“Who am I to judge…?” Part I: Christianity Goes Ramadan

I have been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual tension between the words “judgment” and “discernment. “  This trip through the wonderland of religious semantics all started when Brian McLaren, noted Christ Follower (aka: “Christian”) and de-facto global head of what is known as “The Emergent Church,” publicly announced his intent to observe the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. My first reaction to this news was, as you might imagine…

“Bald-headed, bearded guy say what?!”

As hard to believe as it might seem, a well-known Christian leader has chosen to observe the ritual of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.  In fairness to McLaren, he makes it clear he is not a Muslim and has no desire to become one.  McLaren claims he is just doing his part to build bridges of trust and love between Muslims and Christians.  As he put it…

…[We] humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.

McLaren – just like the devout Muslims with whom he seeks to dialog – is fasting during the day, praying, and then breaking the fast each night just as the Muslims do, with a nice, big meal.  As a generic spiritual discipline I suppose you could say such a cycle of fasting, praying, eating, and fasting again has some merit, regardless of whether it is practiced by Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or some other religion.

Then again, I don’t recall fasts in the Bible ever being narrowly-targeted, sunup to sundown events marked by big dinners each night.  (Interestingly enough, a recent study indicates that Muslims actually gain weight during the month of Ramadan.) I could very well be wrong, however, on that point about fasts being longer term events.  I’m no Biblical scholar.   I just don’t ever recall seeing “fasting” in the Bible referring to anything that didn’t go on for days at a time or that it was about getting “closer to God” (McLaren’s take).  You know what I’m talking about…  “Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights…”  You know, that kind of thing.  The kind of thing I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude to do under my own power.

But back to McLaren…

After a few days into his observance of Ramadan, McLaren started blogging about the experiences surrounding his fasting.

Then he blogged about his prayers during the experience of fasting.

Okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and ignore the fact that Jesus specifically told us to keep our fasting private. (Matthew 6:16-18)

McLaren has admitted in the past that he isn’t a trained “theologian,” per se, just a guy to whom a lot of faithful Christ Followers (aka: “Christians”) listen.  So BDM probably didn’t pay terribly close attention to that particular passage of scripture along the road of his personal spiritual journey.  Or McLaren might just feel that Jesus didn’t mean it to be taken literally.  Whatever the case, we’ll let this one slide for now.

And for a moment let’s also ignore the fact that Jesus specifically told us to keep our prayers private. (Matthew 6:5-8)

Again, McLaren doesn’t really want to be held up to that kind of rigid, legalistic standard.  Then again, who of us does?  I’m sure Jesus was probably talking about some other not-nearly-as-humble or openly-loving, bald-headed, bearded guy anyway.  I am sure Brian gets a pass from God when he shares his own wonderfully humble, self-effacing prayers because he is using them as an example so other Christians get in touch with their own prideful humility.

No, what really had me scratching my head about the whole “McLaren goes Ramadan” thing was the notion that a “Christian” leader would knowingly do anything – anything - that might inadvertently lend support or credence to the religious observances of a faith that specifically denies the God-in-man nature of Jesus of Nazareth.  After all, let’s not forget…

To Islam, Jesus is a prophet, nothing more.

(They conveniently ignore that whole, “I and the Father are one,” line.  It’s kinda what the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists do, but that’s a whole ‘nuther bloggy post for another day.)

To Christianity, Jesus is God, nothing less.

When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life…” he meant “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” not, “I am one of many ways to God, a version of truth that is relative to your world view, and I want you to have a rollicking good time during your years here on earth prior to the point at which earth becomes heaven.”

You might think the two concepts – Jesus is an okay prophet -vs- Jesus is the Son of God – were just a touch incongruous.  At least that’s what I thought when I did my double-take over the whole “Ramadan” thing.  I will grant you that my limited, Biblical studies experience in college (3 credits shy of a B.A.) didn’t exactly make me Charles Spurgeon or Martin Luther.  Some stuff just leaves a pretty indelible impression on you.

But that’s definitely not how McLaren sees it.  McLaren genuinely believes that by observing Ramadan he is building bridges of understanding and, as noted earlier, “neighborliness” between the two religions.

Forgive me for a moment, but I need to take a brief side trip.  Gotta stop for a second to pay that whole “neighborly” thing a moment’s notice.

Uh huh.  Mighty neighborly, Islam is.

Jesus: “If someone strikes you, turn the other cheek.”

Jesus:  ”Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus:  ”Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”

Islam: “Kill all the infidels.”

Very cool.  Very cool, indeed.

Okay, let’s get back to McLaren.

When I heard about McLaren’s latest Woodstock-esque, love-fest I shared my concerns with someone for whom McLaren’s broadly-defined take on Christ-following (aka: “Christianity”) is inspirational and enlightening.  I urged my brother to reconsider his acceptance of McLaren in light of BDM’s latest tap-dance at the weird fringes of Christian theology.

As I think I may have put it in my email to him, from where I sit,…

McLaren seems to be on the spiritual equivalent of a theological acid trip.

Given my urgent, “the sky is falling!” tirade, his response was very loving, long-sufferingly patient, and completely lucid.  He highlighted the fact that McLaren was a well-intentioned Christian just out to spread a little love to people in the same vein as Jesus spread love to Samaritans.  It was a pretty decent argument on its face and it made me think hard, if only for a moment, about my skepticism of McLaren’s more or less universalist take on “the Gospel.”  It made me hearken back to that whole, “Love your enemies…” notion.

Then he said something that told me I had pushed things a little too far.

He dropped a line that made it clear he had grown tired of my McLaren bashing and just wanted to move on to other topics.  At first, I didn’t catch the significance of the phrase.  Then I remembered hearing that same phrase come from McLaren’s own mouth months before and it took on a whole new meaning.

“Who am I to judge…?”

NEXT – “Who am I to judge…?”  – Part II

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