EMQ » July–September 2020 » Volume 56 Issue 3
By Stephen Davis
The year 1989 was decisive in France with Islam’s emergence as a challenge to the religious status quo enshrined in the landmark 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State. The law abrogated the 1801 Napoleonic Concordat with the Vatican, disestablished the Roman Catholic Church, ended centuries of religious turmoil, and declared state neutrality in religious matters. In that same tumultuous year, Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against the novelist Salmon Rushdie, accused of blasphemy in his treatment of the Prophet Mohammed in the book Satanic Verses. It was a time of international tension and fears related to the rise of militant Islam.
Emergence of Militant Islam
One French writer observed that the emergence of Islam as a visible phenomenon was brutally perceived by public opinion with l’affaire du foulard islamique [Islamic headscarf affair] in 1989.[1] At the beginning of the school year, two students of Moroccan origin arrived at a public school in the city of Creil with headscarves. After refusing to remove the headscarves, the students were expelled from the school. The principal justified his decision on the basis that religious manifestations of belief were prohibited in public schools. It was at this moment that the advocates of church/state separation divided. At issue was whether the introduction in public schools of religious symbols belonging to the private sphere might be equated with a “recolonialization of the public sphere.”[2]
Some argued that wearing the headscarf was benign. Others argued against it from a strict interpretation of separation which confined religion to the private sphere. The headscarf was seen in a larger context of struggle as only the beginning of religious claims which would lead to more demands especially from Muslims.[3] Pena-Ruiz expresses his opinion that the headscarf issue was not simply a question of individual expression but was connected with imposed submission on women.[4] Jean Baubérot affirms that until this incident the headscarf was worn unchallenged in France by students and teachers, visible but without social importance, and that it was not seen as a Muslim headscarf (foulard islamique).[5] Others disagreed and considered the veil [voile] as an Islamic device for the subordination of women.[6]
Revival of Church and State Separation Debate
The emergence of Islam clearly provided the catalyst for the revival of interest in the meaning and implications of the separation of Church and State in France. This has led to an uneasy coexistence of Islam with French society for the last several decades. The relation between the principle of separation of Church and State and the presence of Muslims in France became the principal political debate of 2003.[7] The widespread conflict was expressed in language indicating a clash of civilizations.[8] A study in 2013 entitled “France 2013: les nouvelles fractures” revealed the growing pessimism of French people. Concerning immigration and Islam, seventy percent believed there were too many foreigners in France and seventy four percent found Islam intolerant and incompatible with French society.[9] In March 2017, research showed similar findings. Sixty percent found Islam incompatible with the values of French society and sixty-one percent believed that immigrants did not make enough effort to integrate French society and adopt the nation’s values.[10]
Islam and Islamism
The different religious histories of Europe and Muslim nations demands the recognition and examination of the distinction between Islamic religion and Islamism.[11] Islamism has been described as a political ideology founded on the dream of Islamic unification.[12] There are multiple considerations to explain the present conflictual context. One perspective is to exclusively blame the West and its politics for the revival of Islamic aspirations, specifically support for the nation of Israel. Another viewpoint considers Islamism as the product of Western influence and interference in the Muslim world.[13] In this light, the resurgence of the headscarf is interpreted as an expression of moral resistance.[14] If moderate Muslims are unable to counter political Islam, the time may come where little distinguishes Islam and Islamism.[15]
Government Attempts at Muslim Integration
Between 1989 and 2004 there was a great deal of debate as to whether wearing the headscarf in public schools was contrary to Republican values. During this period of fifteen years the mood in France changed with an increasingly visible and vocal Islamic presence. The Conseil d’État ruling in 1989 permitting Islamic headscarves favored the liberty of expression. A 2004 law reversed that decision in the name of equality. Under the banner of equality, restrictions were adopted by the law of March 15, 2004, which banned religious symbols in public schools which ostensibly manifested religious affiliation and provided an interpretation of article one of the French Constitution on the secular character of the Republic.[16] In effect, it was determined that this article prevented anyone from taking advantage of religious beliefs to escape common rules governing relations between public establishments and individuals.[17]
Another emerging area of concern and tension regarding Islam is the rise of anti-Semitism in France. This was highlighted in March 2018 by thousands of French marching in the streets of Paris following the brutal murder of an elderly Jewish woman.[18] Among those who marched were Muslim imams who confessed that Islamic anti-Semitism was the greatest threat that weighed on Islam’s status in the twenty-first century. In turn, the imams were placed under police protection in fear of retaliation by extremists. A month later over 250 politicians, intellectuals, and artists signed a manifesto calling on Islam to denounce as obsolete those texts in the Qur’an calling for violence against Christians and Jews. Among the signatories were former president Nicholas Sarkozy, three former prime ministers, and a former mayor of Paris.[19]
Islamic Compatibility with Western Democracy
Among the questions raised concerning Islam and its place in French society, perhaps none is more important than the question of Islam’s compatibility with Western democracy. The critical and unanswered question remains: “How can Islam and Muslims be integrated into Western culture while still maintaining the latter’s principles of equality and individual freedoms?”[20] Cesari emphasizes that “certain underlying assumptions of Shari’a, such as the inequality of men and women, the unequal status of different religions, and the status of the apostate in Islamic tradition, must all be reexamined in light of the Western conception of human rights.”[21] Others compare the issues of kippa and Saturday absences for Jewish students, which have been resolved amicably, with the radical demands of a combative Islam which become obstacles to education. There must be a response to the question of the compatibility between extreme forms of Islamic allegiance and non-negotiable demands of the French school system.[22]
A Christian Perspective of Muslim Immigration
Matthew Kaemingk writes from the context of the policy of failed multiculturalism in the Netherlands. There are numerous similarities between the Netherlands and the situation in France which make the proposals and practical application relevant to French Christians facing a growing Islamic presence. He critiques two major responses to Islam which he describes as “the antagonism of right-wing nationalism or the romanticism of left-wing multiculturalism.”[23]
In both the Netherlands and France religion was banished to the private sphere and marginalized. Islam and other religions were deprived of a voice in public space. As an immigrant religion, Islam’s marginalization led to isolation and communities of Muslims disconnected from public life which contributed to extremism and terrorism “through a sense of fragmentation and displacement.”[24] Kaemingk asserts that “the growing numbers, visibility, and strength of Islam in what was thought to be secular Europe has been deeply unsettling for Europeans who believed the old secularization thesis.”[25] In referring to the French headscarf affair, he explains that in the name of public secularity, “schoolgirls in France, for example, have been banned from wearing the hijab in government-run schools.”[26]
Kaemingk contrasts Christian pluralism with four other responses—assimilation, moderation, retreat, and retribution. He affirms that early “Christian pluralists refused to alter their religious convictions or practices to fit in with the liberal hegemony” and that “early Christian pluralists argued for the formation of a state and society in which all worldviews could publically flourish and advocate for their own unique visions for the common good.”[27] He believes that the goal of a Christian response to Muslim immigration is not integration or assimilation. In this vision of Christian pluralism, Muslims practice their faith in the public sphere of life alongside other religions.
In the end, he calls Christians to action in seeing Muslims as created in the image of God and serving them for the sake of Christ without abandoning their theological convictions. In fact, Kaemingk boldly advocates that “Christian disciples must make hospitality, not justice, the primary frame through which they understand their public and political obligations toward Islam.”[28] Lest anyone misunderstand his call for hospitality as utopian, he affirms that “the hospitality of the cross is neither soft nor permissive. It does not appease, it is not naïve about worldly violence, nor is it incapable of defending itself … Terrorism must be punished and justice must be executed if hospitality endures.”[29]
French Christians and Evangelization of Muslims
An important question looms large for French Christians as they engage in mission in their own nation. What is their attitude toward the presence and growth of Islam, the second largest religion after Catholicism, and how do they view the evangelization of Muslims? Muslim evangelism remains difficult due to the fact that Islam becomes their identity in a country of immigration and as a result there are often more Muslim fundamentalists in France than in Muslim countries.[30] An interview with Virginie Larousse, chief editor of Monde des Religions highlighted that Islam and evangelical churches are the most attractive religions in France in numbers of conversions. Although precise statistics are unavailable, these two religions appear to draw the same number of new followers, each with an estimated four thousand conversions each year. At the same time the Catholic Church is experiencing the most loss.[31]
Part of the difficulty in the evangelization of Muslims is found in a 2018 report by the Pew Research Center, which analyzes the opinions of practicing Christians, non-practicing Christians, and those without religious affiliation. The study revealed that practicing Christians are more critical of Muslims and immigration than the other two groups. Practicing Christians were also more likely to declare that, “Muslims want to impose their religious law on everyone” and to consider Islam as “fundamentally incompatible with the culture and values of the country.”[32] One evangelical French pastor expressed his pessimistic perspective and concerns on the presence of Islam and the ambivalence among Christians. He had planted a multiethnic church in Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris which has a large Muslim population, but where little Muslim evangelization took place. He wrote,
People we could not reach a few years ago are at our doorstep. If we don’t reach them for Christ, Islam will dominate France. As a French person, I would feel they are a threat. As a Christian, I see them as an opportunity. They are probably easier to talk to about the Lord than the French. One difference between the Gospel and Islam is that we are pressed for time because we want the salvation of individuals. Islam has time because they are working at controlling geographical areas. Procreation is the major way Islam spreads. It needs to place people in a country. Then it is just a matter of time.[33]
Richard Kronk has extensively researched Muslim conversion in France. He provides examples of the challenges faced by Muslim converts to Christianity.[34] His research primarily deals with Christians of Maghrebi background (CMB).[35] He analyzes possible causes for the failure of CMBs to integrate into French evangelical Protestant churches and provides examples of the common experience of unsuccessful integration into these churches. Kronk discovered numerous obstacles to integration including the “differing political, social, cultural and religious roots of the two communities.”[36] He considers Muslim conversions to Christianity “equally on-going and unquantifiable,” and recognizes that “there exists no central registration for keeping track of new adherents to the Christian faith.”[37]
Other obstacles for new Muslim converts include French evangelical customs of drinking wine, greeting the opposite sex with a kiss (bise), and eating pork. These practices are often insurmountable for someone “who has lived his whole life understanding that abstinence from alcohol and refraining from touching a non-family member of the opposite sex was illustrative of a wise and holy person.”[38] He asserts that “relationships with advocates are the single most important factor in enabling the person of Maghrebi background to negotiate the tradition transition from Islam (whether as a nominal or practicing adherent) to Christianity.”[39] A final issue of interest for church planters “is the on-going debate over whether to establish churches of CMB or integrate believers into existing French Churches. This question continues to polarize both missionaries and CMB alike.”[40] Kronk maintains that “all of the French mission organizations seek integration of the CMB into the existing French Churches as a primary goal, whereas, the non-French mission organizations are generally those seeking to establish CMB Churches.”[41]
Conclusion
There are no easy or readily apparent solutions to the present Islamic crisis in France. The French government has attempted multiple failed efforts to control, appease, and integrate Islam into the fabric of French society. It remains to be seen if these efforts will be successful. Kronk concludes that “the current climate of religious pluralism and global instability seems to be contributing to a general receptivity on the part of Muslims to the gospel in France” and contends that “the future of sustained ministry to Muslims in France is in the hands of the growing number of Christians of Maghrebi background.”[42]
As Christians, we maintain the conviction that the gospel enters this world of religious crisis in the person of Jesus Christ. The sacrificial death of Christ provides the only basis for forgiveness and reconciliation for a humanity separated from God and separated from one another. The gospel is still the good news that all people everywhere need to hear.
Stephen Davis is a bi-vocational elder at Grace Church Philly (gracechurchphilly.org). Steve and his wife Kathy have been church planting in the United States, France, and Romania for over thirty-five years. He holds a DMin in Missiology from TEDS and a PhD in Intercultural Studies from Columbia International University. He is the author of Crossing Cultures: Preparing Strangers for Ministry in Strange Places (Wipf & Stock 2019) and Urban Church Planting: Journey into a World of Depravity, Density, and Diversity (Resource Publications 2019).
Notes
[1] Thierry Jeantet, “L’école et la laïcité,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire, N° 1038 (janvier/mars 2006): 35.
[2] Guy Haarscher, La Laïcité, 2e éd.(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), 35.
[3] Haarscher, Laïcité, 35.
[4] Henri Pena-Ruiz, Qu’est-ce que la laïcité (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2003), 108.
[5] Jean Baubérot, “L’affaire des foulards et la laïcité à la française,” L’Homme et la société, N. 120 (1996): 9, http://www.persee.fr/doc/homso_0018-4306_1996_num_120_2_2836.
[6] Alain Finkielkraut et Benny Lévy, Le Livre et les livres: Entretiens sur la laïcité (Paris: Éditions Verdier, 2006), 33.
[7] Finkielkraut, Livre, 59–60.
[8] Jocelyne Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 32.
[9] Gerard Courtois, “Les crispations alarmantes de la société française,” Le Monde, 25 janvier 2013, accessed May 26, 2018, https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2013/01/24/les-crispations-alarmantes-de-la-societe-francaise_1821655_823448.html.
[10] Esther Paolini, “L’immigration et l’islam crispent de plus en plus les Français,” Le Figaro, 7 juillet 2017, accessed January 30, 2018, http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2017/07/03/01016-20170703ARTFIG00256-l-immigration-et-l-islam-crispent-de-plus-en-plus-les-francais.php.
[11] See Hakim El Kouri, “Le fabrique de l’islamisme,” Institut Montaigne (septembre 2018). This is the third report in a series on Islam. The two preceding reports were “Un islam français est possible” (septembre 2016) and “Nouveau monde arabe, nouvelle ‘politique arabe’ pour la France” (août 2017).
[12] Aymeric Chauprade, “Islam et islamisme,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire, N° 1038 (janvier/mars 2006): 95.
[13] Chauprade, “Islam,” 99.
[14] Chauprade, “Islam,” 99.
[15] Chauprade, “Islam,” 101.
[16] Nancy Lefèvre, “Libertés de conscience et d’expression: D’une haute reconnaissance juridique à des fragiles équilibres,” in Libre de le dire: Fondements et enjeux de la liberté de conscience et d’expression en France (Marpent, France: BLF Éditions, 2015), 145.
[17] Maurice Barbier, “Pour une définition de la laïcité française,” Le Débat, vol. 134, n° 2 (2005): 134, https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/0205-Barbier-FR-5.pdf.
[18] “L’antisémitisme est un signe inquiétant de l’affaiblissement de la démocratie,” Le Monde, 29 mars 2018, accessed May 7, 2018, http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2018/03/29/mort-de-mireille-knoll-l-antisemitisme-est-un-signe-inquietant-de-l-affaiblissement-de-la-democratie_5278257_3224.html.
[19] “Manifeste contre le nouvel antisémitisme,” Le Parisien, 21 avril 2018, accessed May 7, 2018, http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/manifeste-contre-le-nouvel-antisemitisme-21-04-2018-7676787.php.
[20] Cesari, When Islam, 63.
[21] Cesari, When Islam, 169.
[22] Élisabeth de Fontenay, “Un enseignement sur les religions à l’école,” in La Laïcité, une question au présent, sous la direction de Jean Birnbaum et Frédéric Viguier (Nantes: Éditions Cécile Defaut, 2006), 37.
[23] Matthew Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2018), 2.
[24] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 288.
[25] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 4–5.
[26] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 165.
[27] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 82.
[28] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 186.
[29] Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality, 187.
[30] Youna Rivallain, “La conversion des musulmans au christianisme est trop peu évoquée,” Le Monde 3 mars 2018, accessed September 17, 2018, http://www.lemondedesreligions.fr/une/la-conversion-des-musulmans-au-christianisme-est-trop-peu-evoquee-19-03-2018-7095_115.php.
[31] Virginie Larousse, “Et la religion à laquelle les Français se convertissent le plus est…,” Atlantico 21 novembre 2014, http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/et-religion-laquelle-francais-se-convertissent-plus-est-virginie-larousse-1867240.html.
[32] Joséphine Kloeckner, “En Europe, les chrétiens plus critiques que les autres envers les musulmans,” La Croix 30 mai 2018, accessed September 17, 2018, https://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Catholicisme/Monde/En-Europe-chretiens-critiques-autres-envers-musulmans-2018-05-30-1200943091.
[33] French pastor in Fréjus, email message to author, September 22, 2018.
[34] Richard Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background and French Evangelical Protestant Churches: The Role of Social, Cultural and Religious Values in Conversion and Affiliation” (PhD diss., Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, 2016).
[35] The Maghreb countries under consideration are Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (Kronk, 5, 23).
[36] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 16–17.
[37] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 29.
[38] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 83.
[39] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 149.
[40] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 270.
[41] Kronk, “Christians of Maghrebi Background,” 270.
[42] Richard Kronk, “Egalité, Fraternité, and Cous-cous,” in Margins of Islam: Ministry in Diverse Muslim Contexts, eds. Gene Daniels and Warrick Farrah (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2018), 56.
EMQ, Volume 56, Issue 3. Copyright © 2020 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
