Islam and American Women
I listened to a NPR interview yesterday morning of an American woman who converted to Islam. She is a self-described feminist. I think she was kidnapped (or something like that) and her captives let her go as she promised to read the Quran. When she did, she said that she found a most profoundly pro-women’s liberation document that she has ever read. That is my take on her comments, as best I remember them. I heard recently that Islam is just about the fastest growing religious movement in the U.S., and primarily among American women.
Back in high school, I read a book entitled 1985. It was obviously a take off of Orwell’s 1984, but with a different vision. The book was situated in a pre-Thatcher, 1970’s Labor Party Britain, and Islam became a very influential force – really the only force that could enable any part of British society to go forward beyond the violence and labor strife that marred the day.
Do we realize that for many young women, Islam will become the next new thing? It will be the new way of living and will become a new way of liberation – although a very different vision of liberation from the 1960’s-70’s National Organization of Women type of women’s lib. As the negative results of many of the 1960’s ‘revolutions’ become more apparent, non-baby boomer women will look to other means of acquiring a sense of freedom, dignity, and respect.
Christianity is failing them. Conservative Christianity is looking back to a mythical 1950’s sense of womanhood. Liberal Christianity desperately hangs onto the 1960’s women’s-lib kind of womanhood. Neither are right, neither work well, and neither will meet the needs of young women. Islam, at least as it will be conceived in an American form by American converts, present a very different and I think increasingly attractive alternative, unless Christians in this country can get their act together to realize what the New Covenant of Jesus really teaches.
The failed Bishop’s Meeting in New York
The meeting of a few American Bishops from opposing sides and the representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury in New York City this past week ended with no resolution between the warring parties. Now, the commentaries and opinions are flying – spin for the most part.
Bishop Duncan of Pittsburg, the Moderator of the Network, posted a statement. Here is a bit of it:

“It was an honest meeting. It became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church,” said Bishop Duncan…”

Notice what Duncan said? “…two distinctly different groups claiming to be the Episcopal Church.” The onward march for control of the Pension Fund, the buildings, and the name Anglican continues.