The last occasion when I was
accosted by such a preacher happened to be on Clapham High Street. Another man,
equally concerned for the salvation of my immortal soul, accosted me on my
imagined religious beliefs. “You Catholics don’t believe that Jesus died and
redeemed you once and for all.” That was news to me and told him so. “But you
don’t believe that he took away your sins.” This time, I shocked the speaker.
“I do believe that Jesus died and took away my sins, but that does not mean
that I am sinless. I have to keep on trying to become a better person. Jesus
told the Samaritan woman to ‘go away and sin no more’. Until the day I die, I
will have to keep on trying to be good. The fact that Jesus died for me does
not stop me from committing sin.” The discussion started to become complicated.
The preacher had no intention of learning more of Catholic belief from a
practising Catholic as opposed to an Evangelical pastor, so we agreed to differ
and parted company.
Many street evangelists are
deeply sincere as they courageously and publicly declare their faith, albeit
often with a degree of fundamentalism which is hard to accept. Engagement and
dialogue, however, can sometimes have an effect. A young Jehovah’s Witness
braves all weather to stand on our doorstep with Watchtower and ready answers. After more than one year of
discussions, I have come to believe that he visits because he is treated with
respect and is not turned away. In fact both he and I enjoy the debate such
that he surprises me by starting where we last finished.
The Hindu newspaper recently published a thoughtful article asking
why so many women in Britain are converting to Islam. It is a question which I
have often pondered when travelling on the bus or the Tube. Not everyone has
blindly followed a future husband onto his beliefs. Some appear to have become
Muslims after careful thought. Some, judging by their names, were originally
Catholic. What has made the change?
Perhaps one of the most striking
things is the fact that many Muslim women wear the hijab or the burqa outside
their home and are distinctive, easily recognisable as Muslim and presumably
offer each other a sense of solidarity. Although the burqa, a garment which totally envelops the woman in black appears
to have little fashion appeal, market stalls and clothes shops which specialise
in Islamic dress offer a wide range of stylish and colourful hijabs, garments which swathe the head
in clouds of material and generally hide any wisp of hair. Yet surely British
converts to Islam have a deeper reason for their actions than fashion sense. An
American journalist, Annette Lamothe-Ramos, recently donned a burqa and walked around Brooklyn for the
day. She subsequently wrote about her experience: "I figured that the only
way I’d really know what life was like for women who have been consigned to
wear the least-revealing piece of clothing of all time was to dress up as one
of them... Eight out of ten people that I came in contact with while wearing a burqa acted as if I didn’t even exist,
which actually made me feel worse than the looks I received from busybodies who
were offended by my presence."
Cambridge University’s Centre of
Islamic Studies (CIS) and the Leicester-based New Muslims Project have recently
published a 129-page report "based on the experiences of nearly 50 British
women converts of different ages, ethnicities, and faiths or no faith".
For some of the women they interviewed, there seems to have been a genuine and
life-changing conversion. A formerly practising Catholic declared, "I
realised this was what I had been searching for. It was a light bulb moment. So
I read more, and studied the religion, and a few months later I become a
Muslim."
Others had a different reaction
to reading about Islam: “The literature that I picked up just stimulated me.
And Islamic teaching made perfect, logical sense. You can approach it
intellectually and there are no gaps, no great leaps of faith that you have to
make.” In other words, it is possible to become a cultural Muslim without
needing to make a “leap of faith”. Will such people still be Muslims in ten
years’ time? Only God knows. The report itself stated, "The study
confirmed a problem that lies at the heart of Islam — the fact that it is not
simply a faith, but a way of life. The overlap between faith and culture left
many confused."
Perhaps one important feature in
the apparent ease with which Islam is able to attract female converts in
Britain is because so many young people today grow up in an atmosphere of no
faith and yet they are still searching for a deeper meaning to life than is
offered in a society where God is often consigned to irrelevance. The
conspicuous Muslim women attract their attention and inspire curiosity. In
spite of the popular feeling that Muslim women are oppressed and often denied
their basic freedom, some young women are urged to make further enquiries.
Their encounter with Islam might be their first experience of a faith community
in which they have some identity and suddenly, they have value and importance
which was previously denied them in their secular environment.
Interestingly, "the study
acknowledged the need to raise the status of Muslim women. Most converts were
particularly critical of the concept of Sharia Council or courts operating in
Britain, seeing them as a threat to women’s rights." Does this mean that some
female converts ‘want to have their cake and eat it’? To what extent are
conversions cultural and to what extent are they a matter of religious belief?
Converts from Christianity of
whatever denomination, seem to have been unengaged in one way or another so
that Jesus did not become ‘real’. This challenges the Church to do something
about its outreach to young people. Catholics tend not to parade their good
deeds, even though leading the world in the fight for social justice and human
rights. Often it is personal encounter and engagement which turn a life
upside-down. It will be fascinating to see what happens as a result of Pope
Francis’ leadership. He is a highly visible sign of the joy, humility, service
and simplicity which accompany an encounter with Jesus. Will he make a
difference?
