American Christians Keep the Fast of Ramadan
Ramadan 1428 / 2007
To our Muslim brothers and sisters everywhere:
All praise and thanks be to the one God whom we all worship, who has called you to worship Him after the manner of al-Islam, and us to worship Him according to the gospel of Jesus, whom both faith traditions hail as the Messiah: it is our deep wish that God strengthen you in your devotion to God, your love of God, and your trust in God during this month of Ramadan, and that everything that you do for His sake may be pleasing to Him.
We have joined you in keeping the fast of Ramadan this year, as a freewill offering to God accompanying our prayer for peace, justice, and a spirit of love to grow among the peoples of the Abrahamic religions. It is our desire that all over the world, if God so wills, Muslim, Jew and Christian can learn to stand together in brotherhood in the sight of their Creator, and encourage one another in faithfulness and good deeds. But we are mourning many of the deeds of our government and our people, as they continue to involve themselves in the affairs of Islamic peoples, and the lives of Muslim detainees held at United States facilities, without sufficiently caring or understanding what they are doing to the people whose lives they affect. To our sorrow, we see many American Christians trusting, supporting, and following policy-makers whose guiding principle seems to be “let us do evil, that good may come of it,” as if they did not know that our own scripture explicitly condemns it (Romans 3:8). In repenting our own complicity in this, we hope to lead our brother and sister Christians into repentance.
Our power to make the world’s leaders humble themselves, question their own behavior, and let their hearts be turned, seems very small. And yet we draw hope from our certainty that we are listened to by the true Ruler of this world, the Turner of Hearts, who sees everything and holds all power. This month we curb our natural appetites during daylight hours to be more mindful of the One to whom we must return, the Highest, our Helper. We perceive, sadly, that many American Christians lack understanding of what it means to be a Muslim. How better to change that than for some of us to join the Muslim world in its Ramadan fast? We also hope that such self-restraint as we gain from the fast might help restore a spirit of self-restraint to the worldly culture of the industrialized nations, in however small a way, for on our learning self-restraint now seems to depend the saving of the world from ruin.
Advised by Jesus himself to fast privately and without open display (Matthew 6:16-18), we make ourselves available for responses to this communication but without identifying ourselves individually by name. May God comfort you, sustain you in hope, and bestow on you every blessing.
Ramadan Fasters of Christ
christsfasters@aol.com
Click to download a PDF of American Christians Keep the Fast of Ramadan
You may also be interested in The Fast of Ramadan, for Christians and Others.
September 21, 2008 at 2:01 am |
Thank you for a kindness to a people not your own, yet very much your own.
September 23, 2008 at 1:49 am |
Appreciate the intent, but please get your facts straight. Jesus is *not* in any way a ‘Messiah’ in the Islamic faith. The Islamic faith has no ‘Messiah’. To Muslims, Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and could do Miracles, and indeed brought the message of God to the people (like any prophet does) but he did not die on the cross nor was he resurrected. He simply ascended to heaven and will return in the Last Days to help defeat Shaitan (Satan).
February 16, 2009 at 8:24 am |
There’s no soft way to say this so I’ll just say it: You are making a mistake thinking that celebrating Ramadan will head off the jihad to bring about the global caliphate.
The difference between the two mandates, of Jesus – son of God – and Muhammed – prophet of Allah, is that Jesus told us that our Earthly home is just that, a place for our corporeal beings, gifts from God, and God waits for us in Heaven. Muhammed claims to be the sole source of information (the Suras) from Allah, and that Earth is the place where Allah’s people (the Muslims) will reign.
Being kind to your neighbor, a Muslim in this case, is one thing, but celebrating his religious feasts as a show of solidarity seems contrary to the mandate of Jesus Christ, speaking for his father, God.
Submission and servitude to God is not the same as submission and dhimmitude to Allah.
I appreciate the goodness factor in the Quaker religion, but I fear you are being duped by a religion that doesn’t – and won’t – return the favor.
Jesus wasn’t a push-over and I don’t think God is, either. Don’t let this mantle kindness become like the shroud of Judas.
February 19, 2009 at 1:30 am |
Dear Lucky1346:
I’m very grateful for your intention to correct me, and may the Lord reward you for it. I think your perspective on several things is incorrect, though, and I’m afraid that the cause of truth might be injured by my neglecting to answer you. By this I mean that more than one visitor to this blog site might come away with false pictures of Christianity, of Quakerism, of Islam, and of the motivation behind my taking up the fast of Ramadan. And the world cannot afford more ignorance. Worse than that, if I didn’t answer you I’d be ashamed to face my Lord Jesus.
I took up the fast of Ramadan because He told me to. He – Jesus Christ. This, I believe, was His answer to my prayer, “what can I do?”
I was deeply concerned that, at the time, professed Christians in the United States were demonizing Islam and Muslims, and cheering on U.S. invasions of Islamic countries, in a way that, in my view, were shaming Christianity and the good name of my Lord. I had no interest in military or political outcomes. It was not on my agenda to do Islam a “favor” that I expected the world’s Muslims to “return.” God is not interested in our doing favors in order to be repaid; that’s why Jesus had us invite “the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind” to our feasts, the ones that cannot repay us (Luke 14:13-14). God wants us simply to tell the truth, ask for His guidance, and do what’s right.
Neither did I think my fasting would “head off” the alleged “global jihad to bring about the world caliphate.” I am not an idolater; I was fasting to God, not to political forces. And, in any case, I believe that whatever tiny percentage of the world’s Muslims might be angry enough to want to bring about a world caliphate by force, they “would have no power except it were given them from above,” John 19:11.
I regularly pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” and that just about sums up my politics. On Election Day, 2008, I didn’t vote, but fasted for twenty-four hours and prayed for good government – again, because that’s what I felt my Lord wanted of me, when I turned to Him in prayer, concerned that I might be unfaithful to His testimony of non-violence (Matthew 5:39, 44; Luke 9:51-56; Matthew 26:52) by voting for a Commander-in-Chief.
I think that you yourself, brother Lucky, might find yourself more at peace with God and with your fellow men and women if you detached yourself from worldly political outcomes. If God wants you to fight for a righteous cause, let Him put the spiritual weapon in your hand – remember that our weapons “are not carnal, but spiritual,” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 – and then let Him direct your use of it. Do not rely on your own opinions, but let Him give you “a mouth, and wisdom,” Luke 21:15, as occasion arises.
Now, about Islam: the most important thing about the world’s Muslims is that God, whom they call Allah, loves them and wishes them to love Him. If they were worshippers of idols of wood and stone, or of guns, sex and money, we would be right to stand aloof from fellowship with them, as Paul advised in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. But they are worshippers of our God, the Creator of the Universe, the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. What can we say to such worshippers of the right God but – as Paul said to the worshippers of “the unknown God,” Acts 17:23 – “the God you revere is the one I proclaim to you?” (New Jerusalem Bible translation)
Muslims hail Muhammad as the last prophet that God will send to the human race, but they do not claim that he is the sole source of information about Allah; in fact they hail the Biblical patriarchs, and Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Job, Jonah, John the Baptist and Jesus as prophets, and emphasize the similarity of all true prophets’ messages: there is one God, and only He is to be worshipped; He wishes people to turn from evil to good, and to love justice, mercy, truthfulness and lovingkindness; and the way to become such a good person is to surrender one’s own will to the will of God. The way of Islam is the most excellent way to do that, they say, but good Christians and good Jews are also dear to God, and their faith is to be respected and supported. Pretty close to the Christian Gospel, isn’t it? Pretty close except for the status of Jesus, and the role of His crucifixion and resurrection in our salvation. I can give you chapter-and-verse citations in the Qur’an for all these tenets if you’re interested.
There are, of course, differences of nuance: there are many teachings of Jesus that aren’t included in Islamic tradition (and conversely, Islamic tradition has preserved many alleged sayings of Jesus that aren’t included in the Gospels). The Qur’an says nothing about the teachings of the Christian Apostles. The precious prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Joel, fulfilled under the New Covenant with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the writing of the Law on the believers’ new hearts, are reflected in the promise of an inwardly received criterion of right and wrong in Qur’an 8:29, but somehow the gift of the Holy Spirit promised in Christian scripture seems bigger than anything I’ve found recorded in the Qur’an. Also, I don’t see Islam’s allowing for my becoming a New Creature in Christ, which has been a matter of personal experience for me, and so I remain a Christian, as I was called to be, not tempted to convert to Islam. But I respect it and hope to deepen my understanding of it.
You say that for Christians, God waits for us in Heaven, but for Muslims, Earth is the place where Allah’s servants, the Muslims, are to reign. This is absolute baloney. First of all, Jesus said “the kingdom of God is within you,” Luke 17:21, and Paul said that it was righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14:17. True, we may long to be free of the flesh and present with Christ, as Paul did, but if we are faithful we are at home with God and Christ right here, right now, and God has ways of making us know that. What Christ warns us against is becoming too attached to the good things of this life in the flesh and forgetting God: that’s the only thing wrong with this world of suffering and ignorance that we temporarily find ourselves in. It’s not that God is absent.
Neither is Allah absent from this world for the Muslim, but neither are the good things of this world the objects a Muslim should be striving for. If anything, the reader of the Qur’an is warned more often than the reader of Christian Scripture that He or She will shortly be standing before the Judgment Seat on the Last Day, about to be flung into hell or gently led into Paradise. The Muslim who forgets this Judgment and sets his heart on wealth, power and world conquest is clearly as far astray as the Christian who does so. Friend Lucky, please check your sources of information on Islam. They have not told you the truth.
July 7, 2009 at 8:48 pm |
“All praise and thanks be to the one God whom we all worship, who has called you to worship Him after the manner of al-Islam, and us to worship Him according to the gospel of Jesus,…”
With all due respect I ask why would God call anyone to worship Him after the manner of al-Islam when the Bible clearly states that there is NO OTHER name given in Heaven or Earth by which men must be saved, referring of course to Jesus?
I will be fasting for Ramadan also but I do it because I feel that if these poor people who are clearly spiritually decieved do it, how can I NOT do it. Also, I wish to show solidarity with my Muslim friends to show that I care about them enough to endure with them. My desire is that while I am focussing on God, He will use that testimony to speak to my Muslim friends of His love for them so that they too will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
There is ONE mediator between God and man – Jesus Christ and the way is straight and the way is narrow and by His own admission He (Jesus) is THE way, THE truth and THE life and NO ONE comes to God except through Him.
May His peace be upon you all!
July 8, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
Thank you, friend Sam, for this reminder; I think I haven’t dealt with this problem adequately, in my writings to Muslims or on this blog generally.
Let us both pray to the liberal Giver of all wisdom (James 1:5), and Bestower of the Holy Spirit of Truth (John 14:15-17, Luke 11:13), that this conversation between us might bring us both closer to that ultimate knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ in which eternal life consists (John 17:3).
It’s true that our Scriptures affirm that “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Peter, speaking in the Holy Spirit, in Acts 4:12), “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). As John puts it, “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12).
The problem, for both Muslims and us Christians, is that we see as through a glass, darkly. Many Muslims see Christians as involved in the unpardonable sin of ascribing a partner to God, namely Jesus Christ, not realizing that, as all Christians should understand (but some do not), Jesus Christ has no will to do anything but the will of God the Father; they are One. Or they are offended by Christians’ use of the metaphor of begetting to describe the relation between God and Christ (and those of us who, enjoying the new life in Christ, share in His sonship). On the Christian side, we’ve historically tended to consign everyone to hell who doesn’t agree with our doctrines, as if Judgment Day were going to be a theology final rather than a weighing of our hearts and consciences. Our own Scripture should warn us against such smugness about ourselves and such presumptuous judging of others: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1 John 4:7).
My reading of this one line tells me that any Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or pagan saint that loves truly, loves the Source of creation and consciousness, loves the whole of creation, friend and foe alike, loves the Good enough to die for it — Jesus Christ lives in that person, and what we find admirable in that person is nothing other than Jesus Christ shining through that personality, which is to say, the boundless goodness of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
This does not mean that I expect that when I leave this flesh and see things as they really are, I’ll change from a Christian into a Unitarian-Universalist or a Baha’i or someone who holds that all religions are one. I live in Christ and Christ lives in me: that’s an experienced reality, not to be denied or renounced.
What I think more likely is that good-hearted people of other faith traditions, waking up to reality as it really is, will experience themselves as parts or cells of a larger Holy Organism, through which they have eternal life in communion with God the Creator of that Holy Organism — “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15). And at THAT every knee shall bow: how could it not?
In the meantime I’m inclined to believe that Muslims are called to strive to be good servants of Allah in the spirit of al-Islam, Buddhists to strive to be good practitioners of the wise and compassionate Dharma, Jews to love God and their neighbors as they were always commanded to, etc., just as Christians are called to be Christians, for in every faith tradition there is ample opportunity to grow in godliness and lovingkindness, and thereby to please God; and when it pleases God to inspire some soul to make a quantum-leap from one less spiritually nourishing faith tradition to another that promises to serve that soul better, then I pray that you and I may stand ready to show the reasonableness and attractiveness of the Christian faith that I am sure we both would be proud to give our lives for.
July 8, 2009 at 3:00 pm |
Hi Sam, I mean you no disrespect.
However, this statement you made was very troubling to me:
“I will be fasting for Ramadan also but I do it because I feel that if these poor people who are clearly spiritually deceived do it, how can I NOT do it.”
That’s very offensive.
Personally, I have no doubt in my mind that the God worshiped by Muslims and the God in my own life are one and the same.
You may not agree, and that is fine.
However, if you don’t respect Muslims’ belief system, in my opinion, undertaking their spiritual practices alongside them is offensive. Hoping they will see your dedication and be led to convert to Christianity as you suggest is at best a bit misguided.