After watching all of your Joel Webbon interview on your podcast, this piece makes sense to me. If I read this piece through the lens that I heard Webbon articulating I hear a logical and perceptive argument. I am not hearing immature playground nastiness. Whilst many other evangelicals might recoil from this piece, if you don't say this: who will? The "Trojan Horse" of civic tolerance has been parked in our cities for many years now, painted in all kinds of colours (especially rainbow).
I am not saying I am a Christian Nationalist, but it takes courage to write a piece like you have done. Even if you aren't 100% correct (the Webbon argument) I am firmly supportive of saying: "this is an issue we need to think clearly on". However, I don't know what the majority of my Islamic colleagues and students would say if they saw I had written this comment, though. Hopefully they would understand that at a personal (not civic) level: I try to love my neighbour as myself, regardless of religion. Moreover, even writing this comments leads me to say that we, as Christians, almost certainly need to sharpen our ontological understandings of the civic, individual, and the blurry mix we call real life.
Finally, if anyone wants to quote my comment back at me. Please can you talk to me first? This is a huge issue and I cannot articulate and nuance my entire position on this issue in this short post. Aaron is a loving guy and it takes loving courage to write the piece he has done. I am supporting Aaron's courage here. I am not intending that any Muslim students feel victimised or demeaned by my support of what Aaron has argued here.
Disclaimer: if you are one of my students and are a Muslim, you are welcome in my classroom. I will care for you and support you, regardless of your religion or nationality. Whilst Dr Edward's argument might feel unloving, he is wrestling with what might be termed "the threat of emotional sabotage". To understand my comments we need to see this piece from Aaron's perspective. He is attempting to articulate a controversial opinion - from a loving heart - where he can be judged by another person's felt interpretation of his argument, as opposed to what his argument truly is.
Thanks Neil. I think the trepidation with which many people need to frame how they speak on these issues (if they even speak at all) demonstrates the problem that people have not felt free to speak about something that clearly needed to be spoken about for some time.
I also totally agree that Christians need to sharpen their understanding of the relationship between the spheres of human society. There is a key difference, for example, between
1.) loving the Muslim person next to or in front of me;
2.) challenging the *cultural* implications of the unmitigated expansion of Islam which (often unbeknownst/unintended to the Muslim next to me) is likely, over time, to radically alter if not obliterate the cultural norms of this society which many people hold dear, often without fully realising it;
3.) hoping/praying/preaching that Christianity triumphs over Islam in the civil sphere;
4.) hoping/praying/preaching that Muslims hear/heed the message of the Gospel, meet Christ, and transformed inside and out as a result.
Those 4 things are all distinct yet can all be held at once; and all of them can be seen as a form of loving our Muslim neighbours just as much as they should be seen as loving our Christian and/or Anglo neighbours.
It seems "nuance" as a missiological strategy serves only to equip Christians with shovels in order to dig their own graves all the while convinced they are 'sharing the gospel' by doing so.
Yes, that's very true, Rebecca. Nuance is often wielded (ironically, quite simplistically) as the tool to undermine clarity and courage at just the time they are required.
After watching all of your Joel Webbon interview on your podcast, this piece makes sense to me. If I read this piece through the lens that I heard Webbon articulating I hear a logical and perceptive argument. I am not hearing immature playground nastiness. Whilst many other evangelicals might recoil from this piece, if you don't say this: who will? The "Trojan Horse" of civic tolerance has been parked in our cities for many years now, painted in all kinds of colours (especially rainbow).
I am not saying I am a Christian Nationalist, but it takes courage to write a piece like you have done. Even if you aren't 100% correct (the Webbon argument) I am firmly supportive of saying: "this is an issue we need to think clearly on". However, I don't know what the majority of my Islamic colleagues and students would say if they saw I had written this comment, though. Hopefully they would understand that at a personal (not civic) level: I try to love my neighbour as myself, regardless of religion. Moreover, even writing this comments leads me to say that we, as Christians, almost certainly need to sharpen our ontological understandings of the civic, individual, and the blurry mix we call real life.
Finally, if anyone wants to quote my comment back at me. Please can you talk to me first? This is a huge issue and I cannot articulate and nuance my entire position on this issue in this short post. Aaron is a loving guy and it takes loving courage to write the piece he has done. I am supporting Aaron's courage here. I am not intending that any Muslim students feel victimised or demeaned by my support of what Aaron has argued here.
Disclaimer: if you are one of my students and are a Muslim, you are welcome in my classroom. I will care for you and support you, regardless of your religion or nationality. Whilst Dr Edward's argument might feel unloving, he is wrestling with what might be termed "the threat of emotional sabotage". To understand my comments we need to see this piece from Aaron's perspective. He is attempting to articulate a controversial opinion - from a loving heart - where he can be judged by another person's felt interpretation of his argument, as opposed to what his argument truly is.
Neil Fletcher
Sheffield
Thanks Neil. I think the trepidation with which many people need to frame how they speak on these issues (if they even speak at all) demonstrates the problem that people have not felt free to speak about something that clearly needed to be spoken about for some time.
I also totally agree that Christians need to sharpen their understanding of the relationship between the spheres of human society. There is a key difference, for example, between
1.) loving the Muslim person next to or in front of me;
2.) challenging the *cultural* implications of the unmitigated expansion of Islam which (often unbeknownst/unintended to the Muslim next to me) is likely, over time, to radically alter if not obliterate the cultural norms of this society which many people hold dear, often without fully realising it;
3.) hoping/praying/preaching that Christianity triumphs over Islam in the civil sphere;
4.) hoping/praying/preaching that Muslims hear/heed the message of the Gospel, meet Christ, and transformed inside and out as a result.
Those 4 things are all distinct yet can all be held at once; and all of them can be seen as a form of loving our Muslim neighbours just as much as they should be seen as loving our Christian and/or Anglo neighbours.
Blessings to you and your students.
It seems "nuance" as a missiological strategy serves only to equip Christians with shovels in order to dig their own graves all the while convinced they are 'sharing the gospel' by doing so.
Yes, that's very true, Rebecca. Nuance is often wielded (ironically, quite simplistically) as the tool to undermine clarity and courage at just the time they are required.
That nails it.