I read in this morning's Jakarta Post an interesting, though somewhat wacko opinion piece entitled Indonesian Muslims: Believers in Islam or cultural Muslims? This was authored by one Patrick K. Meyer, who I assume is a convert to Islam, though I don't know this for a fact.
In the article, Prof. Meyer addresses the distinction between cultural Muslims and authentic believers in Islam. The cultural Muslim, he writes, refers to "the person who adopts a number of Islamic traditions in his life but lacks iman (faith). The believer is he who seeks through struggle and examination what Islam means and what it means to be Muslim.
Meyer stresses the distinction between being born a Muslim and becoming a Muslim. As with Christians, there are those who identify with the faith simply because they grew up with it. They were born that way. Simply put, Indonesian children have been told by Muslim parents that they too are Muslim. As with the merely born (as opposed to born-again) Christian, they identify as Muslim in the same way that they identify as Indonesian, while the American identity in the Christian faith is much like his identity as an American. These are the cultural Muslims, the cultural Christians.
For the Muslim and the Christian alike, these cultural faith folks will often have little knowledge of the faith they lay claim to. What they do and how they behave appears to have little to do with religious belief or instruction.
Now here is the weird part. "This precious source of guidance and success (the Koran)," writes Meyer, "is written in the Arabic language and cannot be translated because it contains the words of Allah." He adds then that "Indonesian Muslims overwhelmingly do not speak Arabic and have not been through the necessary process of becoming a Muslim", something which, in his opinion, is directly tied to a fluent knowledge of Arabic, for God Himself spoke in Arabic. (The author does not state which dialect of Arabic He spoke).
Well, hmm, that's a kerfuffle, isn't it?
I suppose that in a somewhat similar way, we Christians, who have access to the Bible in every human language, will still not be able to access the Bible in any meaningful way unless we have entered into a relationship with the person of Jesus first, have believed first, and have thus received the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the Bible may as well be in Arabic, or in pig-Latin, or what have you.
It does not strike me that an intimate knowledge of any particular language would automatically be the key to understanding all things written in that language. I understand English very well, for instance, and yet I do not understand the particulars of quantum physics as presented in English (or any other language). A fluent knowledge of French, by the same token, does not confer a perfect understanding of the writings of Camus or Sartre.
I am skeptical, to say the least, that all faith needs is a knowledge or Arabic. To be sure, a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek is very useful indeed in understanding the Bible more fully--and this is a fact lost least of all on the responsible and knowledgeable translators who have strived to faithfully render the scriptures in English and in other languages.
I guess what I am trying to say in plain English is that I consider the Arabic thing BS.
Nonetheless, that said, we are on the same page where the distinction between cultural believers and authentic believers is concerned.
In all religions, there are the incidental trappings and customs, and then there is God Himself.
In the article, Prof. Meyer addresses the distinction between cultural Muslims and authentic believers in Islam. The cultural Muslim, he writes, refers to "the person who adopts a number of Islamic traditions in his life but lacks iman (faith). The believer is he who seeks through struggle and examination what Islam means and what it means to be Muslim.
Meyer stresses the distinction between being born a Muslim and becoming a Muslim. As with Christians, there are those who identify with the faith simply because they grew up with it. They were born that way. Simply put, Indonesian children have been told by Muslim parents that they too are Muslim. As with the merely born (as opposed to born-again) Christian, they identify as Muslim in the same way that they identify as Indonesian, while the American identity in the Christian faith is much like his identity as an American. These are the cultural Muslims, the cultural Christians.
For the Muslim and the Christian alike, these cultural faith folks will often have little knowledge of the faith they lay claim to. What they do and how they behave appears to have little to do with religious belief or instruction.
Now here is the weird part. "This precious source of guidance and success (the Koran)," writes Meyer, "is written in the Arabic language and cannot be translated because it contains the words of Allah." He adds then that "Indonesian Muslims overwhelmingly do not speak Arabic and have not been through the necessary process of becoming a Muslim", something which, in his opinion, is directly tied to a fluent knowledge of Arabic, for God Himself spoke in Arabic. (The author does not state which dialect of Arabic He spoke).
Well, hmm, that's a kerfuffle, isn't it?
I suppose that in a somewhat similar way, we Christians, who have access to the Bible in every human language, will still not be able to access the Bible in any meaningful way unless we have entered into a relationship with the person of Jesus first, have believed first, and have thus received the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the Bible may as well be in Arabic, or in pig-Latin, or what have you.
It does not strike me that an intimate knowledge of any particular language would automatically be the key to understanding all things written in that language. I understand English very well, for instance, and yet I do not understand the particulars of quantum physics as presented in English (or any other language). A fluent knowledge of French, by the same token, does not confer a perfect understanding of the writings of Camus or Sartre.
I am skeptical, to say the least, that all faith needs is a knowledge or Arabic. To be sure, a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek is very useful indeed in understanding the Bible more fully--and this is a fact lost least of all on the responsible and knowledgeable translators who have strived to faithfully render the scriptures in English and in other languages.
I guess what I am trying to say in plain English is that I consider the Arabic thing BS.
Nonetheless, that said, we are on the same page where the distinction between cultural believers and authentic believers is concerned.
In all religions, there are the incidental trappings and customs, and then there is God Himself.
2 comments:
“Listen and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since.
10 Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity, forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not.
11 This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are—a part of”
Excerpt From
A Course In Miracles
Anonymous
Anonymous--Thanks for this beautiful piece.
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