Author: Michael Foust
Publication: Southern Baptist News
Date: August 1, 2003
URL: http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=16409
An increase in the percentage of
Americans who believe Islam encourages violence stems from an upsurge in
knowledge about the religion itself, a seminary professor who converted
from Islam to Christianity says.
A poll by the Pew Research Center
for the People & the Press found that a plurality of Americans -- 44
percent -- believe that Islam is more likely than other religions "to encourage
violence among its believers." The finding, released July 24, is a sharp
increase from the 25 percent who answered the same way in March 2002.
The number of people who disagreed
with the statement is down from last year, when it was 51 percent. It is
41 percent in the new poll.
Emir Caner, a professor at Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., attributes the changing
numbers to Americans learning more about the teachings and history of Islam.
"[So] many people are now studying
Islam," said Caner, an assistant professor of church history and Anabaptist
studies at Southeastern. Those same people "have come across disturbing
passages within the Koran that if taken literally" mean that Islam is "militant
in its purist form."
"They [also] see in its history,
from its outset, that physical force has been used from the time of Muhammad
until basically the Colonial period of American and British empires."
In fact, the percentage of people
who said they know a good deal about Islam has increased. Forty-three percent
said they have a "high" level of knowledge about Islam -- an increase from
26 percent last year.
Suicide bombings throughout the
Middle East also have played a role in Americans' changing beliefs, Caner
said.
"Just looking at it from the most
superficial standpoint, you have the connection of religion with the acts
of violence -- whether in Israel or in Pakistan [or in other countries],"
he said.
The study also found that a decreasing
number of people, 22 percent, said Islam has a lot in common with their
religion. It was 27 percent last year.
Caner and his brother Ergun have
written two books on Islam: "Unveiling Islam," which recently won an Evangelical
Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion award, and "More Than a
Prophet," released this year. Raised in a Muslim home, the Caners later
converted to Christianity.
Emir Caner acknowledged that there
are "many peaceful Muslims" and that there is a movement "to modernize
the faith, but that is a small movement compared to the resurgence of purist
Islam --- of militant Islam --- that we have seen" since the late 1970s.
The poll results were unexpected,
Caner said.
"It was somewhat surprising because
of the onslaught of political correctness after 9/11," he said. "You would
have assumed that the numbers would have even gone down."
Fifty-one percent of people said
they have a favorable view of Muslim-Americans, while 24 percent said their
view was unfavorable.
The poll of 2,002 adults was taken
between June 24 and July 8.