Ethics & Justice: 
2019 Currie-Strickland Lectures – Muslim Immigration: Following Christ Through the Debate

Posted onAuthorbilljones20

This week, I attended the 12th annual Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.

These lectures are named for David R. Currie, who led Texas Baptists Committed as executive director for over two decades (1988-2009); and Phil Strickland, who served as director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission for over a quarter-century before his death from cancer in February 2006. They were established by Dr. and Mrs. Gary D. Elliston, friends of David Currie and Phil Strickland.

I’ve attended all but three or four of these Currie-Strickland lecture series over the years, and – without fail – both the subject matter and the lecturer(s) have challenged, informed, and inspired us. I’m always encouraged to see students in attendance, because these lectures are designed to challenge them to seriously think through difficult ethical issues from a Christian ethics perspective.

Thursday evening, several students were recognized as Currie-Strickland Scholars; it’s especially encouraging to see these students who have demonstrated a particular concern for learning more about applied Christian ethics.

This year’s lecturer was Dr. Matthew Kaemingk, assistant professor of Christian ethics and associate dean at the Fuller Texas campus of Fuller Seminary. Dr. Kaemingk is the author of Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear. Click here to learn more about Dr. Kaemingk’s book and to purchase it.

The theme of Dr. Kaemingk’s lectures was Muslim Immigration: Following Christ Through the Debate.

Muslim Immigration and Christ’s Crown
Thursday night’s lecture was titled Muslim Immigration and Christ’s Crown.

Dr. Kaemingk opened by urging his listeners to see Muslims and Muslim immigration through the lens of Christ, to “think of Christ first.”

Historical European reactions
Noting that Muslim immigration has been an issue in Europe for centuries, he cited two typical reactions of Europeans to Muslim immigration:

  • High walls, characterized by
    • Restrictions
    • Security
    • Nationalism
    • Hard assimilation
  • Open doors, characterized by
    • Openness
    • Government aid
    • Multiculturalism
    • Soft assimilation

Despite the differences between the two reactions, he said, they have one thing in common: both look to government to solve the “problem,” the “problem” being the Muslim and the “solution” being the native European.

In contrast to the European reactions of “high walls” and “open doors,” he said, Jesus offers a table. The key question for Christians is: How do we handle difference?

The Crown and Plurality
Kaemingk then cited four very different Christian responses to religious diversity:

  • Domination
  • Retreat
  • Moderation
  • Assimilation

He finds all four responses, he said, “deeply problematic, for very different reasons.”

Then he posited what he called “an alternative model” by pointing to Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch pastor and theologian who entered politics in the Netherlands in the late 19th century, at a time when “the Netherlands were deeply divided into four parts: Protestants, Catholics, Socialists, and Secular Liberals, and they each had about 25 percent of the population . . . and they all wanted to take the nation in very different directions.”

“Kuyper,” he continued, “developed a theology and argument for Christian engagement in a divided country, in which he said, ‘we will not compromise our principles at all . . . and not deny the lordship of Jesus Christ. . . . However, Jesus made Socialists, Catholics, and Liberals in his image. Jesus loves them, and Jesus alone is king over them . . . so we must do justice to them, we must allow them to have free public space, and we must not be driven by fear, because Christ alone is king.’”

Kaemingk called this fifth option “Christian pluralism.” He cited Kuyper as explaining that “we make space for those we disagree with, not because we think principles don’t matter but because we think our principles demand that we make space for them.”

Muslim Immigration and Christ’s Cross
Friday morning’s lecture was titled Muslim Immigration and Christ’s Cross.

Dr. Kaemingk opened by pointing Howard Payne students (who typically make up the majority of the audience for the Friday morning lecture) to cpjustice.org, the Web site of The Center for Public Justice, of which he is a fellow; and to the Shared Justice blog, which is open to students who wish to write articles on issues of ethics and justice.

Table Politics and the Cross
Considering that, in today’s America, we Christians have friends and neighbors who are Muslims, Dr. Kaemingk said that we are called, as Christians, to more than simply law and justice. In our treatment of Muslims, he explained, we need more than theology – “When fear and politics grow, theology gets thrown out the window. When Twin Towers fall, does our commitment to religious freedom fall with them?”

We must, he said, go beyond the crown and to the cross.

Kaemingk cited three distinct, yet complementary, treatments of Christ’s crucifixion:

  • Slave king

Klaas Schilder, a Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian who lived in the first half of the 20th century, preached a sermon on Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane:

    • The reaction of Jesus’ disciples was “fight or flight.”
    • Jesus, however, modeled a reaction of liberation and restoration, responding with vulnerability by bending down and picking up the ear that Simon Peter had slashed with his sword and restoring it, healing the high priest’s slave, Malchus, who was helping to arrest him. In doing this, Schilder said, Jesus was liberating a slave.
  • Naked king (from Schilder’s “Christ Disrobed”)
    • We American Christians like to frame Muslims with our own narrative:
      • Threats to our security
      • Threats to our identity
      • Evil
      • Undemocratic
      • Weak, misguided people whom we must fix
    • We need to reckon with the fact that Jesus’ clothes were taken from him.
      • His oppressors thought they had exposed Jesus, but it was us who were “disrobed” and exposed – our violence, our hatred, our fear.
        • It was us who took Jesus’ clothes and nailed him to the cross.
        • Sin – in the form of fear and hatred – is inherent in all of us.
  • Hospitable king
    • Jesus models a hospitality that reckons with deep differences and hostility.
    • The final goal of the cross is not punishment, but reconciliation and restoration, relationship.
    • Moving beyond the high walls and open doors, the ultimate end that Jesus offers is the open table.

Dr. Kaemingk closed by suggesting practical ways of “forming hearts for plurality.” He cited the special role of worship and the arts in forming our hearts for hospitality.

“Space was made for us at the table,” he said, “and we need to extend that same hospitality to the world, making space for others. This is an opportunity to meet Jesus again and remember what he calls us to.”