Stop bearing ‘false witness’
MY friend Michael sends me a text message four or five times a year. I get more messages some years than others, depending on what the Socceroos are doing.
Michael and I hold a few things in common. We will forgo sleep on occasions to watch Australia on television as they take the field in the round ball version of football overseas. Michael is a proud Aussie. Michael and I also follow a faith tradition. Without fail I will be in church on Good Friday or on Christmas Eve and Michael will send through a message letting me know he is thinking of me and my family and wishing me every blessing. For many reasons I find this deeply moving.
I am a proud Australian who happens to be a Christian, Michael is a proud Australian who happens to be a Muslim.
The faith of Islam is in the news right now. On these very pages people are taking the time to tell us that Muslims living here should adhere to “our ways and our values”, or go back to where they came from.
Suddenly we’re all experts. We know what jihad is. We know what Sharia is. We know what a burqa is.
And we’re very angry that “they” are making us eat “halal” food. There’s plenty to unpack here – so I’ll make a few simple points.
Firstly to the good people out there who have no religious affiliation or leaning. Thanks for getting this far down the page! If I could encourage you to suspend your unbelief for a moment and take on board the unsolicited advice I am now giving to the Christians among us.
Christians and all people of goodwill, please start taking the 8th commandment seriously. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.”
Stop getting your information about Islam from Facebook or mischievous chain emails. Stop listening to gossip and hearsay.
How many Muslim friends do you have? How many Muslims have you spoken to? Have you ever shared a meal with a Muslim sister or brother?
Make no mistake, the violence and destruction of humanity that is happening in Syria and in the north of Iraq at the moment is unspeakable.
It cannot be excused and it cannot be justified by any religious faith. It has as much to do with Islam as the Klu Klux Klan has to do with an evening prayer service at your local church.
At times like this it is important to come back to the lived experience.
Muslims have been in this country since the Afghan camel drivers of the 19th century and back a few more hundred years if you count the Macassan fishermen from the north.
They have lived on the Darling Downs for a very long time now. They have lived in peace and want what the rest of us want. A peaceful existence and a hopeful future for our children.
They have never threatened our way of life and my experience is that they have no problem at all signing onto our core values of democracy, the rule of law, a fair go for all.
One of the many great things about our country is that we have, by and large always upheld the basic human right that everybody is free to have a religious faith, or indeed no faith at all.
We cannot allow the atrocities occurring on the other side of the world to damage this precious thing.
My friend Michael has Bosnian heritage. His homeland was deeply scarred by the ethnic cleansing that occurred in that place between 1992 and 1995.
More than 200,000 people were systematically murdered at the hands of men claiming to be Christian.
Rape was introduced as a weapon of war and more than two million refugees were created as a genocide took place once again on European soil.
If Michael can see that I as a Christian have nothing to do with the horror of Srebrenica, surely the rest of us can see that people of Islamic faith have nothing to do with the barbarity of ISIS.
Is this too much to ask?