Learning from a Muslim Brother

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Luke 4:17-18

Amir Abdel Malik Ali’s invitation to speak at UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union on Thursday provided a sermon for me on fighting evil in the world. I don’t agree with everything he stands for, but I found myself inspired by his desire to fight oppression of all kinds. I grew up in the white, suburban Evangelical world, with its emphasis on eternal salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus who has cleansed me [and everyone else who invites him into their heart] from my sins. In my experience over the past 20 years, those who fight for peace and social justice in our world have consistently come from the outside of the Evangelical tradition, and mostly outside of Christian faith altogether. Sure, there’s been a turn towards a paternalistic brand of social justice in Evangelical dialogue, but it serves more as a bonus to the pure gospel [always defined as forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to God] and this kind of ‘social justice’ never seems to rebuke the systemic cause of injustice. So, yes, Ali’s lecture on Thursday night served as a much-needed sermon for this progressive Evangelical.

Ali, an imam from Oakland, was outspoken about the need for Muslims to unify with ‘people of conscience’ who share concern for the oppressed, in any and every circumstance in our world. Earlier that day, the Muslim Student Union joined their Latino brothers and sisters who worked on UCI’s campus in a protest demanding a living wage. He told his Muslim brothers and sisters that this is exactly where they should be, speaking truth to power, never humble in the face of evil. He explained to outsiders like me that Muslims chant the phrase ‘Allah ho Akbar,’ which means ‘God the most powerful.’ This is what Palestinian children yell out when they throw rocks at tanks. It means that no matter how strong the evil force is, it cannot match God, who made that force. Tanks, bombs, political leaders are not akbar. Allah is akbar.

For Christians, ‘Allah ho Akbar’ is simply an echo of ‘Our God reigns’ or in Jesus’ initial proclamation in Mark’s Gospel, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ Jesus gathered disciples who would pledge allegiance to God’s reign, his powerful force of justice, righteousness, peace and reconciliation in a world of oppressive forces. The Apostle Paul wrote of ‘principalities and powers’ that God unmasked and triumphed over on the cross of Jesus [Colossians 2:13-15]. In the face of these powerful forces, Jesus proclaimed the subversive reign of God. Not Caesar. Not the Jewish religious establishment. Not the unjust economic system of landowners and migrant peasants of the Galilean countryside.

Today, we must chant with our Muslim brothers and sisters, ‘Allah ho Akbar,’ or ‘Our God Reigns’ in the face of American imperialism and capitalism. On Thursday, Ali explained that the United States needs to decide whether we are an empire or a republic. Our political authorities [including Obama] continue to decide on behalf of empire, with its militarism and unjust capitalist economic policies, favoring banks and corporations over the homeless, unemployed and families forced to foreclose on their homes. Ali beckoned all progressives to learn from the philosophers and activists of the 60s. This was a time in American history that is preparing us for today. We are going to need to employ civil disobedience in the face of unjust policies. Each of us works in accordance with our own conscience discerning where God [Allah] is at work in redeeming these powers-that-be. Because the American Dream has become a Nightmare, we need to work for our own American perestroika, a restructuring of economic and political policies to favor those most vulnerable. Ali called upon ‘the microwave generation’ to embrace activism and sacrifice, to turn off the TV and stop shopping, and to be patient with results.

When asked who his heroes are, Amir Abdel Malik Ali, an African-American converted to Islam in his 20s, cited Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis and others, including Dr. Martin Luther King—specifically the radical Dr. King of the late 60s. In 1967, exactly a year before his assassination, King gave a speech in a church in New York City condemning the unjust war practices of the United States. King called the Untied States ‘the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today’ and ‘some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.’ Indeed, our society continues to go mad on war, in Iraq and Afghanistan and spilling billions of dollars into our own ‘military-industrial complex’ [from the words of white suburban Dwight D. Eisenhower] and the militaries of allies like Israel. King called on a dissenting community with an alternative allegiance: ‘the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions.’ For King in 1967 and for us in 2009, we are ‘confronted with the urgency of now.’ In our rapidly changing society of technology and social networking, let us continue to carry the mantel of fighting oppressive forces, following this prophet who was killed and who we now honor with a national holiday [the irony].

This kind of progressive, politically-engaged Christian activism subverts the Western message of personal piety, spirituality and heavenly salvation. It is the political Jesus that John Howard Yoder uncovered in his 1972 book The Politics of Jesus. We disciples of Jesus have been coaxed out of political-economic engagement by a variety of methods: we are too comfortable; we are disillusioned with the complexity of American politics; we’ve been taught that Jesus wasn’t political, but spiritual. Yet, when Jesus stood in the face of death before Pontius Pilate, he unflinchingly said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Jesus' wasn’t a spiritual kingdom by and by, but a socio-economic-political kingdom with a different style and substance altogether. It was a tangible, practical lifestyle that subverted Rome’s domination, violence, fear, conquest and injustice. The coming Kingdom of God, predicted by the prophets and inaugurated in Jesus, enlisted disciples who pledged allegiance to God’s politics and economics: abundance, forgiveness and reconciliation, humility, celebration, ethnic unity [Jew & Gentile], compassion, human dignity and nonviolent solutions.

Together with Ali and our Muslim brothers and sisters, along with the radical Dr. King and John Howard Yoder, we progressive Christians proclaim ‘Our God Reigns’ to the unjust powers that systematize our world. As the author of Colossians writes, '[Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things systmatize.' The God of Jews, Christians and Muslims, as testified by the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Koran, is about bringing justice to the oppressed of the world, and inviting people from all ethnic groups to participate with him in putting the world back to rights [what the Greek dikaiosune--'righteousness' or 'justification'--originally meant]. We Christians can risk this endeavor because we are convinced that we worship a God who raises the dead [a God who is akbar]. We obey like Jesus obeyed so that we will be raised like Jesus was raised.