Should Christians Convert Muslims?
“Whatever happened to embracing diversity? Intolerance, not love of God, is what drives Christian missionaries to convert Muslims.”
Vivian Myers-Marowitz
Concord, U.S.
Even though I am a Hindu, i found my heart swelling as I learned of the brave efforts of Christians to break through the religious imprisonment of official Islam [June 30]. Moderate Islam seems paralyzed by virulent radicals. The moderate Islamic majorities seem incapable of resisting the hate and violence being taught in madrasahs. To effect a permanent change of heart in a substantial number of Middle Easterners, a new, inspired and courageous force seems appropriate. The disease of religious fascism urgently requires treatment. Christians have the ideology and determination to risk their lives to offer a cure.
Sai Ramananda
Whistler, Canada
Muslims are not enslaved by Islam, but in many cases their faith has been taken over by extremist Muslims who portray a wrong image of their religion. Islam is not a religion of force or domination but the apotheosis of peace. If some Muslims are converting to other faiths, it is not because of shortcomings in their religion; it’s because of their lack of knowledge of Islam. True Muslims are free of the clutches of society’s evils and social dogmas. It is not we Muslims who require an understanding of Christianity; it is the world that requires a complete understanding of true Islam.
Mohammed Junaid Siddiqi
Karachi
Growing up in a family that is half Catholic and half Muslim, I became accustomed to the idea that people can have different religious convictions and still live together in harmony. Even though the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have big differences, they also have many things in common. It is natural to have different beliefs. Many people around the globe are born into religions that they accept as a way of life. Instead of always trying to make others see our point of view, perhaps we should accept that every religion is a path to God in its own way. Only with understanding and acceptance can there come peace.
Adam Muneer Yusoff Maniam
Singapore
I do not believe that Christians should convert Muslims. I am a Christian by choice, not by birth. I believe wholeheartedly in the teachings of Jesus Christ. So I am not being irreverent in asking these missionaries whether they truly believe that converting the Muslims of the world to Christianity would solve all the problems of the planet.
I would rather that these Christians, instead of preaching clandestinely to Muslims, acted openly and channeled their energy and resources to provide succor to the less fortunate of this world. Wouldn’t our Saviour be more approving of these actions?
Krish N. Pillai
Noida, India
What the West fails to understand is that Islam is a very complete religion covering all aspects of life. It is practical and balanced. That is why its believers are actively practicing the tenets of Islam in their lives. Christian missionary work should begin in the West to convert professed Christians to true Christianity. People in the West are uncomfortable with being religious. We Muslims are not the ones who need to see the light.
Fatima Asif
Lahore, Pakistan
The idea of the missionaries’ pretentious holier-than-thou attitude is laughable. Do I feel the need to go door to door preaching the logic of evolution or the Big Bang theory? Of course not.
If there is anything we need to spread globally, it is forward-thinking, empirical science, not dogmatic interpretations of archaic texts.
Chris Jongkind
London, Canada
Christian missionaries should not have to hunt for “customers” or advertise. Let the product sell itself if it is good enough. Take a cue from Muslims. They do not proselytize in the same way Christians do, but they are gaining converts all the same. It is all about a person’s conviction, not aggressive salesmanship.
Atinuke Haroun
Lagos
The Postwar War
Attacks by Iraqi citizens on the u.s. and British forces in Iraq are increasing [June 30]. In the last week of June, six British soldiers lost their lives, and Americans are being killed or injured daily. As long as the economy, infrastructure and security are not at acceptable levels in Iraq, we are not winning the peace.
Vipul Thakore
London
Using deadly weapons to keep the peace is like using antibiotics to fight the common coldit just makes the enemy more resistant. Surely, nonlethal weapons, such as PepperBall guns or rubber bullets, would not only save lives but also do less damage to the American image abroad. Since police are able to control crowds and avoid riots using nonlethal means, why can’t peacekeeping soldiers use the same methods to break this cycle of violence?
Penny Freeland
São Paulo
Don’t Look Back
Although the fears of Israel, as a nation historically sandwiched between enemies, could never be described as exaggerated, common sense dictates that the time has come for a change of approach in the Middle East [June 23]. Peace will be secured only by a complete break with the past. The Old Guard must take a backseat and allow moderate Israeli and Palestinian elements to reach a compromise. The U.S. survived a bloody civil war, and Americans still live together as one nation. In Nigeria we have had our share of hate and are slowly learning that we have no other place to go. The Middle East surely cannot be the exception that proves the rule.
Peter Agbaminoja
Lagos
I was disappointed by the criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in “Sharon’s Game”. Throughout his Administration, Sharon has altered his beliefs about peace in the Middle East. By beginning to dismantle settlements, Sharon has been faithful to the road map laid out in the meeting with President George W. Bush and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, even when it has meant confronting opposition from some Israelis. Sharon was correct in labeling Abbas “a chick that hasn’t grown its feathers.” Bush ought to reconsider chastising Sharon for ordering attacks on Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi and other members of that group. The U.S. is creating a dangerous double standard. Yes, innocent Palestinian children may be killed, but how many poor Iraqi and Afghan children have died in the U.S. war against terrorism?
J. Freyja Helgeson
Silver Spring, U.S.
Appreciation of a Good Yarn
Re “Why Harry Potter Rules” [June 23]: Author J.K. Rowling has engaged millions of children (and apparently the child in millions of adults as well) to put down their joysticks and remote controls and once again read books. But litist snobs like Yale Professor Harold Bloom predict the Potter books will end up “in the dustbins everywhere.” Bloom has obviously been ensconced in his academic ivory tower so long that he can’t appreciate good, old-fashioned yarn spinning. Or is it possibly just a severe case of envy? Maybe he can’t stand the thought that a nonacademic, former welfare mom from out of nowhere can write the biggest-selling children’s series ever and become fabulously rich in the process. I say it’s a little of both.
George W. Fruechtenicht
Osaka, Japan
The Chief Justice’s Legacy
I was interested in the article on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his court’s effect on America’s freedoms, which in my view has been detrimental [June 30]. There’s no doubt that Rehnquist will be remembered alongside another, similar Chief JusticeRoger Taneywhose contributions to U.S. civil liberties include the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, which held that slaves and even the free descendants of slaves were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Rehnquist fancies himself a champion of states’ rights and judicial federalism, yet in 2000 he pulled together a bare majority of Justices who in a 5-4 ruling usurped Florida’s election laws and handed the presidency to George W. Bush. The doctrine of states’ rights apparently ends where Rehnquist’s personal political philosophy begins.
Sean Armagh
Columbus, U.S.
Corrections
In the article on Chief Justice William Rehnquist [June 30], we incorrectly said that Justice Stephen Breyer’s confirmation process was the first one after the 1991 battle over Clarence Thomas. The Justice next named after Thomas was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in 1993. Breyer was appointed in 1994.
In the same article, we mistakenly said that Rehnquist was the sole dissenter when the court ruled, in Atkins v. Virginia, that states cannot execute the mentally retarded. Two other Justices also dissented.
Accompanying the Rehnquist story was an item about the 2002 school-voucher decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. We said the court’s ruling held that “a government program does not obstruct freedom of religion if aid goes directly to the student or parent, who then chooses a school.” The issue involved was whether the voucher program violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the guarantee that the government will not establish a religion but will maintain the separation of church and state.
Hume Cronyn on the Craft of Acting
In his career of more than 60 years, actor Hume Cronyn, who died last month [Milestones, June 30], portrayed a wide variety of characters, ranging from a shipwreck survivor in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 Lifeboat to a grumpy old man in the Cocoon comedies of the 1980s. He talked to TIME about acting as a profession in an April 2, 1990, article:
“Cronyn, who is 78, headed south [from Canada] in the early ’30s, to Manhattan, where he studied acting… A small, wiry man with wispy hair and seemingly inexhaustible energy, Cronyn [says]… ‘Our theater apes film and television… You’ll see it in scripts. Audiences now have far less tolerance for long passages of dialogue than they used to. And you can’t talk to me or to anybody my age in which you don’t hear a sort of old fart’s moan about the fact that it’s much more difficult now for kids to learn the craft of acting. They don’t have the opportunity. They don’t get it in TV or films… Actors like ourselves should be able to reproduce the same effect again and again and again and again. But actors who haven’t had a theater discipline can’t do that… Something comes through the air between an actor and the audience,’ says Cronyn. ‘I think the right word is empathy. You can tell immediately if you’re not being heard, or if a lady is rattling a paper bag over in the sixth row, stage right, or if somebody has a bad cough. But the most magical moment in the theater is a silence so complete that you can’t even hear people breathe. It means that you’ve got them!'”
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