Friday, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I gathered with a group of interfaith individuals to stand outside a mosque.
I remember as a young kid having conversations with classmates as they wore their hijabs for the first time and talked about their understandings of faith. I recognized some differences but also many similarities. These classmates also loved Disney Channel and playing on the playground. They grew up as I did, shaped by stories of goodness, love and peace.
And yet, I was taught by people of faith and by right-wing media sources to be afraid. I was told these classmates were dangerous and worthy of suspicion. I was taught to see them as threats. I had a hard time reconciling this with the friends I enjoyed playing with.
Jordan McMahan
In undergraduate classes at Old Dominion University, my dissonance became conviction. I began to unlearn the Islamophobia I had absorbed and replaced it with relationship. I built friendships with people whose lives and faith I once had been warned about. One friend in a world religions course attended a mosque a few doors down from the Baptist Collegiate Ministry I attended. We spent hours talking, honestly and curiously, about our beliefs. We wrestled with differences, especially around the Trinity, but we also recognized a shared commitment to live out our faiths.
At the end of the semester, as part of an assignment, I visited his mosque, and he visited my Baptist ministry. There were parts of my experience at the mosque I wrestled with, especially as a person deeply committed to women’s equality. However, I was surprised by the similarities between the imam’s words and those of the preachers I had listened to throughout my life. I went on to engage in interfaith dialogue and community projects throughout my time at ODU, and I learned these were not people to fear but neighbors to work alongside.
Our faiths are different, but the things we agree on can lead us into good, holy work in our communities.
“Our faiths are different, but the things we agree on can lead us into good, holy work in our communities.”
In seminary, I asked our professor of Christian missions to offer a course he previously taught on Islam. This class was one of the most transformative experiences of my education. We thought deeply, researched widely and read directly from the Quran. At the end of the class, we visited a mosque. During the visit, the professor demonstrated what it looked like to have kind and respectful conversations with people who think differently than us.
My professor emphasized that it was incredibly important for us to know what we believe, but also to look in the eyes of our neighbors and see the person looking back at us, made in God’s image, with love.
Friday afternoon, I got to do just that. I looked into the eyes of my Muslim neighbors and said, over and over again, “God bless you. Salaam. Peace be with you.”
On a day marked by grief and memory, I was reminded with renewed clarity why I am Baptist. I believe in religious freedom not as an abstract ideal, but as a sacred responsibility. We hold the conviction that no one should be denied dignity, safety or belonging in our society because of how they worship. Religious freedom is integral to the foundation of our country.
And yet, Islamophobia continues to shape our communities.
As I stood outside the mosque, I watched children pass by in strollers and thought about the fear they may grow up carrying. I thought about the stories they might hear in classrooms and on screens, stories that make them question their humanity. I thought about the painful gap between the peace they are taught in their faith and the violence so often attributed to them.
We have to tell the truth: Islamophobia has been cultivated. It has been preached, politicized and normalized. And too often, people of faith, especially Christians, have participated in this.
“Grief does not permit us to dehumanize.”
What happened on September 11 changed our country forever. It is a tragedy that never should be minimized or forgotten. But remembrance cannot become an excuse for Islamophobia. Grief does not permit us to dehumanize. There is no faithful expression of Christianity, or any faith, that justifies treating another person as anything less than a fellow human.
The group I stood with Friday gathered in solidarity with our Muslim neighbors after hearing about planned protests at mosques across North Texas. These protesters claimed a scriptural mandate to show up and condemn. But there is nothing sacred about harassment. There is nothing holy about Islamophobia. To weaponize faith in order to wound our neighbors is not righteousness. It is a distortion of the God we claim to serve.
So we showed up, too. Not to argue, but to stand. Not to shout, but to bless. Not to win, but to witness.
Presence is powerful. When we stand with those who are targeted, we declare, visibly and publicly, that hatred will not have the final word.
Interfaith relationships change us. They widen our vision. They call us to account when we fall short. And they compel us to act when our neighbors are harmed. Today, many of the Muslim neighbors I encountered seemed surprised we had come to support them. This surprise says something about the country we have built and the work we still have to do.
This was a difficult day. It holds grief, memory and complexity. But it must not be a day we allow to further push us into hatred.
Instead, let it be a day where we choose something more faithful. Let it be a day where we speak words of peace and mean them.
“Peace be with you. Salaam. God bless you.”
Jordann McMahan is a second-year pastoral resident at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.
Related:
Republican-fueled Islamophobia cited as cause of more attacks
Republican leaders won’t denounce Islamophobia
Study traces anti-Muslim campaign to Greg Abbott
Islamophobia is the next bogeyman | Opinion by Scott Gilliland