How does your faith reach out to non-believers?

Judaism

It would be unfair to say that in order to have a relationship with G-d and to go to heaven one must be Jewish. This isn’t the Jewish belief and the reason that they don’t proselytize.

Jews believe that the Torah is the truth for Jews and for all of humanity. Believing this, however, doesn’t require that everyone convert to Judaism. Jews are expected to keep the 613 commandments of the Torah, but for everyone else, there is what is known as the Seven Laws of Noah. They are called such because human beings are the descendents of Noah. They include:

• Do not murder. 


• Do not steal. 


• Do not worship false gods. 


• Do not be sexually immoral. 


• Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed. 


• Do not curse God. 


• Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

The great Jewish scholar, Maimonides, explains that anyone who observes these laws earns a proper place in heaven: no conversion is necessary.

The rabbis of the Talmud had a high regard for righteous non-Jews whom they called hasedei ummot ha-olam, which literally means “one of the righteous of the nations of the world.” On certain occasions, hasedei ummot ha-olam are held up as exemplars. Recently this term was applied to the European non-Jews who risked their lives in WWII to save Jews from the Nazis.

Of course, there are those who choose to convert to Judaism, and they are accepted with open arms. It’s an honorable undertaking to convert, but it’s still a taxing process and may take several years of Torah study and determination to achieve. Once a person has converted, they are no different than any other Jew, and they are a part of the Jewish nation. It was Ruth, the most famous convert, who stated “Your people shall be my people and your G-d, my G-d” and her descendents became a vital part of the Jewish nation, including King David.

Something that’s practiced in modern Judaism and that’s also highly controversial is what is known as kiruv, which literally means “to bring close.” Kiruv is a term for a variety of ways to bring secular Jews back to practicing a Torah way of life. It’s quite different than proselytizing, even though the description may sound similar.

There are a variety of ways one may go about kiruv. Essentially, as a friend once put it, the key is “to know the way, to go the way and to show the way.” Kiruv involves creating relationships, teaching and inspiring through model behavior.

There are no salesmen who go from door to door, because the Torah can sell itself. Once a person gets a taste for the wisdom and beauty in the Jewish way of life, they will want to learn more. Religiosity is thus achieved through Torah study and understanding, not through blind faith.

[Reach columnist Natalie Sikavi at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]

Christianity

“We’ve got good news. YOU’RE A SINNER AND GOING TO HELL.”

This pretty much sums up an evangelism pamphlet my friend reluctantly received from a Red Square preacher a few years back.

Most Christians on campus will tell you that the street-corner, hellfire preachers are pretty embarrassing. Although it’s speculation, they’re most likely a remnant from a time when people actually believed in Hell and found the angry poster boards motivating.

I mention the Red Square preachers because they represent what most consider typical evangelical Christians. What follows is the assumption that when Christians evangelize, they’re either screaming at people or telling them why they need new values.

The truth about many Christians is that they don’t evangelize — period. It’s usually because they’re afraid of the social judgment people tend to offer, like the “you’re a prude,” comment a friend once jokingly said to me.

When Christians fail to share the Gospel, they essentially disobey one of Jesus’ commands. After Jesus rose from the dead, he said to his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations … teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20).

The interesting part of Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples was how they carried things out. The followers, all devout Jews, not only shared Christ’s salvation with those who didn’t have their religious lifestyles, but they themselves, upon revelation from God, stopped practicing certain parts of their own religiousity.

However, they still maintained a conservative, unchanging view of theology. So the followers of Jesus held strongly to their beliefs and moral standings, but their approach to culture (especially food) was liberal. (See Acts 10:9-18 and Paul’s sermon at Mars Hill in Acts 17.)

There is a movement in the church today that is taking this to heart. It maintains the conservative theology of scripture — not doubting the Bible or questioning the character of God — but is open where scripture doesn’t offer instruction.

The result is Christians who worship with rock music, hold Bible studies in pubs and occasionally smoke a pipe over a good piece of 15th century Reformation theology.

But from the same movement sprang a large group of people who cling to liberal (and often heretical) theology, questioning whether Jesus was God and the truthfulness of scripture. It’s how Christians tell people about their faith.

Instead of trying to trick people into jump ing out of their own culture and then creating a bunch of rules about how they should live, Christians are trying to share the truth in the current culture.

Thus, people are most likely to learn about Christianity from their friends talking about life, music and that hot so-and-so on the bus.

It’s not that Christians are seeking to be trickier and more persuasive with proselytizing. It’s just that many are beginning to realize that forcing moral or “religious” change doesn’t make the heart change, but only makes it bitter.

Becoming a Christian is between man and God. Our goal is to share the truth in love.

[Reach columnist Celeste Flint at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]

Islam

It’s incumbent upon Muslims to share our beliefs, but equally important is the methodology under which it’s done. The myth of spreading Islam by the sword is unacceptable and contrary to our teachings.

Exposing people to Islam is called da’wa. It’s a short word, but its meaning and applications are broad and encompassing. I will present my understanding of the concept and I apologize in advance for any errors I might make, and emphasize that any benefits are due to God’s grace.

Da’wa literally means “invitation.” The key here is that da’wa is only an invitation, an invitation to learn. Its purpose is to enlighten people about the message of Islam in order to build tolerance, promote justice and offer avenues for conversion.

Muslims believe humans are born with something called fitrah, which is the predisposition to recognize a supreme creator and the concept of one God. But it’s social conditioning that causes those attitudes to change.

We also believe only God leads people to embrace Islam. It’s our duty to guide, but the final resolution is up to God. This provides a different paradigm for proselytizing, since the power is out of our hands.

The importance of da’wa is found in several places in the Quran: “Invite (them all) to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and debate with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for your Lord knows best, who has strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance,” (chapter 16, verse 125).

This verse states the significance of da’wa, but also provides guidelines on how it should be done, stressing that it should be done courteously.

Standing on a street corner preaching about Islam and the threat of hell isn’t da’wa. It’s a holistic presentation that dictates that our behavior is the best invitation to Islam. Therefore we are required to maintain high standards in all our interactions with both Muslims and non-Muslims. Our goal is to genuinely interest people in Islam’s moral principles, and through this interest inform them about how our religious creed shapes it.

A prevalent idea is that during the early period of Islamic history, Islam was “spread by the sword.” Recent scholarship has shown this wasn’t the case, and it doesn’t make sense politically or even economically; it violates commandments in the Quran.

The related verse states: “Let there be no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clear from error; whoever rejects evil and believes in God has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God hears and knows all things,” (chapter 2, verse 256).

This is a clear injunctive that religion cannot be forced. Therefore it must be a personal choice that one makes to convert.

Speaking of which, the Muslim community is very accepting of converts. People are eager to make new Muslims feel welcome by providing for their needs or just by being talkative. Often the topic for this zealous friendliness is the convert’s conversion story. Due to time constraints, we usually come up with three variations of the same narrative: the whole story, the medium one, and the CliffsNotes version.

I try my best to perform da’wa. My non-Muslim friends know that I’m always ready to answer questions. If you’re interested in learning more about Islam, be it academic or spiritual, just ask a Muslim. If you don’t know any, the Muslim Students Association tables on the HUB lawn on Wednesdays, and they’d be happy to talk to you.

[Reach columnist Zakariya Dehlawi at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]