What They Expect

 

 

Right now I can hear the call to prayer. Five times a day, no matter where I am, I hear the call to prayer. It's the overwhelming symbol of the difference between this country and the U.S.A. Everyday I'm reminded that this country isn't free. This country is Muslim and to be a citizen of this country is to be Muslim. The people here are born Muslims, live Muslims, and die Muslims. They have no choice.

In this country, I would be born to Muslims and born a Muslim. The government would expect me to be a Muslim. My neighbors would expect me to be a Muslim. My parents would expect me to be a Muslim. No matter how much of a rebel I was, I would never not be a Muslim. Goth, emo, gay, no matter what I was, I would be a Muslim. The call to prayer is just a reminder that the world expects every citizen to pray five times a day, in effect, to be a Muslim. Everyone expects everyone to be a Muslim.

In America, we have a choice. I was born to Christians, but I wasn't born a Christian. The government didn't expect me to be a Christian. My neighbors didn't expect me to be a Christian. My parents encouraged me to be a Christian, they hoped I would be a Christian, but they didn't expect me to be a Christian. No one expects me to be Christian.

But what if everyone expected you to be a Christian? The Puritans were the foundation on which our country was built. They were good, pious people and they based the government of their cities on biblical principles. But their government had a fatal flaw. Only a Christian member of the church could be a full citizen. At first that doesn't sound like a bad thing and at first it wasn't, but as more and more diverse peoples came to America and as generations of Puritans were born the cracks in mandatory religion began to show.

If someone wanted full rights, they had to join the church, so many outsiders claimed to be Christians in order to make a living in the new world. Not only that, but as the Puritans had children not all of them truly became Christians. In the end the Puritan's instituted a half-way law. If you were born to Christian parents, you could be a member of the church with partial privileges, after all, if you had Christian parents than you must be at least half a Christian. You lived here, you must be a be a Christian.

In other words, people were expected to be Christians.

But the beauty of Christianity is that it involves a choice. A Christian comes to God of his own free will, because Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship. When that relationship is mandatory then it's no longer truly a relationship. Being a Christian is about what we accept, not what we expect.

Thankfully our founding fathers understood the mistake the Puritans made and wove freedom of religion deep into the Constitution. But imagine if they hadn't. Or imagine if our founding fathers had been Muslim.

Imagine if there were nowhere in America we couldn't hear the call to prayer.

Go with God
--Mira