Tim of e-church expresses a prayer of many seekers after unity:

“The problem is that I fear many churches — instead of preaching grace — will cultivate misunderstandings of Islam. I hope our services this week reflect the nature of the gospel more than our nationalism. I hope that pastors will use this opportunity to challenge our unilateralism, prejudices, and hatred. Instead, I fear, pulpits will be used to reinforce these attitudes — giving them a spiritual dimension. A great opportunity for growth will be lost.“

It saddens me that more churches,  especially now,  are not emphasizing a movement to appreciate the spirituality of Islam (the Islam that its most dedicated adherents want us to know,  not the Islam used by those who would use it to their own ends of revenge and thirst for power).   It befuddles me that conservative churches are somehow afraid of highlighting some real spirtual values of Islam— they fear that people will be converted to Islam in one sitting,  or in a short study series?  What does that say about our confidence in the faith we have supposedly instilled in our members?  Perhaps if they would seek conversion to Islam,  it would tell us what need is being addressed there which we are not addressing. 

For me,  the movement of God is universal,  and always has been.  People of different times and different cultures,  surrounded by a particular cultural and physical environment,  perceive the movement of the spirit and seek to understand it using the archetypes and mythologies that are passed on to them.  Huston Smith’s World Religion book (which Bill Moyers made into a series) was such a good “survey”,  and from the perspective of a American Christian Methodist,  was moved enough by some of his discoveries of the why and how of diverse relgious practices,  that he brought some of them home with him.  Some consider this “syncretistic” and therefore blasphemous.  They only have to look deeper into the history of various groups in Chrisgtian history to find fellow travelers who used accomodated some of the same practices into their own Christian pilgrimage.