Rev. Benjamin Chavis’ recent announcement that he had joined the Nation of Islam might have bewildered some Christians, but not Rev. Richard Young.
Young, a minister at the Second Baptist Church in Evanston, made his peace with the Nation of Islam two years ago when his mother–a devout Christian for her first 49 years–converted to the religion of Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan.
“We can’t say our way is the only way. Be open to your faith, but don’t be closed-minded,” Young said as he shared a sofa with his mother, Vikki Muhammad.
She smiled at her son and said, “I guess the important thing is that we are both God-centered.”
For most African-American Christians, Chavis’ cryptic statement that he is still a Christian even as he preaches in a mosque as Minister Benjamin Chavis Muhammad raises theological contradictions.
Yet for others, it is enough that Christians and members of the Nation of Islam share a belief in one God and a determination to fight the urban devils of drugs, crime and hopelessness. For them, the theology of the streets and a visceral sense of what speaks most clearly to their personal experiences are more important than either basic Christian doctrine or the politically charged religion of Farrakhan.
Meanwhile, the decisions of Chavis, Vikki Muhammad and thousands more have forced black churches to re-examine their missions and ministries, especially in the urban centers where the Nation of Islam has been most successful.
On the face of it, the stated beliefs of the two faiths seem an uncomfortable fit.
Traditional Islam, which is claimed as a basis for the Nation of Islam, views Jesus as a prophet and not the son of God, as Christians believe.
Moreover, the Nation has at times in its 63-year history preached that Christianity is the religion of slavery and that those who preach it are devils.
Some Christians, meanwhile, have blasted Chavis’ conversion as purely political and self-serving. In a recent sermon, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and a nationally known black preacher, compared Chavis to Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Still, the predominant alternative to traditional black churches is mainstream Islam, with an estimated 3 million to 5 million African-American followers.
The Nation of Islam, which is not considered true Islam by most orthodox Muslims, is a much smaller religion. Most estimates put membership in the Nation of Islam in the tens of thousands, though the Nation will not reveal its count.
The social and political influence of the Nation in the black community goes well beyond the number of full-fledged members. An overlap with Christianity has always been a part of the Nation’s story–from founder Elijah Muhammad, whose father was a Baptist preacher, to high-ranking official Leonard Muhammad, Farrakhan’s son-in-law, whose brother is a Christian pastor.
The Million Man March, which brought thousands of busloads of Christians, Nation members and other black men together in 1995, highlighted the ties and tensions between black churches and the Nation of Islam.
Chavis’ case shows the possibilities and pitfalls of trying to reach across religious boundaries.
“I am not turning my back on Jesus Christ,” Chavis said after his announcement that he was joining the Nation of Islam. “Jesus Christ in the Christian church, that is my foundation. I am what I am. . . . As I affirm Allah, that is not to deny the Christian church. For me, my evolution into Islam is simply that. I have been a bridge builder all my life, and now I have decided to walk closer to God on the bridge of Islam.”
In welcoming Chavis to the Nation of Islam last month, Farrakhan avoided the rhetoric he has used at times to excoriate Christianity. Instead, he told a crowd of 10,000 gathered at the University of Illinois at Chicago: “It is unnecessary for us to be divided by labels. It is rather better that we be united by principles.”
Officials of Chavis’ former denomination, the United Church of Christ–a denomination that has pursued many ecumenical and interfaith efforts–seem less confident that Chavis’ conversion is in the best interests of the church. The UCC Southern Conference has announced that Chavis’ status as a UCC minister is under review and will be determined in April.
“The issue really is not whether you’re in the Nation of Islam or the church. The issues have to do with right or wrong, the love of God or the lure of the streets,” said Rev. James Demus, pastor of Park Manor Christian Church.
Over the years, Demus has preached at the Nation’s mosques, invited leaders of the Nation to his church and helped coordinate the Million Man March efforts in Chicago.
“Drugs, crime, that’s what I’m competing against,” Demus said. “I would rather see black men and women in the Nation of Islam or the Christian church than in the world of rap.”
Kenneth Smith, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, said he would like to see his United Church of Christ put more effort into ecumenical dialogue with the Nation of Islam, but he stressed that the church should not sacrifice its distinct beliefs.
Smith, like Demus and many others, said the Nation of Islam’s success in reaching young black men and in addressing the problems of urban life point out weaknesses that Christian churches must address.
Ronald Potter, a theologian who writes about black Christianity, is one of a growing number of preachers who counter that no matter how similar the social and political goals, the theological chasm between Christianity and the Nation of Islam cannot be overlooked.
After the Million Man March, Potter wrote an article assailing the “spiritual wimpism” of Christian ministers who took part and “were willing to tuck Jesus away in a foggy mist of Allah/God talk.”
Black pastors, he wrote, were afraid to speak out against Farrakhan’s “slippery theology,” for fear of alienating the black community.
A year and a half later, he maintains that the differences between the religions are not incidental details or labels, as Farrakhan has characterized them.
“The specifics, the so-called details, are foundational,” Porter said. “They challenge the very basis of the Christian faith.”
Nobody feels that more than families that find themselves with one foot in the church and another in the mosque.
Mary Jones, who is in her late 60s and lives on the South Side of Chicago, remembers when her new son-in-law first talked to her about his life in the Nation of Islam.
“He tried to make us read his literature, and I told him I didn’t believe in it. He got angry with me and said we were crazy,” she said.
Jones, like her mother and grandmother, is a staunch Baptist. Her first stop when she moved to Chicago in 1951 was Tabernacle Baptist Church, where she was surrounded by extended family.
But her daughter, Judith, decided to convert to the Nation of Islam to join her husband.
“I didn’t feel like I was walking away,” said Judith, who now goes by the last name Muhammad. “I actually felt like I was being elevated, graduated, going to a higher level.”
For Jones, who remains skeptical, it was not what her daughter said but how she acted that won her over.
Judith, Jones said, was a better Christian after joining the Nation of Islam. She studied the Bible along with the Koran and practiced what she learned, according to her mother.
Vikki Muhammad said that the commonalities ultimately transcended the differences and paved the way for her conversion.
“What Islam teaches is not contradictory to any of the principles that you learn in Christianity, and I am talking about principles because that is the kind of person I am,” she said. “We don’t all share the same ultimate ideas about what life is, but a lot of times, we are struggling to get there the same way.”
