Had a long talk with a Muslim man the other day -- 3-4 hours of delightful, respectful, in-depth discussion of our various positions. Questions were freely made and respectfully answered, friendly concern not to offend each other, but no sense of "walking on egg-shells" or either side being easily offended.

I came away from the encounter with several thoughts, listed below. In summary, he claimed:

* one cannot be both a terrorist and a Muslim. If you are one you must forswear the other -- that Islam and the Koran teach that killing others or yourself goes against everything that is holy and good,
* the idea of "jihad" in the Koran has nothing to do with forcing others to become Muslim, or holy war against those who are not Muslim. Rather it has to do with the internal/spiritual war we all fight in our own hearts against sin and evil,
* that starting even with its founder, Islam has been willing to live in peace with other faiths -- that the Ottoman Empire was quite willing to allow those it conquered to continue in their respective beliefs and practices,
* and that Christians and Muslims have a lot in common when it comes to believing that the world was created by God -- that the atheistic scientist is foolish when he claims the design of the world can be explained by accidental forces.

In addition, we spent a good amount of our time discussing the differences in theology between Jewish/Christian thought and Muslim. He held that Muslims believe:

* that Allah created man/woman to be sinful from the beginning -- and that this explains how we can be so sinful today, and why it is not surprising to Allah that we are sinful,
* that sin needs to be opposed in our lives every day all the time,
* that each individual fears Allah, but also is optimistic that he will be merciful in the judgment,
* that no one can know for sure whether or not he will be embraced by Allah until the judgment day,
* that no amount of good work in life can offset our sinful selves,
* that to think that one can be "saved" is actually a formula for potential passivity and moral degradation.

I told him about:
* how we were made good but fell through disobedience,
* how (since we cannot do enough good work in life to offset even the smallest of sins), we need someone to pay that price for us,
* how Jesus' substitution of Himself for me fully paid for me,
* and how while I COULD sit the rest of my life in my house doing nothing and still be acceptable to God, I am motivated to do in life now because of LOVE for the God who saved me.

There were several of these ideas that were new to the other --

I had never heard that Muslims disavow violent action on behalf of Allah. I told him several times that it would help a great deal if Muslim leaders around the world would stand and condemn terrorism in the name of Islam. He seemed to think they did already, but eventually agreed that there could be far more done along this line.

I had never heard that Muslims believe man was created by design to be sinful. This seemed to me to attribute evil to God, something that would lead to a loss of the category of "good" altogether. It turns out that it was news to him that Christians hold to a good creation gone bad, and thus have no need to attribute the source of evil to the Creator.

He had not considered that it could be possible to be out from under (my words, not his) the weight of sin in life. This, I believe, is the most important of all the things discussed, and I hope that it will haunt him the rest of his days. Christian hope looks quite different from his perspective: it seems irresponsible and passive. With genuine and kind curiosity he wanted to know if our beliefs allowed us to do nothing the rest of our lives...and I could see what he meant. This thought is hard for Christians to believe as well. Not because either of us are incapable of understanding, but because the idea is so impossible. How can we not fear? How can we not want to do good in the world? How can we not want to make things better -- even better for God? Of course we DO, but we do so now without fear, and BECAUSE of His love freely given, rather than in hopes that His love will BE given. This is the radical nature of the Christian's motivation. No other way of thinking allows for such radical and complete unity with God -- and it is accomplished without the slightest notion of pride, since it had nothing to do with us. This is hard for anyone to believe, but it is what makes the good news good.

We parted friends and invited him to return to discuss further any and all questions. He accepted and wants to cook us dinner. I need to read the Koran.