REASSESSMENT OF APOSTOLATE AMONG MUSLIMS
International Review of Mission, 69, n. 233, January 1970
There is some Christian presence in most areas of the Muslim world. In the Middle East there are communities of native Christians; in other countries the communities are composed mostly of foreign Christians with their chaplains and church organizations. The situation differs in each Muslim area, so to avoid confusion, I will speak only of one area, one in which I have had experience: northern Nigeria. Yet with some adaptation, what I say of this area will apply elsewhere in the Muslim, world. In the Middle Belt of northern Nigeria Christianity is strong enough to have a native clergy, which is numerous among Protestants. The farther north one goes, the more Christianity yields to a Muslim majority, until, in the immediate area of Sokoto, Katsina and Kano towns the population is exclusively Muslim with the exception of migrants from areas just to the south. It is in such an area that the clergy, all foreign, ask themselves: what are the aims of the Christian ministry? Fundamentally, this is a question for a Christian examining his own standpoint as to whether Muslims are saved apart from the institutional Church, and if so, what are the pastoral consequences.
In searching for an answer, I aim for one which is applicable to Christian ministry of whatever denomination, yet in describing actual experience, I restrict myself to the Catholic ministry of the diocese of Sokoto. Our reason for being there, as recognized by the Nigerian government, is to minister to the Christians and to evangelize the non-Christians. The pagans, or animists, we evangelize directly, Muslims only if they come to us of their own accord.
The animist minority
This is our charter of action. In practice the ministry to the migrant Christians formerly took the greater part of our attention; but now, because of their diminishing numbers, it demands less and less of us. The number of expatriate Christians has remained steady, but they have never been our primary concern, since most of them are there for only a year or two, whereas the Christianity we wish to nurture is a native Christianity which will endure on its own. Animism still thrives in rural areas, and our evangelization of its adherents has had a deep impression. The success of this movement is attributable mainly to the training of catechists. These catechists have spread among their own people a knowledge and practice of the faith, along with literacy and rudimentary health habits. (We have no Catholic primary schools.)
Our work among the animists, while very valuable and rewarding, has its limitations. Experience thus far has proved that one priest can achieve maximum efficiency by moderating five to ten catechists, no more. And competent catechists are hard to come by. In the catechist training centre we run, there are about nine drop-outs or disappointments for each satisfactory and perseverant graduate. So far there are not enough proven working catechists to occupy all the priests we would like to put into the work of evangelizing the animists, although this situation may change before not too long. Moreover, in the diocese of Sokoto animists make up only about 5% of the total population. Are we to limit our attention to these 5%, and hope that through them we will reach the rest of the population? Or can we not offer something directly to the Muslim majority?
Conversion of Muslims
There has always been a trickle of Muslims coming to us to learn about Christianity and desiring to embrace it. If these men are living in their own town, among their relatives and friends, their social attachments prevent their contact with us from becoming anything more than casual friendship and interest. If, on the other hand, they are uprooted people, they usually move on to another town searching for work before their association with us can develop into anything. Furthermore, most of those who come around asking to study Christianity are only looking for a job or a favour. There are a number of seriously interested Muslims, however, and the Protestant missionaries have done much for them. I will never forget the man converted in their eye clinic. Though he has subsequently gone blind, he has studied Christianity deeply, reads the Hausa Bible in Braille, and has a small, but deeply committed and learned following back home. Various schemes have been proposed to ease the passage of individual Muslims to Christianity and to help them find fellowship, and new social roots. This effort deserves commendation, yet I have reservations about the reasoning that often lies behind efforts to convert Muslims. Does "teaching all nations" mean we should. publish the call of Christianity, receive those who answer into our fraternity of the baptized and the mysteries of our Lord's supper, and suppose that those who refuse our call are among the. damned? I am afraid that such a narrow view of the conditions of salvation can lead to concentrating on a minority, while on precipitous1y abandoning the majority and our real mission to preach the good news.
Let me go further into this fear. The common practical attitude of missionaries of all denominations in the past, and the prevalent attitude especially of the more fundamentalist Protestant missionaries today is that those who do not hear the message of Christianity and embrace it are not saved, or are saved only exceptionally and with extreme difficulty. Thus in a closed Muslim society, only those who come out of that society by entering the "ghetto" of Christians will be saved. (I use the term "ghetto" which may not exactly describe the state of non-Muslim minorities in a Muslim society, but does reflect a real social distinction.) It is not for me to review here modern theological reflections on the wider dimensions of the Church, and die salvation of the millions who have never heard and understood die message of Christianity as proposed by the Church, but who have "the substance of the Law engraved on their hearts" (Rom. 2. 15). Some authors reject the idea of anonymous Christians and salvation without knowledge of biblical revelation. (1) Others hold that these millions by the moral choices in their lives have accepted God without knowing anything about the grace of Christ. (2) This is the position taken in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of the Second Vatican Council, (3) and the position I will assume in developing what follows. For Muslims, of course, it is no compliment to be regarded as "anonymous Christians" or as belonging to the invisible Church. Nevertheless, the question at hand is not one of concepts Christians and Muslims can agree upon, but the view regarding Muslims which a Christian may adopt within the framework of his own faith and beliefs.
Approaching non-Christians with the assumption that for the most part they already belong to the people or Kingdom. of God causes considerable soul-searching among missionaries. "If they already have what we came to bring them, what are we here for?" But with some reflection on the Gospel, the answer is not long in coming; "I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full" (John 10. 10). "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17. 3). In other words, the fullness of eternal life consists not merely in being in the friendship of God, but also in knowing the Saviour Christ who gave us eternal life.
At first thought, these passages from John would encourage us only to do what we have been doing, namely to evangelize the, animists and the trickle of Muslims who come to our door, hoping that they will be few who fully recognize the imperative to follow Jesus, yet are lost because of their unbelief. What we have been doing is good, but is limited in perspective. The realization that the boundaries of the Church are wider than the visible association of the baptized opens up possibilities of further activity.
What more is possible? Certainly any hope of converting more than occasional Muslims is unrealistic. A Muslim's adherence to his religion implies a deeply rooted social identity, prized alike by the individual and the community. While the Muslim community tolerates occasional individuals who are willing to forego the social benefits of being a Muslim by joining another religion, it certainly would actively resist any mass conversion movement. Perhaps more numerous conversions will eventually be possible, but only if generations of social evolution change the traditional situation.
Dialogue
Though mass conversion is impossible, there is opportunity for dialogue. It has more than enough reason to be inaugurated if only to help the Christian and Muslim, communities live together in peace and co-operate in promoting their common welfare. Yet there is a second, deeper kind of dialogue, a dialogue toward the truth mutually understood and agreed upon, which amounts to unity of faith. Here we must be honest about our aims, honest both with ourselves and in public, for in this type of dialogue offence is easy and can lead to tightening nerves and hardened positions. It requires a well-prepared mutual trust and respect developed in friendship, and can best be carried out only with an interested and educated élite. The Qur'ân is particularly critical of those who want to talk about the verses of the Our'ân, but are really out to ridicule and discredit them. (4) The ground rules of human discussion demand that both sides bc willing to grant that they may learn from the other side, and may possibly be won over to the other side's fundamental position, even though they are convinced of their own position at the outset. No one expects the decisive outcome of unity between Christian and Muslim communities in a single generation or several generations of dialogue, but its ultimate possibility must be admitted if we are even to begin a dialogue on the truth of revelation. A change in ones own cherished ideas is an eventuality both a Muslim. and a Christian can risk for purposes of honest discussion. (5)
The type of dialogue just described is still an approach to only a minority group. Even indirectly it can have only slight effect on the total population. The first type of dialogue, that undertaken for the purpose of living together in peace and co-operation, offers many more possibilities of benefitting the mass of the population. Any such dialogue must include primarily the leaders and the élite, but it may be carried out in a more open forum, without fear of being considered a veiled attempt at proselytizing. We can honestly declare that the aim of our relationship with Muslims in this kind of dialogue is not to convert, and does not even envisage the possibility of conversion. The goal of such "social dialogue" is to bring together the resources of the Christian and Muslim communities to promote the development they as men deserve in the social, economic and educational order. This would presuppose the promotion of religious values held in common, which are at the foundation of their human development.
Towards a visible unity of Christianity and Islam
In terms of the Christian mission to teach all nations, what is the comparative value of these approaches to Muslims? Receiving occasional Muslims into the Church, and dialoguing with the educated élite on revelation, achieve a deeper spiritual life based upon a more explicit understanding of God's revelation. While laudable, these approaches teach only a small minority. The approach of "social dialogue" affects the mass of the population and achieves also a deepening of their spiritual life, not by explicating their faith, but by intensifying it in works of love and social dedication. There can be no doubt that the intensity of faith and a life founded on faith is more important than a more explicit knowledge of God's revelation which is not followed by a further and distinct operation, that of deeper conformity to Christ. Indeed a Muslim who practises the social justice prescribed by the Qur'ân "reflects the brightness of the Lord, growing brighter and brighter as he is turned into his image" (II Cor. 3.18) more truly than the Christian who has learned about Christ, but is not conformed to his image by the works of Christian love. Therefore, while we should continue to explain the revelation of God to those who desire it, we accomplish something much more valuable by a ministry which accepts the knowledge of God in the degree of explicitness which the Muslims have, and from there promotes reflection and action in accordance with it.
A ministry of the word to non-Christians with no attempt to lead them to baptism is an unfamiliar idea, but bas been put into practice here and there in the non-Christian world by individuals who saw the value of it without formulating; a theology of it. One of them, A. Demeerseman, spent many years in Tunisia as an itinerant preacher. An accomplished orator, he sometimes addressed audiences of thousands with the Muslim leaders in the front rows, speaking on common religious themes of importance, yet never baiting his audience with specifically Christian teachings.
Such work, capable of infinitely varied forms, is obviously different from the plethora of social works and education undertaken by the Church in non-Christian lands. These services were originally founded with emphasis on their being a meeting ground to contact and win converts, but in recent years their purpose has in many places been reassessed, and they are more evangelically regarded primarily as forms of Christian charity and witness of life. They are very important, and are closely related to the ministry of the word, the more so as they involve direct contact with people.
But the ministry of the word to Muslims has a different role. It is comparable to the ministry of the Word among Christians, and can consist of research, writing, teaching, conversing, exhorting. counselling, promoting, and any such task a clergyman might do for Christians, except the office of local pastor, since a pastor is not only for his people, but in a special way of them, as an outside clergyman helping out, teaching, or writing is not. The ministry of the word among Muslims, as among Christians, presupposes personal contact and acceptance by them. It is, moreover, an endeavour in which one must feel one's way without imitating anyone else or following a priori programmes. Each individual will have his own style, and, as in any ministry, will have no success but by the grace of God.
This ministry can even be called a Christian ministry, since it is concerned with people who in, fact are members of Christ. Furthermore, they are not merely invisible members of Christ's body, but are also caught up in the visible Church the Church, not as institution, but as a movement beyond its institutional boundaries in which they are more or less remotely involved. They have no allegiance to or intention to join the institution of the Church, nor even believe in all its teachings. But they can have a real working relationship with Christians and Christian ministers of the word, such as to be influenced by the Church in a way which is not alien to their Islam. Unity of faith and corporate unity of all actual members of Christ will likely never be realized in this world. The most we can realistically hope for with some communities is a loose association. But in this way the institution of the Church can be a sacrament or a light to the non-Christian religions and communities of men with whom. it achieves a greater or lesser degree of communion by visible, sociological relationships.
However open the above proposed view of the relationship of Muslims to the Church may be, it nevertheless is a Christians view, which a Muslim cannot accept, any more than a Christian can accept the Qur'ân's view of Christianity as an intermediate step toward the fullness of (Islamic) revelation. To admit the differences of approach is simple honesty, yet divergent thinking should not prevent Muslims and Christians from converging to an objective awareness of many basic thing held in common and to co-operation in common needs.
1. For example, Jean Rennes, "Salvation without the Gospel", book review of H. Nys, Le salut sans l'Evangile: Etude historique et critique du problème du salut des infidèles dans la littérature théologique récente (1912-1964) (Paris: Cerf, 1966), in International Review of Missions, 57:225 (Jan., 1968), pp.125-126.
2. For example, Karl Rahner, "Christianity and non-Christian religions", in The Church, Readings in Theology (N.Y.: Kennedy, 1963), pp. 112-135; and Heinz Robert Schlette, Towards a Theology of Religions, tr. W. J. O'Hara (St. Louis: Herder, 1966).
3. Ch. 2, n. 16.
4. For example, 4:140.
5. The question of methods of dialogue deserves a separate discussion. Practically speaking, any approach resembling negotiations from opposite theological positions has little promise. A united investigation of questions and sources from a phenomenological historical point of view is more satisfactory.