Will Bush Allow His Cult To Proselytize Iraqis? Probably Says Author

Helping hands that could hurt

By Ira Rifkin, MSNBC contributor


Friendly fire is an unavoidable aspect of combat that is tragically plaguing the American-led military effort in Iraq. Now, America's political game plan for securing the peace is threatened by friendly fire of another sort, albeit one that is entirely avoidable. The threat is the hubris of the Christian right.

THE WHITE HOUSE plan is to topple Saddam and make America look like the good guy -- no easy task. Despite unexpected Iraqi resistance, Saddam's eventual demise still seems a foregone conclusion, even though the military campaign will be costlier than originally thought. But being perceived as liberators and not conquerors is the tougher task, albeit one that's critical to keeping rising Muslim anti-Americanism from boiling over worldwide.
So the last thing the Bush administration needs is the helping hand offered by the Southern Baptist Convention and the Rev. Franklin Graham, though his international aid group, Samaritan's Purse.

POISED TO PROSELYTIZE
Both organizations claim to have workers ready to enter Iraq with other non-governmental organizations, once such approval is given, to provide food, shelter and other essentials to civilians caught in the increasingly nasty fray. The problem is the handouts will come with not-so-subtle Christian proselytizing. In the Muslim world, that will only strengthen the belief there that the attack on Iraq is, above all else, an attack on Islam.

Making matters worse, the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and one of the few American church groups strongly backing the war, and Graham -- Billy Graham's less politically astute offspring -- are already well known to Muslims because of past remarks that were hostile to Islam. Former SBC president Jerry Vines last year said, "Christianity was founded by the virgin- born Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Mohammed, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and his last one was a 9-year-old girl….Allah is not Jehovah, either. Jehovah is not going to turn anyone into a terrorist that will try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people." Current SBC president Jack Graham, a Texas pastor, called Vines' comments "accurate." Graham, meanwhile, has called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion." He's also said Christianity and Islam "are different as lightness and darkness," and that "Islam -- unlike Christianity -- has among its basic teachings a deep intolerance for those who follow other faiths."

AMERICAN MUSLIMS OBJECT
"I think it's a colossally bad move to have a group whose leader says Islam is 'evil' follow in the wake of U.S. troops in Iraq," Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, told reporters. "It would seem to confirm every suspicion in the Muslim world that the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism are really a war on Islam."

Southern Baptist officials and Graham insist that their desire in Iraq is to help. "We go where we have the opportunity to meet needs," said Graham aide Ken Isaacs. But he also declared that given the opportunity, Graham's team would not shy away from openly evangelizing. "We do not deny the name of Christ," said Isaacs. "We believe in sharing him in deed and in word."

Evangelical Christians are enjoined to share the Gospel. It's called the Great Commission, Jesus' directive to his followers to go among the unconverted and, well, convert. Islam has its own impulses, however, among them being the concept of global communal allegiance (the ummah), strict prohibitions against converting out of the faith, and painful historical memories of Muslims being forcibly converted (when not killed) during the Crusades.

Ummah is an Arabic term signifying the Koranic belief that all Muslims, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, and increasingly in Europe and the Americas, are a single nation that transcends tribal, ethnic, racial and state divisions. What threatens one threatens all, which is why Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden continually present American attacks against them as threatening all Muslims.

A CONTEMPORARY CRUSADE?
How foolish it would be, particularly now, to pit the Great Commission against the ummah's fear that what is occurring in Iraq, and what occurred in Afghanistan, are opening salvos in a contemporary crusade.

Yet the obvious need to keep the Southern Baptist Convention, Graham and other such conversion-minded Christians out of postwar Iraq could well fall victim to President Bush's need to shore up faltering domestic political support should the military effort drag on past the American public's limited patience, produce significant U.S. casualties, and further weaken the nation's already reeling economy. While Bush is still enjoying the support of a majority of Americans, recent polls also note the American public's growing concern about the lengthening war.

Samaritan's Purse and the Southern Baptist Convention would likely work independently of the official U.S. Agency for International Development relief efforts already taking shape. Samaritan's Purse, in fact, has already obtained the requisite Treasury Department license to deliver aid to Iraq, and spokesman Jeremy Blume signaled the group's willingness to "go it alone," rather than become entangled in government restrictions on mixing religious proselytizing with humanitarian aid delivery. (A Southern Baptist International Mission Board spokesman said he could not immediately state whether Treasury approval has been obtained.)

WHAT WILL THE PRESIDENT DO?
Presumably, if the White House found it inconvenient for the two groups to insert themselves in postwar Iraq, Graham and the Southern Baptist Convention would pull back.

But the Christian right is Bush's theological and political home, and he would be tempted to retreat to this comfort zone should the going get tougher. Should he acquiesce to evangelical demands, the result would be untold damage to American interests worldwide that no amount of presidential posturing about Islam being "a religion of peace" would undo.

America's tradition of religious freedom guarantees evangelical Christians the right to proselytize, and as Muslims insist upon the right to engage in religious outreach, so should Christians be able to as well. But just as all Americans have surrendered civil liberties to fight terrorism, now is not the time for evangelical Christians to assert their domestic religious liberties on the closely watched international stage that is Iraq.

Any effort that plays into the increasingly likely scenario of a clash of civilizations between Western (read Christian) culture and Islam should be avoided.


Ira Rifkin is author of "Spiritual Perspectives on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Cultural Upheaval." He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.