgment day, how we respond to those people. So it's the pastor's responsibility to ask the question, and it's the people's responsibility to answer it.
Seth 36:20
Good, good. Matthew, how can people engage with you? How can they interact with you definitely go and buy the book. I have not finished it, but I have begun it…it was more than I thought I could chew. And in one sitting, which is good and bad, it's just it makes me have to reflect on myself and I'm not happy with that sometimes. So just being honest. So where would you Where would you point people to to get in get involved engaged?
Matthew 36:49
Yeah. You know, if they're not ready to jump into the depths of the book, they can read some short articles that I've written that can function as great Conversation tools for a congregation. And those short articles can be found on my website, which you can share a link. Yeah, you can share a link to that website. And they can find lots of articles about Muslim immigration and hospitality and all sorts of issues there. They can also they can also follow me on twitter where I, I shared a lots of content about these sorts of issues. And yeah, there's another podcast if they, you know, they're listening to you. So I imagine they like podcasts. It's called neighborly faith. And it's a group of evangelicals who are exploring issues of how, how we might be good neighbors, as committed evangelicals to other faiths, and so that's an interesting conversation as well, so you can get all filled up on podcasts.
Seth 37:55
Yeah, yeah, well, I find that I like podcasts more than radio anymore. So Hear the same song six times in a row. So well, good. Well, I'll end it there. Matthew, thank you so much for your, for your time this afternoon.
Matthew 38:07
Thanks for the call, good to chat.
Seth 38:31
Man that hits me. As I have let that sit for a few weeks, and then have come in to edit. I've realized a few things I miss so much during the conversation. And I wish on every single one of these that I could go back and ask different questions. And that's not fair because it implies that I learned something and that that wasn't worthwhile. So I encourage you to do that as you hear these things reach out to these guests and these authors and your pastors and your friends. And most importantly, reach out to people outside of your circle of influence and make your circle bigger, being hospitable, learning to love as Christ would have this love. The danger of not doing that, of not being understanding and not meeting people where they are, whether or not we agree with their dogma or their doctrine, or their faith, or their practices, does a disservice to who we profess to worship. So I'm challenged and I hope you are as well.
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The music that was featured in today's episode is from Salt of the Sound they write extremely reflective, and contemplated music and I can tell you, I often listen to them as I pray. They have some beautiful instrumentals and they have a couple albums that will come out just this year alone. You can find their music at Salt of the sound calm and as with past shows, You can find the music featured today on the podcast playlist Can I Say This At Church located at Spotify, find the link to all that in the show notes, go get Matthews book, go get their album both are worth all of the time and energy required to do so.
Be blessed. Speak to you next week.