The Challenge Dividend

A Voice of Challenge in Islam

Although my initial focus for the Challenge Dividend is clearly the Business community, I believe any organization can reap improvement by embracing challenge.  This past Fall, I even delved into religion a bit, thankfully without a deluge of angry comments.  Today I dip into the religious discussion again, by sharing the perspective of a Muslim who is struggling to bring introspection and debate into his faith.

Two weeks ago, the Wall St. Journal (subsc. req'd) published an opinion piece by Tawfik Hamid.  Dr. Hamid was once a member of a terrorist organization, the Jemaah Islamiya, and is now a medical doctor "living in the West."  The piece, titled "The Trouble with Islam", attempts to unearth realities of the Islamic faith which have been ignored by most critics and moderate Muslims.  Hamid believes that:

• "Traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so."
• "The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah."
• "Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel."
• "The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them."
• "Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine's formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession."
• "All of this makes the efforts of Muslim reformers more difficult. When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, it actually endangers the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of suppressing their voices."

In a nutshell, Hamid believes that "the trouble with Islam" is a lack of rigorous introspection and challenge of violent beliefs.  Westerners enable this by only challenging their own activities (e.g. American presence in Iraq), rather than judging the Muslim religion.  Failure to challenge the beliefs of a few - both from within and outside the faith - has exacerbated destruction and terror.  Throw in the fact that women in Muslim countries lack equal power, and you have yet another imbalance that threatens improvement.

I find refreshing thinking in Tawfik Hamid's words, and in his belief that challenge is the only force that will improve his people.  If only others had the courage to follow his lead.

Adjusting the Rules of Limbo

This post continues a short series with examples of how even religion is adjusting and improving due to the challenge to keep/gain believers over competing faiths and world views (see previous here and here).

Last week, I discovered in the BBC News that religious experts at the Vatican are expected to recommend a change in church doctrine which would no longer assign the fate of unbaptized children to "limbo".  This belief has lasted for more than 2,000 years, yet the Roman Catholic church, under continuing pressure to modernize, appears ready to make this important change. 

The idea of limbo for unbaptized babies is a fascinating, but tragic concept.  In the Roman Catholic religion, the unbaptized are unable to enter Heaven.  At the dawn of the faith, this meant that these babies would actually be doomed to Hell; since all men and women inherited the original sin of Adam and Eve, even innocent children would pay the price. 

But in the 13th Century dissatisfaction with the idea of babies sent to Hell led to a theory by Peter Abelard, a French scholastic philosopher.  He first suggested that babies who had no personal sin did not deserve punishment.  So instead, they would go to "limbo", a state of existence "where unbaptized babies, and those unfortunate enough to have been born before Jesus, would not experience pain but neither would they experience the Beatific Vision of  God."

Today, 800 years later, the Roman Catholic church seems ready to adjust, and I would argue improve, further.  The pressure from believers is very strong.  Millions of parents have suffered untold misery knowing that their children - taken so horribly soon after birth - would not be reunited in the afterlife.  My father and his brothers experienced this first hand; growing up in a strict Catholic home, his mother suffered two miscarriages.  She would remind them to, "Don't forget about your unborn siblings wandering in limbo, while you have the grace to be alive."

Some suggest the move to abolish limbo is an effort to remain competitive with other faiths.  Scholars suggest that limbo is interfering with the growth of Catholicism in Africa and Asia, where infant mortality is high and "growth potential" of converts is strong.  Interestingly, Islam teaches that all babies in the world are born innocent.

While many seem ready to applaud the Vatican, other believers recoil at the idea that doctrine thousands of years old can be easily swept aside.  These are people who have most embraced the faith, and all of its less appetizing aspects.  For them, a quick change of ancient rules could weaken their belief system.

I applaud the Vatican for continuing to evolve its views, even if it comes late for millions of families stricken by the loss of a child.  At the end of the day, religion should exist to serve the spiritual needs of people.  These needs and society itself change over time, so adjustments to the present and improvements for the future will ensure that the positive effects of faith continue.

Competing For Salvation

Since I didn't seem to generate too much anger with my last religious-oriented post, I figure it is safe for a second round.  One of the things I find interesting about religion today is that there seems to be increasing competition among faiths for the minds of followers, as well as increasing marketing skills among religious leaders.  One benefit is that religions are innovating and improving to better serve their parishioners.

One example of this improvement due to competition is seen in the photograph here, from Zion Lutheran Church near my neighborhood.  As you can see, this church has divided its Sunday service into various formats, each appealing to a different target segment.  These include:

• Classic Service: Note use of the term "classic" to positively signify that this is old-time religion.  Most likely a traditional sermon catering to an older crowd.
• Christian Edge: Bible classes for all ages; allows for extra learning by the Classic crowd and Sunday School for the kids.
• Praise Ablaze: Billed as "contemporary worship", this is for the younger crowd that prefers music and less traditional messages.

Years ago options like this would be unheard of.  When I grew up we didn't attend church very often, but when we did it was a lot less "consumer centric".  You had a traditional sermon and maybe 30 minutes for Sunday School.  Today, there are churches in town that use Powerpoint and barely crack the Bible open. 

Many churches have adapted their messages and presentation in response to the challenge of competing media as well as competing faiths.  Today's "consumer of faith" is busier than ever and all forms of media have become more aggressive and innovative in courting their attention.  And if Sunday services fail to adapt they will simply lose this empowered consumer to other alternatives.

Some may believe that making church services more user friendly is a mistake - maybe another example of the consumer society negatively impacting tradition.  Some may see the slow pace of a  "traditional" service as a small cross that they must bear.  But I believe churches are smart to adapt to modern times and modern believers. 

Habits and culture continuously change whether we want them to or not; and for a faith to meet its core purpose - improving people's lives - it must adapt as well.  Only those faiths that adapt to "consumers" will make an impact and continue to grow.

Driveway Religion

Religion is a tough thing to write about publicly, mainly because it is so personal.  I do not dip into a public blog entry on "challenge" and "religion" lightly.  But I have a story to tell, and I think it can be done without denigrating anyone's beliefs.  Ahem...here goes:

As a child growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, our neighborhood was often visited in summer Saturdays by groups of Jehovah's Witnesses.  When their cars started parking and they began walking up our driveways in pairs my family typically hid and refused to answer the door.  Then my sister, mother and I peeked out of our dining room window and looked across the street as the weekend visitors knocked on the door of Reverend Smith. 

Reverend Smith was a typical Protestant Minister - a warm, friendly man, the kind you want to perform at your wedding.  But when the Jehovah's Witnesses arrived at his door it was a different kind of performance.  He would literally stand on his front porch for hours debating the faith with his visitors.  I'll never forget my mother saying, "They didn't know what they were in for!"  I have no idea what they spoke about for hours.  Their difference in perspective was not as divergent as a Rabbi facing an Imam, but I am sure if was a good, Socratic dialog of some kind.

About twenty-five years later, I had my own such experience.  A few weeks ago on a sunny and hot Saturday morning, I was working in the garage.  "Working" in this case meant putting my golf clubs into the car trunk and preparing to hit a few balls at the range.  Suddenly I turned around and saw two men in white shirts and ties standing and smiling at the top of my driveway a few yards away.  My first gut instinct was to say "no thanks" - a modern-day equivalent of the 9-year-old boy running and hiding.  But then I thought back to watching Reverend Smith and said to myself, "Let's see what they have to say."

I did not know much about the Jehovah's Witness faith and I did not enter the conversation with anything other than genuine curiosity.  I was very open with my visitors that I am still trying to figure religion and faith out for myself.  Our conversation was good and lively.  We talked about current events and their meaning, and we looked at a few Bible quotes that they pointed out.  Overall, I enjoyed this good, honest driveway discussion about religion and beliefs.  It was the kind of chat that is typically discouraged at the office and impossible among casual acquaintances at children's birthday parties.

But as our conversation went on I actually became more and more disappointed.  The more I probed or questioned, the clearer it became that they were not really open to different ideas.  It became obvious that they had very strong opinions and were used to deflecting doubt or criticism each weekend.  They were true believers and saw their mission to convert others to the faith.

To me, for a belief system to work it cannot rely on simple, blind faith.  Some challenge is needed to improve the dialog - meaning that believers must be willing to challenge their own beliefs.  Like in science, a theory becomes stronger the more experiments attempt to disprove it.  Obviously religion is unlike science in many ways, but it is not immune to critical examination and change. 

The Catholic Church alone has made many changes over its 2,000 year history - including an embrace of many scientific discoveries.  And recently, Pope Benedict spoke about the need for Reason in the discussion of religion.  In a recent speech that is now only remembered for the anger it incited among Muslims, Benedict said:

""In the beginning was the Word.  God acts with logos. Logos means both reason and word. The inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of history of religions, but also from that of world history. . . . This convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe."

At the end of our discussion, we both agreed on a central problem, that "Kings and government cannot make the world a better place by themselves."  But we disagreed on the solution.  My visitors believe that only God, by reappearing (sometime soon according to current events), could set things right and return us to the Garden.  For me, for now, I believe that God wants to see if we can figure it out on our own - thus giving us the challenge to improve what He set in motion long, long ago.

I will keep thinking, learning and examining my own beliefs - including by reading my three complimentary copies of Awake!  But I hope my visitors will look deeper as well.  To quote my favorite philosopher, Socrates, who was, indeed a religious man: "He who is wise admits he knows nothing."

For more information on the Jehovah's Witnesses: (1) Wikipedia; (2) Official Site.