Muslims in America

from the October 23, 2007 eNews issue

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended on Friday, October 12, and Muslims feasted under the new moon. In honor of Ramadan, on October 2, the U.S. Congress passed H. Res. 635, recognizing Islam as a great religion and rejecting "hatred, bigotry, and violence directed against Muslims, both in the United States and worldwide."

While the resolution praised moderate Muslims around the world who oppose violence and hatred, some members of Congress considered the resolution to be political correctness run amok.

"I am not opposed to commending any religion for their faith," Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) said in a statement. "The problem is that any attempt to do so for Jews or Christians is immediately condemned as 'breaching' the non-existent line between church and state by the same (political and media) elite."

Walkersville, MD

In the meanwhile, a small farming town an hour north of Washington D.C. is embroiled in its own Muslim controversy.

Walkersville, MD is a rural town of 5000 people where conservative Christian churches abound and where the mayor also runs a local feed store. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA now wants to build a retreat center on the largest farm in Walkersville, and local residents are fearful the site may become a breeding ground for terrorists. For their part, the Muslims (a sect that is neither Shia nor Sunni) have tried to breed good will by speaking to the locals.

Townspeople, however, are not only concerned about the Muslim invasion of the town, but about practical things like how 10,000 people coming in for a convention would affect traffic and the town's water supply. The town council will vote Tuesday night over whether to allow places of worship or private clubs on land that is zoned for agriculture.

The Muslim Question

On September 11, 2001, radical Islamists violently attacked America. It was not the first terrorist attack against America and it was followed by bombings in Madrid, Bali, London, and elsewhere. These attacks made clear the serious danger that fanatical Muslims pose to the world, and have made many Americans fearful and suspicious of any Muslims in their midst.

September 11 caused a backlash against Muslims, and also a back-backlash of pro-Muslim political emotion that has given perhaps more favor to Muslims than to Jews or Christians in the political arena. There are dangerous terrorists in America, and yet, many moderate American Muslims are decent, law-abiding people who are generous and warm friends. How should the majority Judeo-Christian population in America relate to our Muslim neighbors?

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

Fanatic Islam is a true threat, and this week the College Republicans have kicked off their Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."

Muslim groups have criticized the College Republicans for breeding racism and fear of all Muslims. The College Republicans website, however, makes clear that they stand in solidarity with moderate Muslims. According to Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie Lucas, the term "Islamo-Fascism" was "initially coined by Algerian people struggling for democracy, against armed fundamentalist forces decimating people in our country, then later operating in Europe, where a number of us had taken refuge." Moderate Muslims are just as much a target of violence from Islamo-fascists as non-Muslims. They are an even greater target, in fact.

Tom Walker, president of UW College Republicans, does not believe all Muslims are dangerous. "Our main point is raising awareness of what we feel is an extreme brand of Islam that is spreading rapidly around the world and posing a threat to America and the Western world," he said.

Some people, like those farmers in Walkersville, MD, rarely have had a chance to meet and speak to Muslims. In other parts of the country, like Detroit, Muslim Americans abound. Whether speaking with a Muslim for the first time, or for the 401st time, the important thing to remember is that they are human beings for whom Jesus Christ died. All Muslims (whether they are bent on the destruction of western civilization or not) need to know about the love of God and the freedom from their sins that is offered through Jesus Christ. While we are wary of very dangerous groups of Muslims both in America and around the world, we know that their belief systems - and the demonic powers behind those beliefs - are the enemies, and not the people themselves.

The war on terror is not a war against Muslims. The true war is on the anti-christ forces in this world, forces that want to destroy all humans, all of those who are created in the image of God. Let's be wise as serpents and innocent as doves in the way we deal with our Muslim neighbors.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. - Ephesians 6:12