What I've learned from my Muslim friends

Our campus ministry frequently finds us interacting with Muslims and discussing spiritual issues with them. I have often listened with great interest to the Islamic critique of our Western culture. What is most interesting to me is the degree to which I find myself agreeing with much of this critique.

Our Muslim conversation partners, when they feel free to be transparently honest with us, express appreciation for our freedom and technological and scientific mastery. But they are also quick to observe just how morally vacuous, spiritually empty, selfishly hedonistic and stupefyingly sensuous we are, as well. They point to sexual perversion, broken marriages, abandoned children, crass materialism, frequent lawlessness and mindless self-absorption that runs rampant in our society. All of this they associate with the Christian faith!

In these conversations, of course, one of my goals is to convince them that the faith of Jesus and the Bible actually agrees with their moral and spiritual criticism. This often comes as quite a shock to them and leads to an opportunity to open the New Testament and read it together.

—Tom Trevethan serves students as an InterVarsity area director in southeast Michigan.