A Deadly Misunderstanding

Siljander, Mark D. A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim/Christian Divide Harper-Collins 2008
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I learned about this book in a conversation with Rev. Donna Johnson as we were talking about what had inspired us in our own interfaith work. When our conversation moved in the direction of our perceptions about Islam and how we deal with its radical variants she told me about how profoundly this book by Mark Siljander had moved her and changed her understanding of the conflicts between the Abrahamic faiths. When I obtained the book and began to read it I at once saw that there were unique and radical notions here that were worth pursuing. Over the course of the next several days a read the book and began to make notes for this little review of it.

Siljander’s path to his understanding is both surprising and to my mind heroic. He came from a deeply committed evangelical perspective, believing the Koran to be the work of the devil and Islam to be an evil perversion of the traditions of Judaism and Christianity. There were catalytic events that caused extreme emotional reactions in him, which in turn prompted mentors of his to suggest ways in which to reconsider his attitudes and his understanding of the problem.

“This was not the path I set out to follow twenty-five years ago, as a conservative Republican congressman and Evangelical Christian just entering the world of Washington politics. At the time, I believed that Islam was a religion of violence, that the Qur’an preached the destruction of all non-Muslims, and that the Qur’an and Islam were of the devil, as godless as the great evil of communism whose defeat was then the defining purpose of American foreign policy. I believed that Islam and Christianity were contradictory at their core, that the Eastern Islamic and Western Judeo-Christian cultures were irretrievably opposed to one another, and that the only possible solution to this conflict was the conversion of “them” so they would come to think like “us.” My worldview could not have been clearer or simpler—or more myopic.”

Perhaps the most profound turning point was when one of his mentors suggested that he begin to study the Bible in Aramaic, the ancient language that Jesus had spoken when he walked this earth. Already an accomplished and natural linguist Siljander took readily to this new course of study and began to have pivotal insights which built on each other, and combined with later experiences looked at in this new light, ultimately resulted in the chief premise of this book A Deadly Misunderstanding. As an evangelical Christian Siljander regarded it as his highest duty to convert others to his Christian faith. Among his earliest and most important struggles was coming to terms with where this idea of conversion came from. He concluded after much conversation, debate and study that it had no real foundation in the teachings of Jesus. From this point forward he would introduce himself as a follower of Jesus as opposed to a Christian. This would serve him very well in opening conversations with Muslim and even Jewish individuals, for whom Christianity is inseparable from its history of warfare and genocide. It is worth noting how potent the image of “conversion by the sword” is in creating a demonic image of Islam, yet anyone who knows the history of the Crusades understands the irony of this.

The task of translation is fraught with peril and often requires choices which emphasizes an important aspect of what one is seeing and wanting to convey, yet often at the expense of the complete truth of what was said. This is a problem for the most scrupulously honest translator, but even more so in the work of someone with a political agenda. Thus it is the case that translations of Scripture are often very different from the original intent and meaning of the authors. There are many points of inflection that illustrate this in the history of the evolution of the Christian Bible. The Council of Nicaea, a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325, being a prime example. In that case not only were there debates on the meanings of words and phrases based on the agenda of the individuals in that counsel, there were also debates about which books should be included in the canonical text. Some of that discussion was of course motivated by the difficulty of proving the origin of some of those works, and clearly in other cases the messages contained in those debated books were anathema to the dogma they were trying to sculpt. For another example consider the Protestant Council of Trent 4 April 1546, which declared which books were to be officially considered canonical. To look at some of these excluded works I suggest you obtain a Catholic version of the Bible which contains the Apocrypha, the collection of books excluded from Protestant Bibles.

Retreating back to the simpler problems of translation, and disregarding agendas, Siljander carefully outlines a number of words and key phrases that are at the heart of disagreement between the Abrahamic faiths. Siljander arrived at his understanding of the importance of the Aramaic language as the root of both Hebrew and Arabic through a number of discussions over a number of years with Islamic, Judaic and Christian scholars and holy men. In many cases the Mullah, Rabbi, Minister or priest exclaimed “this is revolutionary” after hearing Siljander’s arguments. The notion of “a deadly misunderstanding” becomes very clear and specific over the course of this book.

Another critical consideration that goes well beyond any discussion of the value of particular translations of Scripture is the fact that throughout the world the bulk of believers have never read their scriptures, instead they have relied upon teachers who inevitably present to them portions of Scripture which serve their agendas. Radical Islam is the product of two very potent forces, one: the fact that the vast majority of Muslims do not even speak Arabic, and it is a tenet of that faith that in order to understand Islam one must read the Koran in its original Arabic. This is doubly difficult in that even if you are from a country in which Arabic is the official language, reading the Koran is very much like an English speaker attempting to read the old English of Beowulf which looks much more like German than any English we learned in school. And two: the undeniable impact of decades of colonization, brutalization and the theft of natural resources by the Western world in those places where radical Islam finds its most fertile ground.

Well beyond any academic exercise, Siljander’s book is really an exciting and well written journal of a very long, complex and arduous journey towards understanding and bridge building. In an early trip to Syria within a period of 24 hours he was nearly shot by both Palestinian and Israeli forces. With over 30 years of work in government and civil service including six years in the US Congress and an appointment to the United Nations General Assembly, his journey has taken him all over the world. Some of those journeys took him, practically alone and without any US government sanction, into very hostile countries to meet with leaders who were open enemies of the United States. Also early in his career when he was rabidly anti-Islamic a contract was taken out on him by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who would later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin. Years later when Arafat was visiting Washington DC Siljander was asked to host a private party for him. And although he found this deeply disturbing he did in fact host this party and further found himself being asked to help Arafat craft a speech he was to give the following day. He wanted to include some references from the Koran about Isa, as Jesus is called in the Koran. It may surprise some Christians that there are many mentions of Isa/Jesus in the Koran and in fact one of the books is about him, and another about his mother Mary. Siljander gave him six quotes to choose from and to his surprise Arafat used all six in the talk that he gave.

Siljander met with many heads of state and high officials in all of the Abrahamic faiths. He pursued his unique path to peace in spite of the many on all sides who had enmity towards him. Perhaps the most difficult phase of his work came after 9/11. His advocacy for understanding and communication with representatives of Islam was considered practically treasonous by many of those around him. It was also much harder for him to gain the trust of Islamic leaders, nevertheless he worked very hard to support Islamic moderates and to educate Americans about the misunderstandings which he saw as the cause of all of this conflict.

I too believe that the scholarly understanding of the roots of the misunderstandings between the Abrahamic faiths could be revolutionary. What will determine whether it is or not, is whether or not enough people, a critical mass, become aware of these ideas. I encourage you to do as I have done, read it, talk about it, and buy extra copies to give away. To purchase this book click on the title credit at the top of this page to go to Amazon. It is available cheaply as a used book and is also available for Kindle.

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