Evangelicals See Morocco as Bridge to Muslim World
By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED)

In early March, the Rev. Rob Schenck found himself in front of 100 suspicious Moroccan university students, humbly admitting Americans' ignorance about their country. "I said, `I come in the spirit of Christ with humility and the love of God' and I watched as their facial expressions changed," recalled Schenck, the president of the National Clergy Council, who joined a delegation of evangelical leaders in seeking dialogue with the country's moderate Muslims. "It was almost dramatic -- their eyes, their smiles. Suddenly they went from clearly suspicious frowns to
smiles."

That experience in Marrakech was one of many bridge-building moments that evangelical leaders hope will lead to such wide-ranging joint efforts with Moroccan Muslims as a contemporary Christian music
festival and development projects to aid those without potable water. The delegation traveled to the northwest African country that is 99 percent Muslim from Feb. 29-March 8, meeting with governmental and religious leaders.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals' vice president for government affairs, said the trip was a follow-up to a forum last May in which his organization helped draft guidelines to
foster better relations between Christians and Muslims. "Our intention here is to develop dialogue with Muslims on religious freedom, democracy and human rights and the response of Morocco's governmental leaders would seem ample evidence that we've begun in the right place," Cizik told Religion News Service. He said the dialogue led to exploration of projects to help poor, rural Moroccans who are in need of literacy assistance and who lack potable water and electricity. Cizik and other evangelical leaders hope tangible examples of Christian goodwill -- and not proselytism -- can eventually reduce terrorism.

"If you've been to Morocco and you see the need and you understand that terrorism is made all the more possible by the poverty that breeds terrorism, you can't help but think, `What can we do?'" he said. Rachad Bouhlal, secretary-general of Morocco's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said the country is open to such discussions and believes their fruit can "definitely" lead to the reduction of
terrorism.

"Knowing each other better and helping moderate people, moderate countries, I'm sure it can help a lot," he told RNS in a telephone interview from Morocco. "When you don't know someone very well, sometimes you suppose they are something when they are not."

He welcomed the plans for the concert and humanitarian assistance. "I hope that it will be a big concert," he said. "We think it's going to take place in Marrakech .... And fresh water is one of the
projects because they have seen that it's a very important issue in Morocco and there are a lot of places in which some people do not get water as easily as we get it in cities."

The connections between the evangelicals and the Moroccans were guided by Michael Kirtley, an international free-lance photojournalist who started an organization to reduce misunderstanding between America and the Arab world after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Kirtley, the president of Friendship Caravan, said the cooperation is highly unusual, given that some evangelical spokespeople have harshly criticized Islam and evangelical Christians may be viewed with
uncertainty.

"The Moroccans see this overture from America ... as being very important in their own battle against extremism," he said. "I think Moroccans see this as not purely a Christian initiative but as an American initiative." He said one of the evangelical leaders, the Rev. Harry Thomas, was unexpectedly invited to present a humanitarian award to a leading Moroccan woman during a nationally televised ceremony. Kirtley, who interpreted for Thomas, said the minister's brief remarks describing humanitarian work as "close to God" earned him a five-minute standing ovation. And the students who at first had not offered to shake hands at the Marrakech dormitory were willing to do so after Schenck spoke. "Little gestures like that can be very symbolically important to overcoming any kind of negativity," Kirtley said. "It doesn't take a lot."

Thomas, pastor of a Medford, N.J., charismatic church, said the trip was an eye-opener for him as well. "I think what is presented to our United States ... and what is presented in evangelical Christianity oftentimes is very slanted," he said. "We see the Muslims as our enemies ... when in fact there are many moderate Muslims who are just as afraid of terrorism as we are." Thomas, the director of the Creation Festivals of contemporary Christian music, is working on the plans for the concert in Marrakech. He said the artists would come without asking for compensation and the aim would be bridge-building, not proselytizing.

Aziz Mekouar, Morocco's ambassador to the United States, said the country has a tradition of interreligious activities, including a festival of sacred music that began in the 1990s and an upcoming
meeting of rabbis and imams. There have been social projects with Catholics and other groups in the past as well. But he said the new efforts can help average Americans and average Muslims in Morocco gain a clearer picture of each other. "What people have to do is to meet and communicate and talk," he said. "They will see that there are much more things in common than differences."

For Schenck, who plans to help send evangelical medical teams to the region by this fall, that realization has already occurred. "When I say it was exhilarating to discover that we could understand each other and trust each other, that isn't even strong enough language to describe it," Schenck said. "It was almost ... a religious experience in itself to discover that."

Updated: June 6, 2004