At the Baptist World Alliance gathering held in Prague, Czech Republic, the world-wide body of Baptists considered a reply to an open letter sent last fall from Islamic religious leaders to the Christian community. The letter calls on Christians and Muslims to find common ground. The BWA participants agreed to begin work on a reply which will circulate among various Baptist conventions around the world before it is finalized.
On my first day back from the BWA meeting, Elsie Richards, my secretary, was waiting with a message. She said that during my absence someone named Matt from an organization called Karamah had called from Washington and wanted to bring a group of about 23 “Muslim students to learn about Christianity.” Elsie said: “I knew you would want to respond to this opportunity. It's what we are all about.” The concerns voiced at the BWA meeting a half-world away suddenly had landed on our doorsteps.
Through the World Wide Web, I discovered that Karamah is an organization of Muslim women lawyers for human rights and was founded in 1993 at the University of Richmond. The word itself is Arabic for dignity. The “students” were part of an annual Law and Leadership Summer Program. Karamah's mission statement says: “We are committed to supporting human rights worldwide, especially the rights of Muslim women … through legal education and leadership development and to increase respect and understanding of Islamic law and civilization in other communities.”
The call was made and the time was set. It seemed that the “students” would be on the University of Richmond campus and 90 minutes could be devoted to a visit to the Baptist Heritage Center. I immediately began to make the connections. If it was Muslim and UR, it had to be related to the remarkable Professor Azizah al-Hibri, professor of law in the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond. She appeared on Bill Moyers' special on Genesis and was among those Muslim leaders called upon by the Bush White House following the tragedy of 9/11.
Several years ago I received a telephone call from a law professor on campus. He was a Baptist and he had been talking with his colleague, Professor al-Hibri, about the contribu-tion of Virginia Baptists to the securing of religious liberty. He asked if he could bring his colleague to see the Virginia Baptist Historical Society's gallery and collection. “Of course,” I replied and immediately began reaching for my desk calendar to schedule a visit. “When do you want to come?” “Now. We will be there in five minutes.”
Thankfully, there was nothing to prevent meeting the two professors, Christian and Muslim, and spending some time telling Virginia Baptist stories about the persecution of Baptists in the 18th century and their role in the larger religious liberty saga. It was a new story to Professor al-Hibri and she asked for materials to read. I loaned her a stack of rare and valuable Baptist history books which she devoured and returned. She incorporated some of the information into a paper which she was writing.
In time, the Muslim professor requested that one of her classes visit the Virginia Baptist Historical Society. It was a UR class on church/state and again the stories were told. They were the same stories which I have told hundreds of times to other visitors, especially to groups from all kinds of Baptist churches. And now, the stories were to be told to a select group of Muslim women.
As feared, the group's visit kept being delayed as the clock kept moving towards quitting time. Finally, the 90 minutes were reduced to 30 minutes. And the door opened to reveal a large group of women in headscarves and flowing robes. They did not look like the usual tour group at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society. The usual group is composed of a WMU “circle” or older men and women from some church's senior adults group or some wide-eyed youngsters on a Vacation Bible School visit. No, these were not our typical group!
The pressure was on: limited short time, an audience of an entirely different faith group and a limited understanding of language and culture. In a nutshell, I gave a general summation of Baptist identity based upon their time-honored principles and distinctives. I picked the best and hoped that Baptists could be painted with such broad and bright strokes: religious liberty, separation of church/state, church autonomy, respect for the individual, believer's baptism and democratic form of church government. When I saw eyes looking glazed, I paused and explained. Also in a small nutshell, I explained the historical relationship between Baptists and the University of Richmond and rattled off a list of other outstanding schools which were begun by Baptists.
The remainder of my ever-shrinking half-hour was devoted to the religious liberty story. The names of James Ireland, John Waller and John Leland were being heard for the first time by a group of surprisingly interested Muslim women.
When I told the story of the persecution of Baptists in Colonial Virginia, one woman stopped me. “Why would Anglicans persecute Baptists? Are you not of the same faith?” It was a teachable moment. I explained that within every faith group there are parties, divisions and conflicting groups. When they spied the Historical Society's logo on the bottom of the exhibit cases, someone asked, “What is the importance of this key?” It was another teachable moment and I immediately told the story of the lock and key from the Culpeper jail in which some 14 Virginia Baptists were imprisoned for their faith. When someone asked if Baptists were the most populous of today's Christian groups, I had a third teachable moment. I told that they were once — long ago — a despised minority and that even when they grew to large numbers, they did not want to become the new “state church.” I impressed upon them that the old-time Baptist concept was for religious liberty for all people, believers and non-believers alike, or for in the words of John Leland, “Christians, Jews and Turks.” The 18th-century Baptists were progressive and they were bold to insist upon freedom of conscience for everyone.
I felt compelled to state some commonality between my visitors and Christians. In the compressed time and unusual circumstances, I landed on two thoughts: love of God and love of neighbor. Perhaps those are our common legacy as children of Abraham.
Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at fred.anderson@ vbmb.org or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.