Years ago, I wrote about a brilliant friend of mine from New York. He’d moved to St. Louis and after a few setbacks found himself homeless and fighting an addiction to crack. He hated St. Louis and couldn’t wait to leave. Every city isn’t for everyone. The Dallas metro is seen as the place to be for Muslims in America. Each year thousands of Muslim families move there to find happiness in the booming and sprawling suburbs. Like punk rock and roast beef, I never quite understood the appeal. It wasn’t for me.
Wow. This was a good read and I would definitely say is at the core of many of today society's ills (opioid crisis, mass shootings, fake news, etc.), but rarely gets talked about. I'm interested to know exactly what happened to lead to the decline in religion. Surely it's got to be more than just a Higher Being no longer becoming relevant?
If I had to put my finger it I would say it's a loss of personal or communal responsibility (religion is all about being responsible to a Higher Power). Personal responsibility would drive someone to do things like checking on your neighbor, leaving a note if you scratched someone's car, returning something you found that was lost, caretaking elderly family members, intervening when a stranger is in distress (and not just film it on your phone from the sidelines), etc.
I believe the role of today's fledging religious communities is to be proactive in fulfilling those needs in society. Within today's Muslim community, yes, it is in large part going to be more suburban, more socio-economically affluent and less culturally diverse. Which I think leads a lot of community-based projects to unintentionally be limited in their reach--or at the very least may make it difficult to feel welcoming to those outside of their bubble. I have seen some awesome local faith based community acts of kindness in action just in the past month: taking a convert brother from a nursing home to the mosque for jumuah, helping get a homeless Muslim a motel room to stay during a rainstorm, trying to put money on the books for a convert Muslim in jail. These are great and all, but unfortunately they barely leave a dent in the greater society.
What I suggest is taking a cue out of the playbook of indigenous Muslim groups (from the NOI to Darul Islam to Imam Warith Deen), whose emphasis on community-engagement was a core principle in their faith. This led to not only brotherhood/sisterhood, but prison ministries, matrimonial networking, food pantries, entrepreneurship, transitional housing options, etc through the latter part of the 20th century. If we can revive that without the crazy religious polemic and extremism (which unfortunately undid many of those gains in the community), then I think we may on to something...
Wow. This was a good read and I would definitely say is at the core of many of today society's ills (opioid crisis, mass shootings, fake news, etc.), but rarely gets talked about. I'm interested to know exactly what happened to lead to the decline in religion. Surely it's got to be more than just a Higher Being no longer becoming relevant?
If I had to put my finger it I would say it's a loss of personal or communal responsibility (religion is all about being responsible to a Higher Power). Personal responsibility would drive someone to do things like checking on your neighbor, leaving a note if you scratched someone's car, returning something you found that was lost, caretaking elderly family members, intervening when a stranger is in distress (and not just film it on your phone from the sidelines), etc.
I believe the role of today's fledging religious communities is to be proactive in fulfilling those needs in society. Within today's Muslim community, yes, it is in large part going to be more suburban, more socio-economically affluent and less culturally diverse. Which I think leads a lot of community-based projects to unintentionally be limited in their reach--or at the very least may make it difficult to feel welcoming to those outside of their bubble. I have seen some awesome local faith based community acts of kindness in action just in the past month: taking a convert brother from a nursing home to the mosque for jumuah, helping get a homeless Muslim a motel room to stay during a rainstorm, trying to put money on the books for a convert Muslim in jail. These are great and all, but unfortunately they barely leave a dent in the greater society.
What I suggest is taking a cue out of the playbook of indigenous Muslim groups (from the NOI to Darul Islam to Imam Warith Deen), whose emphasis on community-engagement was a core principle in their faith. This led to not only brotherhood/sisterhood, but prison ministries, matrimonial networking, food pantries, entrepreneurship, transitional housing options, etc through the latter part of the 20th century. If we can revive that without the crazy religious polemic and extremism (which unfortunately undid many of those gains in the community), then I think we may on to something...