How Christians should view their Muslim neighbors

Ghanaian John Azumah offers a compelling way out of dead-end conflict

John Azumah speaking at the inaugural event of the Sanneh Institute.

Since the rise of Islamic extremism, Christian-Muslim tensions have been high. Africa is plagued by violence from Nigeria to Mozambique. The Christian response has often taken the form of Islamophobia, stereotyping all Muslims as prospective terrorists and limiting their religious and personal freedoms.

There’s a better way, and John Azumah is illustrating it.

A native of Ghana, Azumah was raised Muslim but became a Christian as a teenager. He has taught at Yale University and for Columbia Theological Seminary. In 2018, he founded the Sanneh Institute in collaboration with the University of Ghana. It is named for Lamin Sanneh (1942–2019), a Gambian native who also taught at Yale and was a pioneer in research on world Christianity and Christian-Muslim relations.

The Sanneh Institute has a fascinating vision statement: “Offering scholarship as a tribute to God, with the religious and non-religious Other within hearing distance, for the transformation of society.” To me, the most important words in that statement are “within hearing distance.” In an age when many public figures, including Christians, demonize their opponents and refuse to engage with them, Azumah intentionally brings them together. His response to the deeply rooted hostilities in northern Nigeria is to bring Christians and Muslims to Ghana, have them observe how the two faith groups get along peaceably, and tell them to go back home and do likewise.

The following Q&A is adapted from Azumah’s recent webinar presentation to the Society of Christian Scholars and a personal interview.

Q&A with John Azumah

Describe the situation in northern Nigeria and what you are doing about it.

Northern Nigeria is trapped in a cycle of suspicion, fear of the other, and violence. The tradition of militancy in West African Islam has its roots there, going back to the 19th century. The idea of getting along and living together has been fraught with difficulties, so it is difficult even to help people think in those terms. Not only Muslim communities but generations of Christians have been radicalized.

We try to create spaces for conversation in Ghana. It is easier for Nigerian scholars to talk with each other here than at home. We invite them to attend seminars here. Many of them admire how we can get along in Ghana and ask what we are doing right. But it is tough work, because you cannot dismiss people’s experiences. Many of them have suffered violence that I can only imagine. We are sensitive to that. At the same time, we have a job to do—making peace.

As a Christian, how do you integrate your collaborations with Muslims and your commitment to the Great Commission?

We face the challenge that our work is interpreted as if we are not interested in Christian witness. But religious freedom is an important part of our work. For me, the freedom to change one’s religion is central. If you make conversion a sin, you turn your religion into a maximum-security prison and your members are inmates. And if we tell people they can’t share their faith, then there is no meaningful plurality of faiths.

Islam says there should be no compulsion in religion, and I don’t know any Christians who are trying to compel people to follow Christ. The Bible and the Qur’an agree on this issue.

We believe the most effective form of Christian witness happens in a loving way, such that others will be interested and want to hear more, rather than being judgmental and confrontational. I don’t see the ministry of reconciliation that the apostle Paul talked about and the Great Commission as mutually exclusive.

In both Ghana and Nigeria, high schools are a frequent source of conflict. In Christian-run schools, Muslims are often required to attend Christian worship or not permitted to wear the hijab; in Muslim schools, Christians may be denied the opportunity to pray or read the Bible. What is your approach to Christians in these situations?

I ask Christian school administrators, “What does compelling students to attend worship services against their will do to the integrity of the worship?” God wants worship of him to be freely offered, not under duress.

Second, I appeal to our calling to hospitality. If Muslims come to visit me and I welcome them in my house, it is not hospitable for me to tell them they can’t pray here and they have to eat pork.

When we compel students to do things against their will, the negative psychological effects regarding their view of Christianity can be long-term. It will be seared into their memory that Christian worship has to do with compulsion, and they will never want to hear about Christianity. Don’t put obstacles in the way of future Christian witness. If you are hospitable to Muslims today, that hospitality will bear fruit.

Many West Africans think that Boko Haram is the orthodox form of Islam. You say that Western scholarship contributed to this view. Can you explain?

For eight centuries, Islam spread in West Africa through peaceful means. Many Africans adopted the spiritual content of Islam, but African traditional practices were infused into the rituals. In the 19th century, the jihadists condemned that form of Islam as corrupt and heretical because it was mixed with African traditional elements. In many places, they succeeded in overthrowing the previous regime and establishing jihadist dominance. Boko Haram’s version of Islam today is exactly what the jihadists preached in the 19th century.

When Western scholars came on the scene, they sided with the jihadist narrative by saying that the traditional version was “mixed Islam” and the jihadist version was orthodox. This narrative contributed to the dismissal of the pacifist tradition. It took people like Lamin Sanneh to articulate the pacifist narrative in a sophisticated way, seeking to disrupt jihadist perceptions in a gracious way as only he could do. That is what we are trying to do.

What do you suggest to Christians wanting to defuse conflict?

Don’t demonize all Muslims, and don’t become radicalized yourself by radical Islam. Only a minuscule proportion of Muslims are violent. Everyone talks about how radical Islam has radicalized Muslim youth, but I am just as concerned about Christians becoming angry and hateful, losing the compassion that is at the heart of the Christian gospel. That would be a tragedy for the gospel, if we allow radical Islam to take that away from our witness.

When we use conspiracy theories, lies, and propaganda against Islam, we are doing exactly what the radical jihadists are doing. They take some small piece out of context and play on people’s emotions. Let us not become a mirror image of what we detest.