Reasons to be converting - Part Two!

No, it's not a remake of the Ian Dury song but more surrounding the conversions to Islam.

It's the culture, history and difference!
One convert in her early twenties speaks of a life of "Jeans, hoodies and make-up." The various elements of the religion in terms of its poetry, art and the like made her start reading about Islam, visiting mosques and finally converting. She she's her conversion as a 'coming of age' and a 'calming down' and the new faith, along with her new name, gives her an identity for now she is a Muslim. It is this knowing what she is that helps her to pray five times a day and live a faith that is with her every day. she has now married a man of Indian origin.

Of course, being a fan of Rumi, I have to say that I can understand the cultural aspects of art, architecture, science and the like that make Islam an interesting subject. I have to say that there's as much (in fact more) sponsored and surrounding Christian faith (the RC oppression of science and scientists, medicine and the like in the middle-ages not withstanding!) but for some reason when people look, they don't seem to be as welcomed of engaged with by the Christians.

It seems one of the attractions is that Islam is counter-cultural, a bit of a sadness because before we started working so hard to be attractive to the secular world by looking exactly like it, so was Christianity and the Judaism from which it comes, for around three and a half thousand years.

It would appear to me that trying to appease the world, look like it and endorse its sinful acts is costly in terms of losing those who are unchurched. We now embrace the culture of this age rather than stand counter-culturally and this is obviously another weakening of the Christian faith and its witness to today's young people!

An answer to a search for purpose and reason
For many Islam meets a personal need for purpose. Living as a Muslim is about being part of a people group, it's who you are and what you are. Many of those who speak of this came from a 'no faith' or extremely nominally Christian background and the only exposure they had to 'Church' appears to be school assemblies.

Of course, school assemblies are now, generally, secular happenings and as the secularists push for an end to these 'brain-washing' exercises it seems that they are fuelling an awareness of something more in the young people, and secularism and humanism isn't going anywhere near providing the answer! Then again, sadly, it seems that the Christians aren't perhaps in the market the same way as other faiths, like Islam, either!

Hungry men eat strange meat!
Whilst working in a prison setting many years back, I was introduced to an inmate who was described as someone's 'bitch'. Upon discussion it transpired that there was some form of sexual transaction taking place and that this was not an unusual situation. One of the guards put it down to the fact that whilst outside the men were often married and heterosexual, "Hungry men eat strange meats!"

One of the recurring themes from those who have converted is that they were looking for something to sate their need for a moral purpose. To find something that removed them from the shallow and mundane world in which the found themselves and gave them a relationship with the creator (as they perceived him) and a sense of belonging to him and his people. These are hungry people and because what should be on offer isn't, they too turn to 'strange' meat!

We, the Church, have allowed the people in the communities we serve to remain empty. We have been happy with people attending services and been taken up with our buildings when we should have been concerned with the quality of those who come into them! We need to be concerned with the lives of those who pass by our doors. For too many years too many of us have been content to sit in our buildings waiting for people to return to a place they have never been (so how could they return?).

This conversion malarkey is nothing but a wake-up call for Christ's Church to get up and out. It's a call for us to engage with the community and speak for those who have no voice, standing against the errors and weaknesses of today's culture and be what we are called to be. This doesn't mean being fundamentalist lunatics spouting hard-line, vitriolic, tosh and it most certainly doesn't mean revising the Bible to accept every sinful act as 'choice' whilst proclaiming that God wants fidelity (He does, but in the right setting - faithfully being a sinner is not what He has in mind!) and for everyone to be 'happy' (for what worth is there in happiness now which results in death later?).

The picture is obvious - the fundamentalists, the extremists, the liberals, the peddlers of the social gospels and those who refrain from offering a positive and life-enabling (this means discipline, not condoning) faith are paving the way to hell, destroying the faith of those who believe and handing people over to other faiths.

This needs to stop - we need bishops with some hutzpah and ministers with a true and living faith and a love of God, His Word and the people before them. If you're a dog-collar, a pointyhead or even one of the 'grown-ups' in your denomination and you're not up for being and doing this then perhaps you might do us all a favour and be renewed and if you're not, then how's about you decide to retire or resign - PLEASE!