The Jihad of Jesus (Part 1): A Reflection for Christians and Muslims to Consider

Dave Andrews | Monday, 4 May 2015

This series of articles is based on Dave’s upcoming book release, The Jihad of Jesus, which is being published by Wipf & Stock.

Over the last few years I’ve been involved in some really meaningful Christian-Muslim dialogue. We have talked about there being one God, not many; that God being the God of Abraham; the God of Abraham being a God of compassion; and Jesus — or Isa — as Muslims call him — being the one who embodies that Spirit of compassion best.

My approach to talking with my friends about Jesus has been based on Jesus’ own approach to talking with his friends, whom he called to be with him, without imposing any theological prerequisites, creating a safe space for dialogue and debate about his identity as a prophet, trusting that the ‘Spirit’ could and would lead them into all truth.

Many conversations between Christians and Muslims about Jesus deteriorate from dialogue into debate and from debate into dispute, generating more heat than light on the subject. Often this occurs because both sides want to impose their own particular view of Jesus on the other and are unable and/or unwilling to respect the other person’s particular point of view.

In order to avoid such unproductive disputations, I have conducted my conversations with Muslims and written the following reflections based on those views of Jesus that both the Qur’an and the Injil or the Gospel, as recorded in the Gospels in the New Testament, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, have in common.

While I acknowledge the significant differences Christians and Muslims have about Jesus, I have intentionally tried to focus on those beliefs about Jesus that Christians and Muslims have in common as the place for us to start our conversations, treating ‘common ground’ — not as suspect compromise — but as ‘sacred ground’ — on which we can stand and speak to one another.

Given the significance of jihad as a focus of conflict between Christians and Muslims, my Muslim friends suggested I write a book about Jesus and jihad and what Jesus’ approach to jihad might be. It was suggested I call the book The Jihad of Jesus. It was hoped the provocative title would get a lot of attention, and we could introduce Christians and Muslims to a deconstruction of the extremist’s concept of jihad as a holy war and a reconstruction of the Qur’anic concept of jihad as a sacred nonviolent struggle for justice — in the light of the radical practical peaceful example of Jesus.

In The Jihad Of Jesus I argue that we are caught up in a cycle of so-called ‘holy wars’, but though this inter-communal conflict is endemic, it is not inevitable. Depending on our understanding, our religions can be either a source of escalating conflict, or a resource for overcoming inter-communal conflict; and for our religions to be a resource for overcoming conflict, we need to understand the heart of all true religion as open-hearted compassionate spirituality. In the light of an open-hearted compassionate spirituality, we can reclaim ‘jihad’ from extremists who have (mis)appropriated it as call to ‘holy war’, and reframe it, in truly Qur’anic terms, as a ‘sacred nonviolent struggle for justice’; and we can reconsider Jesus, as he is in the Gospels, not as a poster boy for Christians fighting crusades against Muslims, but as ‘a strong-but-gentle Messianic figure’ who can bring Christians and Muslims together. And, as the book shows, many Christians and Muslims have found Isa (Jesus) and the Bismillah (celebrating the mercy, and grace of God) as common ground on which to base their work for the common good.

The choice Christians and Muslims need to make is: will we continue to commit to a ‘clash of civilizations’ — or join ‘Jesus And The Nonviolent Jihad For Love And Justice’?

Dave Andrews and his wife Ange have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan and India for forty years.  Dave is a founder of the Waiters Union; an educator for TEAR Australia; a teacher at Christian Heritage College; an elder emeritus for Servants To Asia’s Urban Poor; and a member of AMARAH (Australian Muslim Advocates for the Rights of All Humanity).