Ibadet

Often, when I get a chance to talk about Christianity with Turkish friends, the conversation turns to the structure of worship. Since Islam is anchored in large part by a shared set of practices all over the world, people think about these as the definition of what it means to be a Muslim. That is, a Muslim is someone who believes in Allah and his prophet, prays five times a day toward Mecca, fasts during Ramadan, donates a percentage of his income to the poor, and if possible goes to Mecca on a pilgrimage at least once in his lifetime. In reality, a vast majority of Muslims don't do these things, but still they understand that a Muslim should do these things. And the form of these practices is basically the same all over the world. The complex set of rituals is memorized and reproduced wherever there are Muslims.

So, Muslims often wonder what the parallel practices are in Christianity. In Turkish they ask what the "shape" of our "ibadet" is ("ibadet" roughly means rituals performed for worship).

Christians are often at a loss to answer this kind of question because we don't think about our faith in those terms... but we should. At least we should be prepared to offer Turks some kind of substantial answer so that they aren't left thinking that Christianity is just wishy-washy emotionalism.

Turks usually ask about the things they see on television, especially the idea of going to a confessional to have your spiritual slate wiped clean. "What about that?" they often ask.

Unfortunately, a typical Protestant response is to throw the Catholic Church under the bus and simply say, "We don't do that." I don't think that's a good idea. It's true that Protestants don't have usually have confessionals in their churches, but we certainly confess our sins. And the Bible is clear that we should confess our sins "one to another." So, we don't have to accept the Catholic theology behind priests offering prescriptions of penance and absolving sins, but we can affirm that confession is part of the shape of Christian "ibadet." That would help deepen our response to the question beyond "reading the Bible, going to church, and praying."

And how about developing a theology of disciplines such as fasting, meditation, contemplation, abstinence, simplicity, celebration, etc. and helping to model a disciplined life in order to offer a conceptual bridge for Muslims to understand Christian worship.