Ingrid Mattson – Conversation Program 5310
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AI: Transcript ©
Now let's talk with Ingrid Matson.
Ingrid, thank you for joining us today. It's
a delight to have you here and have
an opportunity to deepen our understanding about the
religion of Islam.
I thought we might start by talking about
your personal journey a little bit. We mentioned
in the introduction that you chose to convert,
and I'm wondering what inspired that, and what
is the the essence and the beauty of
this Muslim faith for you?
For me, it really was this example
of faith in the world. The first Muslims
I met,
poor West African students living in Paris,
not very well accepted by
the people of that city as
part of the common good,
they still maintained a sense of dignity, a
sense of generosity.
They didn't become angry,
but they lived their faith
through this compassionate,
sense of of generosity, which they shared with
me, another another poor student hanging around the
city.
So it was that that that appeal to
me that attracted me to see what was
the spiritual basis
of of their presence in the world.
I'd be interested, Ingrid,
to know. It seems that your
life changing
friendships
with those Muslim students
in France,
and also your work in Pakistan to help
Afghan refugees,
where you met your future husband. It seems
to me you were
you were doing ministry.
You were doing
discipleship
about
the reduction of human suffering.
So what were those
attitudes and values in Islam? Did you see
a merging
of your understanding of the Christian faith and
Islam
in your conversion?
Absolutely.
I was raised, Roman Catholic.
And when I stopped practicing Catholicism, it wasn't
a rejection of the Catholic church. But at
that time, my faith had simply had simply
left. And
and it was Islam that gave me back
faith in God. But one thing that I
always appreciated
in my Catholic upbringing
was
the sense that we were called
to alleviate suffering in the world,
to show our gratitude
to God for what we had, the blessings
we had,
by demonstrating that, by sharing them with others.
And when I became a Muslim, I found
that message
so strong in the Quran,
caring for the poor, showing gratitude
to God, not just through your words, by
saying thanks,
but through your deeds,
by by helping the people of the world
and and making this a better place,
especially for those who are the most marginalized.
You know, it's such a resonance between these
two traditions,
and I think that's one of the reasons
why
I find work between Christians and Muslims so
so easy because
it's clear to me that this is just
a foundational
message in both our traditions.
And what do you find are some of
the the greater challenges or the misperceptions
that people have right now in the Christian
Muslim relations? You you talked about a little
bit in your message, but there seems to
be,
a lot of misunderstandings out there that you
alluded to.
Certainly certainly many, people believe that
that,
Muslims
are are more violent than other people, and
that even Islam encourages this violence.
This is a problem
that is related to
the way we understand scripture.
It's one of the reasons I I wrote
a book on the Quran
called the story of
Quran to show how the context of the
revelation of the Quran needs to be understood
so that we can separate those passages that
deal with war
humanity,
and that most of them are living very
peacefully,
in many cases as minorities,
in countries like, like India and Russia and
China,
that that most Muslims certainly are not violent
people. In trying to break through these stereotypes
of distortions
of truth,
often fueled by secular media,
Ingrid, I wonder
I wonder if you can help us,
try to see more clearly the fringe
elements. I mean, there's internecine
war warfare
not only between
religions,
but among religionists who claim the same faith.
So help us understand
some of the
fringe, pieces
of Islam,
in in Right. Trying to bring clarity to
the
stereotypical feeling. And and that's a great point,
Lydia. Because in fact, if we look at
the kind of,
violence
that has occurred in the last,
say, 7 or 8 years, we see that
more Muslims have died as a result of
terrorism
by Muslim extremists than non Muslims. So this
is primarily directed at their own societies. And
what are these people opposing?
Certainly,
there are many different messages.
Some of them more political, economic,
but what we see consistently
is an authoritarian
attitude,
a belief that
that there's one way,
my way or the highway.
And that that really goes against,
the construction of authority in traditional Islam.
We do not have one authority
who can who who decides what is right
or wrong in our religion.
Islam has a tradition of dialogue,
bringing together,
Muslims from across different places to form a
consensus or try to approach consensus on issues.
So this authoritarian
perspective,
which can almost be totalitarian,
seems in fact more inspired by those kind
of 20th century
fascist or totalitarian
movements than anything
from the Islamic tradition.
And I think that's something we need to
take seriously is the is the way that
that ideologies of the 20th century have really
distorted our our tradition. Well, it's a good
segue to talk about a common word then
that you mentioned in your message as well.
This is a document that exists, that's constantly
evolving.
Some people would ask what kind of document
itself do, but talk about some of the
practical applications of this in the time that
we have left here because it's making an
impact in the world
in a big way, you would you would
say. Absolutely. And in the end, we are
people of scripture, and we are people who
have looked to
authoritative statements and creeds
to tell to to show us the bounds
or the limits
of proper behavior within our our traditions, both
Christianity and Islam.
So it's important when,
as I mentioned, when bad
ideology
comes in the door,
that there's something
that can refute that.
And and what we've noticed is that,
there's such a sense of relief on the
part of ordinary Christians and Muslims
that they now have a document like the
common word and the Christian responses to them
to say,
yes, you should engage with
your with your neighbor of the other faith
in doing good work. You are not required
to dislike them or keep them at an
arm's distance.
You will not water down your faith if
you work with them,
for the common good to alleviate human suffering.
So although people may say, well, it's just
words, we need those words as authoritative,
so that then we can go out and
and do those good works,
with a response to the extremists or or
fundamentalists in our religion who say, you know,
stay away from those other people.
Ingrid, we're so happy you've joined us today.
This has been a wonderful conversation. We're gonna
continue it on the show. I know in
future
programs. Thank you again. Thank you so much.
It's been my pleasure. Great.