Adapting the faith for non-immigrants.
Soon, Islam in America will no longer be an immigrant faith. It will be the faith of people who grew up attending American public schools, colleges, movie theaters, and shopping malls. "But as the first generation of American-born Muslims begins graduating from college in significant numbers, with a swelling tide behind them, some congregations are beginning to seek native imams who can talk about religious and social issues that seem relevant to young people, like dating and drugs." It's tough to find "culturally savvy" imams when those who are religiously educated come from the Middle East and those whose parents immigrated did not come to see their children lead a mosque.
An article in today's New York Times describes the religion's slow transition from imported to homegrown. If American-born Muslims do not find a way to adapt the faith to a new context, Muslims worry, they will either drop the religion or seek its radical fringe.
"Islam in America is trying to create a new cultural matrix that can survive in the broader context of America," said Prof. Sherman Jackson, who teaches Arabic and Islamic law at the University of Michigan. "It has to change for the religion to survive."
Posted by Rob Moll on June 1, 2007 9:48AM
Comments
And why should it survive?
Posted by: DiverCity at June 1, 2007
If we are salty enough then they will be thirsty for living water and this will not be an issue. Hunger for spirituality is not the problem in America. We worship our sports, our movie stars our musicians and our materialism. Non-believers have an acute God given awareness of hypocrisy which as Christians we seem to have lost in the business of church life. Our social and personal needs are met in our small churches and groups and it’s uncomfortable to reach out. We almost feel threatened by new people that it might interrupt our “good thing” forgetting that really God is our provider and His purposes are greater than our own personal needs. If we love them with God’s love then we might just become salty enough to reach them and find our own needs met in giving.
Posted by: Dave Anderson at June 6, 2007
Some years ago, I attended an interfaith gathering at a mosque in Detroit, and sat a table who were mostly descendents of Shiites who came to Detroit in the teens and twenties. They were mostly like other Americans I knew, concerned with college and taxes, and other things we talk about. I think to know what Muslims might be like in decades to come, we could just look around at Muslims who have been here for decades already.
Posted by: Bob Campbell at June 6, 2007
We could debate whether Islam can survive from a number of perspectives (cultural, social, theological) and even whether it has the right to survive (which could be underneath some comments above), but all of this is from an outsider's perspective. I see one helpful conclusion from the article: the Christian community has a great opportunity to speak into and shape Islam as it changes to face the future. What will our message to Muslims be?
Posted by: Sean at June 6, 2007
Post a comment