Bohemian Star Wars Rhapsody

Bohemian Star Wars Rhapsody

Exploring Our Matrix: Read a Qur'an Day (an Alternative to Burning)

Exploring Our Matrix: Read a Qur'an Day (an Alternative to Burning)

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

Sze Zeng: John Locke's theology of toleration in the public square

Sze Zeng: John Locke's theology of toleration in the public square

China's Female Imams

Here is something we don't hear about often when we hear about Islam in the media:

As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), the faithful had set up female Muslim schools around the country. These turned into female mosques operated by women imams in late Qing dynasty (around the 19th century). The practice of female imams then spread to all the Chinese Muslim societies, said Shui Jingjun, a Henan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences researcher. Currently, Ningxia has more than 80 female imams. There are more than 3,600 registered mosques and 6,000 ahongs in the region, he said.

NPR also reports:

This city in central China's Henan province has an Islamic enclave, where Muslims have lived for more than 1,000 years.

In an alleyway called Wangjia hutong, women go to their own mosque, where Yao Baoxia leads prayers. For 14 years, Yao has been a female imam, or ahong as they are called here, a word derived from Persian.

As she leads the service, Yao stands alongside the other women, not in front of them as a male imam would. But she says her role is the same as a male imam.

"The status is the same," Yao says confidently. "Men and women are equal here, maybe because we are a socialist country."

China has an estimated 21 million Muslims, who have developed their own set of Islamic practices with Chinese characteristics. The biggest difference is the development of independent women's mosques with female imams, something scholars who have researched the issue say is unique to China.

Yao studied to become an imam for four years, after being laid off from her job as a factory worker. First she studied under a female imam, then with a male imam alongside male students.

Her main role is as a teacher, she says.

"When people come to pray, they don't know how to chant the Quran, so my job is teaching people about Islam, helping them to study one line at a time and leading the prayers," she says.

However there is still opposition against this more Progressive breed of Islam wherever Fundamentalist Islam holds influence:

Opposition Still Exists To Women's Roles

In central China, most Muslims support the female mosques, but there is some resistance closer to China's border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, closer to the harder-line Wahhabi and Salafi influences.

"Historically in northwestern China, there were no female mosques," says Shui, the researcher. "There was resistance because people thought that building female mosques was against the rules of religion. But in central China and most provinces, people think it's a good innovation for Islam."

In the past decade, some women's mosques have been established in northwest China. The phenomenon appears to be spreading, helped politically by the Islamic Association of China, a state-controlled body that regulates Islam and issues licenses to practice to male and female imams alike.

See also: China's Female Imams and NPR: Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims.

A Bunch Of Quotes: Quotable Quotes

The Church as Contrast-Society:

“The idea of church as contrast-society does not mean contradiction to the rest of society for the sake of contradiction. Still less does the church as contrast-society mean despising the rest of society due to elitist thought. The only thing meant is contrast on behalf of others and for the sake of others, the contrast function that is unsurpassably expressed in the images of ‘salt of the earth,’ ‘light of the world,’ and ‘city on a hill’ (Mt 5:13-14).

Precisely because the church does not exist for itself but completely and exclusively for the world, it is necessary that the church not become the world, that it retain its own countenance. If the church loses its own contours, if it lets its light be extinguished and its salt become tasteless, then it can no longer transform the rest of society. Neither missionary activity nor social engagement, no matter how strenuous, helps anymore. …

What makes the church the divine contrast-society is not self-acquired holiness, not cramped efforts and moral achievements, but the saving deed of God, who justifies the godless, accepts failures and reconciles himself with the guilty. Only in this gift of reconciliation, in the miracle of life newly won against all expectation, does what is here termed contrast-society flourish.”

—Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (SPCK, 1985) as quoted in Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission: Paul and the Early Church (IVP, 2004), 1577-1578.

George W. Bush on Islam:

...days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush had much to say about the need for religious tolerance even after Islamic extremists carried out the worst foreign attack in history on U.S. soil.

"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said at the Islamic Center of Washington in a speech that set the tenor for when he later sent U.S. troops to fight on Muslim soil in Afghanistan and later Iraq. "That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."

N. T. Wright on Idolatry and Community:

One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers rather than as human beings. Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sexual objects. Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns. These and many other forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways, all of them damaging to the image-bearing quality of the people concerned and of those whose lives they touch. ---Surprised By Hope (HarperOne, 2008): (pg. 182).

Mark Driscoll on Idolatry and Commmunity:

If we idolize our gender, we must demonize the other gender. If we idolize our nation, we must demonize other nations. If we idolize our political party, we must demonize other political parties. If we idolize our socioeconomic class, we must demonize other classes. If we idolize our family, we must demonize other families. If we idolize our theological system, we must demonize other theological systems. If we idolize our church, we must demonize other churches. This explains the great polarities and acrimonies that plague every society. If something other than God’s loving grace is the source of our identity and value, we must invariably defend our idol by treating everyone and everything who may call our idol into question as an enemy to be demonized so that we can feel superior to other people and safe with our idol. ---Doctrine (Crossway, 2010): (pgs. 350-351).

Thomas Merton on Christian Non-Violence:

Christian non-violence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the basic unity of man. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for the healing and reconciliation of man with himself, man the person and man the human family.

The non-violent resister is not fighting simply for "his" truth or for "his" pure conscience, or for the right that is on "his side." On the contrary, both his strength and his weakness come from the fact that he is fighting for the truth common to him and to the adversary, the right which is universal and objective. He is fighting for everybody. ---Faith And Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice, pg. 15.

Why Theology?

Shawn Warnsley has an excellent posting over at his blog entitled "Everything is Theology." Here is the list of reasons he gives for why theology is important:

So, what’s so great about theology? I’ll ditch the research paper format in favor of the homily, and let you have it in three parts like any good preacher would. If you behave, I’ll even throw in a poem and alliterate the points. Deal?

1) Theology Inspires Curiosity
Theology didn’t earn the moniker ”Queen of the Sciences,” because church leaders needed some impressive sounding nom de guerre for the culture wars. The title was bestowed upon her, because theology in its true form drives the curiosity of the human mind. In the Middle Church, theology inspired churchmen from all walks of life to pursue knowledge of God through His creation. Tony Hunt rightly points to the fact that, “Theology is uniquely equipped to speak to most academic and truth-seeking conversations in an infinitely inter-disciplinary way.” I would offer that this is so precisely because theology predicates most of these conversations, in at least intent. Many early breakthroughs in math, science, et al were had at the hands of men who studied their respective fields alongside theology. Theology properly derived and rightly practiced will fuel the human imagination and temper the ego of men in a way that lends to the discovery of truth in other academic fields. It offers peace in the fear of new and unknown discoveries, it offers creativity and inspiration in the midst of traditional worldviews, and it offers boldness in the face of disputation. In fact, I would say that theology demands we seek out truth through every means available. This quality, I believe, is precisely what some (again, both within and without) are trying to avoid in disavowing theology. Theology drives us to the heart of who God is and that “heart” is irrevocably tied to the nature of truth. However, it is truth that stands apart from humanity – a truth that extends from the transcendent God and encompasses humanity as a member of the very creation it seeks to understand.

2) Theology Initiates Response
I reject most complaints that theology is necessarily flawed, due to its reliance on human reasoning as an intellectual endeavor, because this view misunderstands genuine theology in a fundamental way. Theology, correctly conceived and accurately applied, will necessarily lead to action. In fact, everyone lives out a theology every day. Whether they can articulate that theology in a meaningful way is another issue entirely. This, I suspect, is the real issue behind those that want to attack theological inquiry from without. There seems to be a rampant assumption that an unrecognised or unsophisticated theology is no theology at all. Sadly, our world is full of examples that demonstrate how dangerous bad theology is to all of creation. Before I go into full rant, though, let me just back up and reiterate the important point: you are not really a theologian unless the theology you talk is the theology you walk. Unfortunately, many opponents of religious faith understand this dynamic better than many Christians. There is an inherent national interest at stake in any religious expression by people – namely, the Church of Jesus Christ is a theological entity that transcends nationality and crosses government borders. It demands allegiance from its adherents, and is united (or at least it should be) under one Lord and one agenda. It stands at once in favor of all life, virtue, and truth and against human vice of all varieties, especially those commonly perpetrated by governments. While this is a deep mine to explore, it will have to suffice to say that we should bother with theology, because theology directs the hearts and actions of people.

3) Theology Infers Necessity
The problem with rejecting Theology on the basis of its intellectual nature lies in the fact that such a rejection requires not only intellectual reasoning but also a clearly defined Theology. How deliciously ironic, no? And so, it seems, there exists no prospect to opt out of theology. There is no possibility for the absence of theology; there is only good theology and bad theology. Consequently, I am of the opinion that theology is a kind of self-perpetuating phenomenon. The burden, then, lies with those obtuse wizards of the Word that have hidden in libraries and universities for too long. If the Church has lost contact with theology, it is our fault. It is time for the incarnation to inform our theology again. God’s greatest expression of himself to humanity was in an embodied form. Does anything in life get any more beautiful or nuanced than the loving relationships we have with family and friends? What better way do we have than to live out, to participate in the Church’s theology with those friends and family?