Monthly Archives: May 2025

Where does your job rank on the cool scale? With “Sherpa guide who’s climbed Mount Everest 31 times” being a ten and “Headset cleaner at a call center” being a one, your job is. . . .? 

How about this one: Moon Sighting Committee of the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia? Now, that’s got to be a cool job. They’re the guys who decide the new moon has been sighted, which indicates the start of the last month of the Islamic calendar year. Which in turn determines the beginning of the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. (It also determines the beginning of Eid Al Adha. Tune in next week for more on that!)

Hajj this year begins, “on the 8th day of Dhul Hijjah and lasts until the 13th of the month. [That means] Hajj is expected to take place between 4th June to the 9th June 2025.” A little over a million people have journeyed to Saudi Arabia for this pilgrimage. 

Imagine a million Christians, all kinds of us, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox of varying stripes getting together all at once! It would be surreal, but just think of the potluck dinners! 

Muslims gather out of religious duty, obedience to Muhammad and in celebration of global community. Many also go in hopes of doing their part to get their sins forgiven. I’ve spoken to Muslims who remembered with fondness the sense of forgiveness they felt post-Hajj; and with sadness recall how quickly that sense faded. 

As you seek God to move in the midst of the Hajj this year, can I ask you to pray that few would die, either from the heat, from accidents or violence? And ask the Holy Spirit to whisper truth to countless hearts, intruding on the deceptions of the enemy and bringing hope and life to many. 

In recent weeks many of the people in our church have taken this spiritual gifts assessment. An unusually high number of them have had Craftsmanship come out on top. I think this means one of two things: A. As a congregation we’ve had little experience in the more charismatic gifts or B. We should send a church planting team to Asheville, NC or the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul! 

Either way, it’s got me thinking about the arts Muslims are known for and have excelled at over the centuries and up to recent days.

Of course we all know Muslims frown on depicting Muhammad, maybe any human actually. We also know that Muslims (and Christians) sadly got good at making swords and their subsequent, limitless variety of tools of destruction. 

On the other hand, God has brought tremendous beauty to the earth through the minds and hands of Muslims. 

Visually, we have amazing calligraphy, intricate and enduring textiles and woodworking both functional and beautiful. 

There is the poetry of Rumi and the music and dance of the rest of the Sufis. 

Combining beauty and engineering, Muslim craftsmen have built some of the most stirring buildings in the world. 

As conduits of beauty and craftsmanship, I long for Muslims to also realize they are God’s handiwork, created for good works in Christ. May his blood bring them near to a beautiful God who loves them and loves reflecting his beauty through them.

I’m 60 years old and I heard something for the first time ever this week: The concept of “thick” communities. I suspected the letters stood for something like Trendy Homes In Cuddly Communes. (I watched a video, so I didn’t know the spelling for sure!) Turns out, “thick” is more descriptive than acronym-tive. 

According to author David Brooks, “thick” in this context carries connotations of: 

• A physical location, often cramped, where members meet face to face on a regular basis

• A set of collective rituals

• Shared tasks

• A sacred origin story

• A common ideal

• An idiosyncratic local culture

• A shared goal

• Initiation rituals

• A sacred guidebook or object passed down from generation to generation

• Distinct jargon

• People tend to like the version of themselves that is called forth by such places.

• Intimacy and identity borne out of common love

Does that sound good or what? Does it sound like your church?

This has me wondering how thick Muslim communities are. I tend to think Muslims might be better overall at community. The global community, or ummah, certainly is viewed as a big deal.

Maybe we perceive them to have thick communities because we often see Muslims in minority contexts. It makes sense, if you’re among the few of you in a given chunk of geography, to stick together.

Of course their relatively thick communities also hinder Muslims from following Jesus. This is why ministry efforts that focus on whole families following Jesus fill me with hope. “Father God give us turnings to Jesus like we read about in the book of Acts, preserving community, while shifting allegiance to the Lord.”

The older I get, the more I appreciate and long for thick communities. I want my church to look like the list above. I want to foster and offer thick community both locally and among Muslims who find Jesus all over the place. 

Though I’ve yet to convince my 11 year old son of this, reading must be one of the most essential and delightful (if you’ve ever read a Leif Enger novel) skills we possess in the modern world. And its absence, illiteracy, carries a strong social stigma. 

Get this: Muhammad was likely illiterate and many Muslims see this as a good thing. 

Now when I read that he was illiterate, I right away think, “Well, our guy Jesus could read and write. He argued with the smarty pants in the Temple at twelve years old and he wrote on the ground in John 8.6 (overlooking the questionable provenance of that text) and that means we’re ahead!” (Because my inner me is still concerned with getting that last pie piece in my Trivial Pursuit token!)

It turns out Muslims believe Muhammad’s illiteracy actually lends credibility to the Quran! “Only God could produce such a book. And certainly Muhammad didn’t write it because he could neither read nor write.” 

It’s a fascinating take, though Muhammad’s alleged illiteracy might not be true to history. Either way, intelligence, or the illusion of it, was less tied to literacy in Muhammad’s day than ours. Reading, writing or not, Muhammad would have done well to spend more time with the Gospels and Paul’s letters, than hanging out in a cave hearing things from Gabriel. 

Follow Up Good News
Our new favorite football player, Ahmed Hassanein, who I wrote about one month ago did get drafted! The Detroit Lions took him in the sixth round, making him the first Egyptian to ever reach the NFL. It also super-charged his potential platform for sharing about his faith in Jesus. May God protect him and use him as an ambassador to the many Muslims living in and near the shadow of Ford Field and beyond. 

No way around it: Suicide is tragic, permanent and painful beyond comprehension. There seem to be more suicides here in my little corner of paradise than should reasonably be expected. Do you get that feeling about your area? God help us all. 

Thinking about this has me wondering about suicide in Islam. Is it a “You’re banned from Heaven forever” deal like it used to be for Catholics? Or simply frowned on? Somewhere in between?

The Quran says, “And do not kill yourselves [or one another]. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.” [Qur`an 4: 29]. Pretty plain right there. Additional verses support this one. 

Extra-Quranic teaching says those who kill themselves will be punished in Hell with the implement of their death. One Hadith in particular records, “Whoever kills himself with a piece of iron, that piece of iron will be in his hand and he will be stabbing himself in the stomach with it in the Fire of Hell, forever and ever.” Dang.

Additionally, based on an example from Muhammad, some Muslim teachers think they shouldn’t say the official funeral prayer for those who’ve died by suicide. 

Softening this hard line slightly, is the caveat that Allah will not record the evil deeds of people who are insane. Someone lacking control of their faculties to the extent they don’t know what they’re doing when they kill themselves will not be punished. 

Interestingly to me, ten out of fifteen of the countries with the lowest suicide rates are predominantly Muslim. (20 of the lowest 30!) You may suppose, as I do, that this reflects significant, shame-based underreporting. A Muslim in the UK wrestles with that here.

And finally this, a recent survey reported that Muslims in the U.S. attempt suicide at twice the rate of Protestants. We might think, “Another indication Islam is broken.” We’d do better to wonder what is going on and how God may have us live and love in such a way that fewer and fewer Muslims and Christians find themselves convinced there are no other options but to end their lives.