We’ve been hard at work creating new videos! In this week’s video, I talk about the presence of common grace in all cultures and nations of our world – despite the reality of total depravity and human sinfulness.
See more Peace Catalyst videos on our YouTube channel.
by Thomas Davis
This week, Thomas Davis is continuing his Stories from Afghanistan series, and I’m happy to be able to share his stories with you here too. You can find more from Thomas on his blog.
Bald Heads on a Chilly Kabul Morning
On day three of my 15-day seminar, some of the Turkish and Afghan teachers greeted me with a major surprise. Kabul in January can be quite cold, and there was quite a bit of snow on the ground outside as we gathered at 8:00am in a chilly classroom for the start of our day’s work.
Before I could get the instruction underway, several of the teachers gathered around me, still wearing their stocking caps. One of them, a dear Afghan gentleman in his 40s, exclaimed, “Teacher, teacher, we have a surprise for you!” (The teachers insisted on addressing me as “teacher” as a cultural sign of respect, despite that fact that we are all about the same age.)
As I inquired about the surprise, about six of the male teachers ripped off their caps to reveal cleanly shaven bald heads. As the classroom roared with laughter, the newly bald teachers explained that they took razors to their heads as an act of solidarity and respect for me and my shiny head. They succeeded, as I was indeed honored!
Here’s a class photo, taken about ten days after the teachers had shaved their heads:
Turkish Educators Loving Sacrificially
In the Afghan-Turk NGO, a good percentage of the teachers are Turks. They are young professionals, mostly in their 30s and 40s, with spouses and children. No doubt, each of these families could have stayed in Turkey to earn more income and to live with a greater sense of normalcy and security. Instead, however, they have chosen to do the hard thing—to live and serve in a war-torn country where life can be extra challenging, where they are foreigners, and where their children sometimes suffer.
For example, one teacher new to Afghanistan lamented that there are no parks in which his kids can play, and he said this makes him “feel sad for my children.” Other teachers noted that relatives in Turkey said things like, “you’ll get shot if you go there” and pled with them to choose a more sensible and safe place to live and work. (These stories of suffering children and of the protests of relatives back home reminded me, in every way, of my own experiences as an American Christian with a young family living and serving in another part of the world.)
So, in light of the obstacles and risks, why do these Turkish Muslim educators choose to ply their trade in Afghanistan? After many hours getting to know some of these teachers and hearing their hearts, the answer is clear to me. More than anything, they want to honor God with their lives, and they believe that the best way to do that is by laying down their lives to help others—in this case thousands of Afghan children who are receiving quality education and who are learning core values rooted in basic human rights.
This is the third in Thomas Davis’s series, Stories from Afghanistan. If you missed the previous posts or just want to read them again, you can find them here: A Journey of Faith and Friendship and When God Ran.
Fear, Love, and Friendship
In my work with Peace Catalyst International, one of the really important things we do is introduce people from very different backgrounds and perspectives. We proactively create space for Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others with real differences to engage in real dialogue and begin building real friendship.
As I ponder this bridge-building work, I am often reminded of the admonition of John, perhaps Jesus’s closest friend. John wrote that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18, ESV). The inverse seems to hold true as well in that fear appears to push out love. Thus, fear and love are like oil and water—they do not mix.
Unfortunately, I see this regularly as I encounter “Christians” who are so gripped by fear and even hatred of Muslims that they have no capacity for love. In most cases, this fear is of the baseless, irrational variety—the kind of fear we are all prone to conjure up when we cloister with those from “our tribe” and work tirelessly to cast those from “the other tribe” in the worst possible light. My Muslim friends tell me that there is the same propensity among Muslims to believe the worst about Christians.
The encouraging news is that a growing number of Christians, Muslims, and others are recognizing the problem and working to overcome it—expressly by finding whatever excuses they can to get to know one another. As this happens, stereotypes are crushed, irrational fear turns into respect and even love, and people with very real and evident differences discover they have far more in common than they ever could have imagined.
In short, these very different people humanize one another, build friendship on the common ground of our humanity, and learn to talk about differences and share deep matters of the heart in the context of that friendship.
With that, I’d like to help you get to know my dear Afghan and Turkish friends in Kabul by sharing some random experiences and observations from my recent visit there. As you know if you have read previous posts in this series, the Afghan-Turk Educational NGO is a Muslim non-profit focused on education projects throughout Afghanistan, and they flew me in to train some of their teachers and to explore additional avenues of partnership.
To help you get to know my friends, I have written five brief accounts of various experiences I had in Kabul. I will share one below and will post each of the remaining vignettes on subsequent days this week. It is my hope that what follows will offer you a glimpse into the lives and the hearts of my Muslim friends in Kabul and that in some way you will see yourself in them and in their stories.
Teachers Fighting in Kabul–Armed with Snowballs
During my last week in Kabul, I awoke one morning to a fresh snow covering of about eight inches. As my students and I were beginning our early morning class session, we heard a very loud thud. Looking toward the sound, we saw the remnants of a massive snowball that had struck (and nearly cracked, I’m sure) our classroom window.
About 20 feet beyond the window stood Mr. Gurkan, a veteran educator who was co-teaching the 15-day seminar with me. Mr. Gurkan had a smirk on his face that my students, experienced educators from Turkey and Afghanistan, could not ignore.
Desperate to rush outside to respond appropriately to their challenger and yet committed to being respectful of me, they jumped from their seats, ran toward me, and all at once exclaimed something like, “Teacher, PLEASE may we go outside to attack Mr. Gurkan?” As soon as I consented, the classroom emptied into the parking lot, where a ferocious but all-in-good-fun snowball war ensued!
More from Thomas Davis can be found on his personal blog.
Today I want to share another of our new Peace Catalyst videos with you. In today’s video, I speak about an important resource that every peacemaker and everyone committed to Christian-Muslim relations should be aware of: the Grace & Truth Project.
For more Peace Catalyst videos, visit our YouTube channel.
Whenever I speak at churches about Christian-Muslim relations, I find that people usually respond in one of two ways: people want to convert Muslims, or they fear them. For many evangelicals, our relationship with Muslims can be summarized as one of two polar opposites: conversion or conflict. It is either world evangelization or the clash of civilizations. But are those really the only options?
Recently I have noticed a lot of bumper stickers promoting “co-existence,” like this one:
As a “recovering evangelical,” I know how most evangelicals feel about co-existence – it is compromise. We need to win people to Christ, not co-exist! But what if people don’t want to follow Christ? Then what do we do?
It seems to me that co-existing with different races, religions, and ideologies challenges us to pursue peace.
Jesus said that peacemakers will be called “children of God” (Matthew 5:9). And how should God’s children respond to diversity? A 21st century adaptation of this verse might read like this: “Blessed are those who help a divided and different world co-exist, for they shall be called the children of God.”
And in case you haven’t noticed, we are in the midst of a radical demographic shift in our country. The colors and creeds of our neighborhoods are changing. Pluralism is on the rise. The United States is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the world. We live in an increasingly multi-cultural world. So co-existence is not compromise. It is a necessity!
But I must admit that co-existing still falls short of Jesus’s strong emphasis on loving one’s neighbor. Instead of mere co-existence, we need to work toward the common good. Seeking the common good is another way of talking about loving my neighbor, doing justice, and pursuing peace. Seeking the common good pursues human flourishing for all. It describes how personal faith intersects with public life.
God commands us to seek the common good of everyone.
“Seek the welfare (shalom) of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare (shalom) you will have welfare (shalom)” (Jeremiah 29:7).
“You are the light of the world…Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16).
“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
“Always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people” (1 Thessalonians 5:15).
During a time of Q&A at a recent Love Your Neighbor Dinner, a man named Ahmad asked, “Do all Christians around the world really believe that love of God and neighbor is that important?”
I thought for sure Ahmad’s question was merely theological. He wanted to make nice, to talk about important-sounding topics that never impact real lives.
But he pursued me, and so we ate dinner together. “Rick,” he said, “I asked that question for practical reasons. My family has been warmly welcomed in our neighborhood. Our neighbors treat us well. But what bothers me is that one of our neighbors is a known for being a dedicated Christian, yet he is the least friendly of all our neighbors. That’s why I asked the question. My Christian neighbor does not love us. The non-believing neighbors make us feel more welcome.”
Wow! A supposedly devout Christian was the worst neighbor on the block. How sad, but how typical of far too many Christians!
I want all people to follow Christ. So I appreciate the evangelical emphasis on wanting to convert people (although God is the one who converts people – a great topic for another blog). But I am grieved by a fearful and hostile mentality that assumes conflict, rejects co-existence, and doesn’t even consider seeking the common good.
I think Jesus would like us to take His teaching more seriously. Can we get beyond the conversion-conflict categories and model co-existence and the common good? Can we get to know the people around us – without our only agenda being to convert them? Can we actually reach out to and love our literal neighbor – the one who lives in a house 20 feet away? Can we serve the poor to model who Jesus is – without expectation of anyone even ever noticing? I bet we will even find that this kind of lifestyle will lead to good will, which will open hearts to the good news.
Rick is an internationally-recognized expert in Christian-Muslim relations. He is President of Peace Catalyst International and serves as Associate Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Peace and Reconciliation Initiative.
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