Muslim Youth Work At Chester
This post is designed to challenge you.....
designed to make you think.....
So even just for me
Could you try??
(only messing with you!)
Basically this has come out of our tutorial today about Muslim youth work. There is a degree course which is starting at Chester uni next September. One of the guys who will be teaching it is going to be coming into some of our lectures to see how the Christian youth work course is taught. This brought out some questions from the group and sparked off a discussion. Some of these questions were.....
should we be teaching Muslim youth workers how to work? Wont that just help them make converts to Islam? Shouldn't we be more concerned about our own youth workers? Why should we help another religion make converts? Why do we do youth work? Is there just one God who we all have different understandings off or is the Christian idea of God the only correct one and all other religions are just deluded and fooling themselves? If we don't teach Islamic youth workers who will? Do we have the rights to the knowledge of how to train youth workers?
Oh so many questions.....Take your pick...Answer what you will....The comments are up to you.
I will respond.
11 comments:
Hi Laura,
great topic and sorry I missed it...
So what about Islam? Weel I am reading a book just now which all being well I will reference at the end of the quote. The book is a story of a man who gets an invitation to dinner with a perfect stranger, no guesses to whom the stranger is!! Anyway during this uneasy time the conversationgets to other religions, here is the text from the bit about Islam:
"What about Islam?" I asked. "Maybe pantheistic religions don't hold up. But Muslims claim to worship the same God of the bible. Who says that their version is wrong and that Jesus was right?"
He reached for His water, then answered. "That depends on whether God actually spoke to Muhammed, doesn't it? That's a lot of weight to give one guys writings, especially one who, after supposedly hearing from an angel, wasn't sure whether he had heard from God, had persistant bouts of suicidal thoughts, built a following based partly on military conquest, countenanced the murder of his enemies, and married a nine-year-old, among other things."
"Who says that? I've heard of those things, except the military part."
"Revered Muslim writings. The 'Sirat Rasul Allah'. The Hadith collections of Bukhari, Muslim, and Abu Dawud. The 'History of al-Tabari', among others."
Gregory,D. 2005. The Appetizer. IN Dinner with a Perfect Stranger - An Invitation Worth Considering. LONDON: Hodder & Stoughton. pp33
thought this was a good view of what Jesus might say if we were to sit opposite each other at a dinner table...its a great book, very thin and would be great to have in your pocket just in case you get invloved in one of those conversations where you wish you could leave them with something to consider. It is not all about Islam, just this small quote so far.
M
Firstly let me start by saying I am not a racist, never have been and never will even though what I am about to say might sound controversial to some people.
Pretty intresting subject in our CYW tutorial this morning about Muslim Youth Work.
I personally was very shocked & suprised to discover that Chester University is planning to run a Muslim Youth Work course, especially when it is a College/University that was founded by the Church of England.
It just seems to me that it is a compromise of faith which is something that Jesus Christ would never do.
Would I be able to go to a Muslim country and do a Christian Youth Work course? - of course not, so why then is it ok to promote Islam in a Christian country (well it used to be!).
Is it not a fact that Christianity is becoming wiped out from our own schools because it causes offence to other religions and because it is not seen as being PC.
It is my humble opinion that political correctness should be stuffed back into which ever cupboard satan produced it from!
Dont get me wrong and I would show love & compassion to any fellow human being but I would never, ever allow my faith to be compromised by doing so.
Rich
Hi Laura,
I was going to set up a blog about the discussion from yestoday but you seem to of sumed up things really well so I'm just going to leave a comment on here.
As people may of seen on Tuesday I got very passionate about what I thought. I just want everyone to know that my one and only reason for being against it, is that I don't want to encourage any other religion but the one I believe to be the truth. In any other situation I'm more than willing to work with Muslims! Although many of you have a different view to me on the whole situation, I want you all to know that I'm fine with that and I can see the positive things about it!
i was jst about to write my thoughts about this in a blog but then remembered that i read this before and thought i'd put it on here.
I think it's good that muslims have the opportunity to gain a youthwork qualification. It's good that they seek advice too from the christian youthwork course. As for them teaching them things about the Quran and things, it's not ideal but they still really care about young people in their community and maybe young people who are muslim are going to be able to relate to them more. The whole reason I want to become a youthwork is to help young people see their protential (if thats how you spell it) in Christ but even if they don't become christians, I would want to see them have dreams for their live and see that they can reach them.
1 In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful.
2 Praise be to Allah the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds.
3 Most Gracious Most Merciful.
4 Master of the Day of Judgement.
5 It is you we worship and serve and it is you we seek help from.
6 Show us the straight way.
7 The way of those upon whom You bestowed Your Grace, not those upon whom is anger, nor those who go astray.
Hi folks,
If I really believed that Richard was capable of the computer side of a blog then I would hedge my bets at 'themethatisme' being him!!!
would really like to know where 'their' comment about Islam not being a prosletyzing faith. If not then why do so many asian's have to attend Madras after being in 'secular' schooling all day. Why do they have to learn the Qu'ran by rote. Not to understand but to be able to recite it at any given time stated by the Iman. Not a faith by choice I fear but by fear and inheritance. Is this the world of a god or can I be as brave as to suggest a dictator!!
as I understand it (and please tell me if not - everyday is an opportunity to learn afterall) Muslim religion works on its ahderents attaining a perfect form of life by ritualistic actions and deeds told to them not necessarily understanding them. This was evidenced by a trip of our local Guides to the Mosque where the Iman proudly brought forward a student from the madras and asked him to recite the words of a certain page without looking. This he did perfectly, one young guide asked 'can you tell me what it means?' no reply came.
However, if you look at Maslows Hierarchy of Needs where you progress on a pyramidical scale to the pinnacle, that being self actualisation (a status only ever attributed to one person so far - oh yes that's Jesus by the way!!)you will see that the theory of progression of an individual is based on that individual recognizing not only their need but that it had been met, thus allowing them to move forward, to choose their direction and status.
How can you work out what you want if you are being told what to do and think rather than investigating and developing your own self?
If a religion does not evangelise then it dies?
If the Muslim community are not prosletyzing then why do they send their children to CofE primary schools when there are alternatives?
There I am glad I got that all out.....hope some of it makes sense
M
Ok, now that everyone else has been posting their opinions i think its time i added something of my own, since i asked the questions anyway.
before i start i should explain why the two comments have been deleted. basically to rich...yours related near enough entirely to the one above so made no sense after i had deleted that one. and to methatisme...thank you for your opinions and i'm glad that you felt that you could post them on here, however i felt that there could be a possibility that some things could cause offence to others who might stumble across this blog and so i had to remove it.
now you may all ask why i have left the quotes from the anonymous post up. i feel that these words (i assume from the Quran...correct me if i'm wrong) can help us to understand the point of view of someone learning from christians to be a Islamic youth worker. particularly the last 2 verses which i feel can be interpreted in a way as such to understand that Muslim people are asking god to show them how to do things and in order to achieve this they can learn through other people who god has taught....this i think can mean us. though we are christian youth workers we do have the knowledge to impart to others who wish to learn.
Islamic young people are still going to struggle with issues such as sexuality, drugs, parent separation.....etc and if they are going to learn from and respond better to someone who is from the same social background or religion as them then i think that we should encourage those youth workers.
dont all young people have the right to be cared for? does it REALLY matter whether the youth worker is christian or not?
Thank you Laura for explaining you removal of my post. I'm not quite sure what you felt may be considered offensive so I can't apologise. I thought I was being rather pleasant!
God bless.
Post a Comment