Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume 79:1–2 January/April 2015 Table of Contents Islam’s Future in America Adam S. Francisco ................................................................................ 3 How Do You Know Whether You Are a Man or a Woman? Scott E. Stiegemeyer ........................................................................... 19 God Our Mother?: Biblical and Philosophical Considerations in Feminist God Language Mark P. Surburg ................................................................................. 49 Another Look at Imago Dei: Fulfilled in the Incarnate One Burnell F. Eckardt Jr. .......................................................................... 67 The Divine Presence within the Cloud Walter A. Maier III ............................................................................. 79 Not Just Proof-Texting: Friedrich Balduin’s Orthodox Lutheran Use of Exegesis for Doctrine Benjamin T. G. Mayes ....................................................................... 103 Confirmation, Catechesis, and Communion: A Historical Survey Geoffrey R. Boyle .............................................................................. 121 Religious Freedom in America R. Neely Owen .................................................................................. 143 Theological Observer .................................................................................... 161 The Sanctity of Marriage Rev. Dr. Ronald R. Feuerhahn Remembered Book Reviews ................................................................................................. 165 Books Received .............................................................................................. 190 CTQ 79 (2015): 3–18 Islam’s Future in America Adam S. Francisco Muslims have been present in the United States for over two centuries. The first were from Africa, brought over in the slave trade. We do not know how many there were; nor do we know much of their history. It is still being pieced together from the few extant records they left behind. We do know―and this should come as no surprise―that their influence on American culture was basically negligible. In fact, it seems that the folk Islam that was brought over failed to survive the first generation.1 That changed in the late nineteenth century when the first Muslim mis- sionary entered the United States. His name was Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb (1846–1916).2 His story is interesting, for he was born in Hudson, New York, raised in a Presbyterian household, moved to Missouri for work as a journalist, where he became a materialist, toyed with spir- itualism and the occult, and eventually joined the Pioneer Theosophical Society of St. Louis. In 1887 he was appointed to serve as the American consul to the Philippines. Between his arrival in Manila in 1888 and his resignation in 1892 he embraced Islam, established ties with Muslims in India, and received a commission from them to begin a mission to America. It was called the American Islamic Propaganda. Already by 1893 it established a publishing company, opened a lecture hall, and created an organization called the American Moslem Brotherhood in New York City with the goal of disseminating information on Islam and creating the insti- tution(s) necessary for the endeavors of future missionaries. In that same year, Webb was invited to address the World Parliament of Religions as the only representative of Islam, where he assured those gathered, “I have not returned to the United States to make you all Mussulmans in spite of yourselves . But,” he continued, “I have faith in the American intellect, in the American intelligence, and in the American love of fair play, and 1 Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9–94. 2 Umar F. Abd-Allah, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 113–125. Adam S. Francisco is Professor and Chair of the History and Political Thought Department at Concordia University Irvine, Irvine, California. 4 Concordia Theological Quarterly 79 (2015) will defy any intelligent man to understand Islam and not love it.”3 As it turned out, Americans in the late nineteenth century did not love Islam. By 1897, his mission was obsolete. Shortly thereafter he moved to New Jersey and lived there until his death in 1916. Despite Webb’s failure, Islam still found a way into America in the late nineteenth century. It came with the thousands of immigrants who man- aged to circumvent the restrictions of the Immigration Act of 1891. They came from a variety of places; by the 1920s it is estimated that around 60,000 had settled in cities throughout the United States. Most of them kept their religion private and sometimes even lied about it. But a few were apparently emboldened to advance Islam. The first American journal to address Muslims affairs recounted some of the activities of these mission- aries. One report described how an Indian Muslim named M.M. Sadiq ex- perienced a good bit of success in winning converts amongst African Americans in Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, and St. Louis in just three years (1920–1923) by holding what are described as “Mosque meetings” where the “virtues of Islam were exalted and Christianity was severely criticized.” Another missionary named M.B. Bengali, who worked mostly amidst whites, is described as declaring the “plan” of Islam to “conquer America” to a company of Muslims.4 It is around this time that Americans started paying attention to Islam. The New York Times frequently reported on Webb, describing him as “the American Mohammedan whom the wealthy Mussulmans of India and the East have sent to introduce the faith of Islam―the Religion of the Sword, as some have called it―among the ‘civilized’ Christians of the West.”5 Toward the end of his short-lived mission he was even ridiculed.6 The Syracuse Sunday Herald reported on the “fanatical zeal” in which Muslims were attempting to bring Islam to Americans.7 And the Chicago Tribune described the work of Webb and others like him as “a new fad for those curiously constructed beings who are always chasing after new and strange doctrines.”8 3 GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 119. 4 Andrew T. Hoffert, “The Moslem Movement in America,” The Moslem World 20, vol. 3 (1930): 209–210. 5 GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 120. 6 GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 120–124. 7 Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America (New York: W.W. Norton and Com- pany, 2002), 113. 8 GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 120. Francisco: Islam’s Future in America 5 It was evangelical Christians who took Islam the most serious. For them, “Islam was Christianity’s only serious rival for the religious ‘con- quest of the world’” and “Christians’ most aggressive evangelistic com- petitors on the world stage.”9 They thus began to develop plans for the “direct evangelization of Muslims where they might live.”10 Arabic and Islamic Studies were offered at an American seminary for the first time, beginning with the professorship of Duncan Black Macdonald (1863–1943) in Hartford, Connecticut.11 Eventually an institute for the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations was established in his name. In 1911, the American apostle to Islam, Samuel Zwemer (1867–1952), established an academic journal primarily for missionaries entitled The Moslem World. The interest of evangelicals in Islam and missions to Muslims con- tinued and in some ways increased in the wake of the World War I, as did the interest of Muslims in settling in and influencing America. The most comprehensive study of Islam’s history in America to date suggests that this was a pivotal stage “. in which American Muslims’ institutions and community building efforts took root.”12 The activity of the Sudanese immigrant Satti Majid (1883–1963) provides a useful example of such endeavors.13 Satti, who appointed himself the Shaykh of Islam in America, arrived in 1904 and stayed until 1929. Estimating the national population of Muslims to be around 100,000 (20,000 of which he claimed were converts), but noting that there was not a single mosque, Muslim charity, or any national Muslim organization, he began to establish institutions designed to serve American Muslims. In Detroit he helped begin the Red Crescent, formed an organization called the Islamic Union, acquired plots for Muslim burials at Roselawn cemetery, and claimed to have even estab- lished the first mosque in America (though there is no extant evidence for it). Similar projects were pursued in other cities. Beyond this, he also worked to promote Islam in the public sphere by writing editorials for the New York Times. They never published them, and so―perhaps in the first 9 Thomas S. Kidd, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 62. 10 Kidd, American Christians and Islam, 64. 11 Willem A. Bijlefeld, “A Century of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary,” The Muslim World 83, vol. 2 (1993): 103–117. 12 GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 165. 13 Patrick D. Bowen, “Satti Majid: A Sudanese Founder of American Islam,” Journal of Africana Religion 1, vol. 2 (2013): 194–209; cf. GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America, 172–178. 6 Concordia Theological Quarterly 79 (2015) instance of struggling to silence opposition