Harold Vogelaar: his legacy and the challenge of CCME.

What we owe Harold Vogelaar

I first met Harold Vogelaar in the spring of 1984 at a conference of Lutheran missionaries held at Larnaca, Cyprus. It was an annual gathering of LCA missionaries serving in the Middle East in various ministry capacities, particularly in Egypt, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. Historically, Lutherans were not significantly involved in this area except in support of Lutheran World Federation involvements in Jerusalem, in educational and development projects in what was then known as "Occupied Jordan," and in the management of the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. Lutherans had supported the Henry Martyn Institute in Hyderabad, India, and Islam in Africa (IAP) projects in several African countries, but there was no major Lutheran involvement in the Arab world. I was eager to learn more about this new LCA area of concentration, its genesis, scope, and prospects.

At Larnaca, Cyprus, I learned that the new LCA Middle Eastern mission venture was decidedly ecumenical in nature. The deployment of Lutheran missionaries and the determination of their fields of service had been closely planned by, and coordinated with, the Middle East Christian Council (MECC), whose Director, Gabi Habib, was present at the conference. MECC had played a key role in devising this new Middle Eastern mission strategy. The LCA contribution was also unique in that it included a significant number of non-Lutheran missionaries, among them Harold Vogelaar and his wife, Neva, who were being loaned to the LCA Division for World Mission and Ecumenism (DWME) by the mission board of the Reformed Church of America (RCA), a church with a long and historical relationship with the Muslim world. These "lend-lease" Reformed missionaries were now supported by the LCA and received their assignments from the LCA mission board while maintaining their relationships with the RCA. This novel arrangement, worked out by the farsighted Southern Asia area director for the LCA-DWME, the late J. Frederick Neudoerffer, allowed Lutherans to become engaged in Middle East ministries much sooner than would have been the case had the LCA been obliged to begin from scratch.

Leaving Cyprus and travelling first to Jerusalem and then to Cairo, I once again ran into the Vogelaars, who for a part of our stay in Egypt served as hosts for my wife and me. I had received a fairly good academic introduction to the teachings and practices of Islam from my graduate studies at Columbia University, but now Harold helped me gain a firsthand ground-level view of the world of Islam as it was on display in Cairo. Harold had performed a similar role as guide and mentor for many other church- or mission-related visitors who came to Cairo in search of an in-depth experience. He arranged and led short-term study seminars for groups coming from Africa and Southern Asia. This was the education and training component of the new LCA mission strategy. I accompanied Harold on a memorable visit to Al Azhar University, one of the world's most prestigious Islamic institutions, where we witnessed young boys reciting the Qur'an from memory in competition for a prize and as a noble achievement. On visits to several other mosques Harold carefully coached me and explained the differences between various Islamic schools and sects. Under his tutelage our visit to Cairo enabled my wife and myself to enter into the world of Islam at a depth not previously available to us or to the average tourist.

In the fall of 1984 the Vogelaars came to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago under the auspices of the LCA Division for World Mission and Ecumenism to begin a new experiment. Harold and Neva's assignment was to develop a program to explore the "interface" between Christianity and Islam in America. The base for this activity was to be LSTC, but its scope was not narrowly defined. In time, Harold would be appointed adjunct professor of Islamic studies at LSTC, but his original assignment had always been to explore and develop the "interface" (I often wondered what that term meant) between the two Abrahamic faiths--between the Muslim and Christian communities and between church and mosque.

Quietly but methodically, Harold went about the task of identifying and making contact with various elements of the scattered Islamic community in greater Chicago, which turned out to be fairly complex and diversified. With his excellent command of Arabic, his long experience in the Middle East, and his manifest love for Islamic people, Harold quickly gained the confidence of local Muslim leaders and was welcomed into their circles. Neva was a great asset in dealing with Muslim women, especially American women who had married Muslim husbands.

I traveled with Harold to the American Islamic College (AIC) in Chicago for celebratory events as well as to the Elijah Mohammed Mosque (Nation of Islam), the Bridgeview Mosque (Arab and Middle Eastern), the Northfield Mosque (Bosnian), the Islamic Cultural Center (Pakistani) and several other venues. Out of these visits came the formation of a new Council for Improved Muslim-Christian Relations (CIMCR), which sought to create and expand Muslim-Christian relationships by offering seminars, jointly staffed by Christian and Muslim scholars, to Christian congregations and to other religious institutions. CIMCR meetings alternated between LSTC and the American Islamic College. One of the most valuable fruits of these relationships was the invitation given to Professor Ghulam-Haider Aasi, distinguished Pakistani religious scholar at the American Islamic College, to teach in the program of Islamic studies that later became part of the LSTC curriculum under Harold's leadership. Pastors from African churches seeking to develop a similar "interface" between Christianity and Islam in their own countries came to LSTC to pursue special M.A. programs. A Muslim chaplaincy candidate for the U.S. Armed Forces spent time at LSTC to qualify for his commission.

More recently, a dozen or more Turkish scholars of Islam have come to Chicago to study at LSTC and McCormick Theological Seminary in M.A.--level programs under grants from the Niagara Foundation. In 2005 the Niagara Foundation in collaboration with generous donors and with LSTC announced a bold initiative to establish a Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice (CCME) at LSTC to open in the fall of 2006 with Harold Vogelaar as its founding director. Also part of the Niagara Foundation grant was the announcement of the establishment of an endowed chair in Christian-Muslim studies and relationships at LSTC. This will be filled in the fall of 2006 by Dr. Mark Swanson, currently at Luther Seminary and previously an ELCA missionary in Egypt.

This expansion of the LSTC program and curriculum to meet the pastoral and theological needs of American and overseas churches has unmistakably redefined the overall mission of LSTC within theological education. At present it is not possible to predict the ways in which these developments will alter present relationships or create new opportunities, academic or other. But it is without question a tribute to Harold Vogelaar's vision and represents the further flowering over twenty years of his original assignment to explore the interface between Christianity and Islam.

What prompted Harold Vogelaar and other RCA missionaries who became part of the Lutheran (ELCA) Middle East missionary effort to devote their lives to working with Muslim people? It is impossible to answer this question without referring to the life and legacy of Samuel M. Zwemer (1867-1952), the legendary American "apostle to Islam," who spent thirty-eight years as a Reformed missionary in Egypt and Arabia. Zwemer tirelessly promoted Christian work among Muslims by writing, teaching, lecturing, and recruiting missionaries for work in the Muslim world. He was the founding editor of the journal Moslem World, organized two major international conferences on Christian work among Muslims, and was a leader and promoter of the Student Volunteer Missionary Movement.

In Zwemer's day, direct missionary work among Muslims was seen as a difficult and unrewarding task, generally to be avoided. Congregational, Presbyterian, and Anglican missions in the Near East preferred to work with ancient Christian minority churches dispersed in the Muslim world, such as the Coptic and Syrian communities, seeking to bring about their renewal and to reform them along lines of the American Protestant vision. Zwemer and a Reformed colleague set out to change that strategy by first organizing the American Arabian Mission for direct work among Muslims and then persuading the Reformed Church of America to take over its sponsorship. Dozens of future Reformed missionary candidates--as Sunday school students, teenagers, or student missionary volunteers in college or seminary--came under the spellbinding influence of the peripatetic Zwemer and offered themselves for missionary service in the Muslim world. This was also true of Harold Vogelaar. Through him some of Zwemer's charisma as the original "apostle to Islam" rubbed off on the Lutherans who previously had shown little interest in the Muslim world and only tardily come to adopt Zwemer's vision. Now, thanks to an "apostolic succession" of Reformed missionaries, Lutherans find themselves in the forefront of Christian bodies devoting major resources to engagement with Muslims.

Missiological reflections on the task of the new Center

Some missiological reflections on the project conceived and advanced by Harold Vogelaar over a twenty-year period and culminating in the inauguration of the CCME are in order. What exactly is the project? Is it "mission" in the usual sense? Is it an expression of "interfaith dialogue" as we have come to know it? Or is it a kind of hybrid venture--similar but new and different from both? What is its rationale, what are its goals, and how are we to evaluate it?

In my judgment, the project to bring about an interface between Christianity and Islam does not conform to the classic definition of the global mission of the church. The mission given by Jesus to the apostles includes the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, the call for repentance and conversion, the baptism of believers, and their incorporation into the church, which is Christ's body. Those practicing Christian mission among Muslims in the past thirteen centuries have long recognized that Muslims can not be evangelized in the same way that medieval Europe, the Americas, Africa south of Sahara, and the islands of the Pacific were christianized, whether under the auspices of colonialism or by voluntary mission groups. Islam's historic resistance to Christianity, based on its own theology of supersession, its disastrous experiences and memories from the epoch of the Crusades, and its imposition of shari'ah (religious law) have made conversion to Christianity and baptism in the name of the Triune God illegal and punishable by death or ostracism. This remains true even in predominantly Muslim countries with a secular constitution that guarantees religious freedom, including freedom to change one's religious beliefs. These facts compelled Zwemer and other advocates of mission to Muslims to modify their goals and to develop an alternative approach--mainly through schools, medical activities, and "indirect evangelism." Countless Muslims came under the influence of Christianity and were attracted to the person and teachings of Christ, but they could not "convert." As noted earlier, converts to Christianity in Muslim lands were nearly always disaffected members of ancient Eastern churches, more precisely proselytes rather than genuine converts.

A second observation is that the project really cannot be considered an expression of "interfaith (or interreligious) dialogue" as defined in ecumenical and Roman Catholic documents over the past thirty years--at least not at present or as presently conceived. Interfaith dialogue in the ecumenical sense assumes that participants are permitted to share their deepest convictions and that their partners are obliged to take them seriously, even at the risk of changing or modifying their own previous understandings of the partner's position. Christians enter the dialogue with a commitment to Jesus Christ and find an opportunity for authentic witness within the dialogue process. Clearly there is tension between dialogue and witness, and neither can be compromised for the sake of the other. The outcome of the exchange is never predictable. A Christian might convert to Buddhism or a Buddhist to Christianity. There are no holds barred, and the outcome depends on the subtle interplay of faith, conscience, and reason in the ongoing dialogue. The principle of religious freedom, including freedom to hold and express one's religious beliefs and practices, freedom to change one's beliefs if motivated by conscience, and the absence of pressure or coercion, is fundamental to any engagement in interfaith dialogue.

The question that must be raised is whether Islam is ready for this kind of dialogical engagement. The CCME promises to focus on common concerns "for peace and justice." That is an entirely worthy goal, but will the Center also deal with issues of religious truth and revelation, or will these be treated as off limits in the mutual engagement process? An argument can be made that the task of developing the interface between Christianity and Islam over the past twenty years, including academic study programs and activities of CIMCR, has worked to the enormous benefit of the growing Islamic community in America. Islam has been offered hospitality, welcomed to America, and shown a friendly face. Muslims have been given public recognition and de facto legitimacy on their way to becoming an accepted part of the American multireligious scene. Hostility and suspicion directed toward Muslims triggered by 9/11 has been at least partially abated through the support of friendly Christian groups. Services rendered by LSTC and mainline religious bodies have not gone unrecognized or unappreciated by Muslims. They are evidence of friendly support and acceptance in the midst of a prevailing hostility or atmosphere of exclusion. But they do not begin to approach the demands and requirements of interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Will the Center have the courage to go further and to explore deeper questions of faith?

Muslims have championed the infallibility of the Qur'an and the uniqueness of the Prophet Muhammad. They are convinced that the revelation given to Muslims through the Qur'an and the Prophet supersedes the biblical revelation given to Christians through Christ and the apostles, just as Christians believe that the truths of Christianity contained in the gospel supersede God's revelation given to Moses and the Jewish people in the Torah. Muslims firmly believe in and ardently strive for the conversion of non-Muslims, especially Christians. For a Muslim to become a Christian--to convert from a "superior" to an "inferior" religion--is strictly forbidden, makes no religious sense whatever, and is punishable by death or banishment. For the Muslim, interfaith dialogue from the outset excludes the possibility of conversion, sets limits on personal religious freedom, and operates solely for the advancement and triumph of Islam. For this reason, whereas we see hundreds of Christian converts to Islam (especially Christian women married to Muslim husbands), we almost never witness a Muslim convert to Christianity, unless in secret. Will the time come when a former Muslim can be openly and publicly welcomed by baptism into the body of Christ?

A host of related religious and theological issues must be faced if the activity of the Center is to advance beyond cooperation for peace and justice. These have to do with the nature of revelation (scripture) and the identity and person of the Prophet. Is serious dialogue even thinkable between unwavering fundamentalists and believers accustomed to a more self-critical attitude in matters of faith? Will Muslims allow the Holy Qur'an to be examined and criticized, using methods and principles of historical and literary criticism, as Christians have for decades examined the texts of the Old and New Testaments in seminary and university classrooms? Will Muslims view such a process as the desecration and dishonoring of their infallible holy book? Similarly, will Muslims allow the person, career, and mission of the Prophet to be examined in accordance with rules of historical criticism and source analysis, as Western scholars have for more than a century done with the life and mission of Jesus? Or will such treatment appear to them a repudiation of the identity and God-given mission of the Prophet? The Muslim picture of Jesus, in some ways similar but in more ways different from the Christian view, can hardly be excluded from dialogue. All such issues cannot be avoided in interfaith dialogue that seeks the truth of divine revelation, though they may be temporarily set aside in the common engagement for peace and justice. Still other issues that must be on the dialogue agenda are the status of women, family relationships, religious law (shari' ah), human rights, and the separation of church (mosque) and state.

Yet interfaith dialogue cannot be seen as a one-sided process or a one-way movement in which Muslims are asked to make major concessions to Western religious concepts or methods of scholarly investigation before the dialogue can begin. The average Christian (as opposed to the religious scholar) is not, by and large, ready or prepared for the discipline of interfaith dialogue. Most Christians until quite recently were ignorant of the history, teachings, and practices of Islam. Set this alongside the fact that mainline Christianity, apart from Evangelicalism, is in a state of long-term decline, and the picture becomes even more clouded. Critical observations about the decline of Western Christianity point to such evidence as declining church attendance, neglect of the sacraments and confirmation instruction, consumer lifestyles, growth of theological relativism, and the loss of missionary spirit and of the public influence of Christianity. A Western church lacking in theological clarity and biblical awareness, deprived of missionary intentionality, and struggling to regain its identity can hardly serve as a dialogue partner with a Muslim community newly reenergized by recent events, determined to restore the lost grandeur of Islam, and strongly motivated to engage in spiritual jihad (holy war) wherever its message has not been heard or accepted.

This suggests that one urgent aspect of the Center's work must be to recall Christians to their historic role as committed disciples of Christ, serious students of the prophetic and apostolic faith as attested by the Scriptures, defenders of Christian tradition, and advocates for the Great Commission. The Center must therefore also prepare Christians, both professional leaders and ordinary lay priests, for their engagement with Islam. Unquestionably, the Center cannot play the role of a Trojan horse, advancing the case for Islam while further hastening the decline of the Christian community. The Center's aim must be to level the playing field so that both participating teams, Muslim and Christian, can faithfully represent the best of their own traditions. This approach should apply not only to the interreligious engagement for peace and justice but equally to the search for revealed truth.

James A. Scherer

Emeritus Professor of World Mission and Church History

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago