[From The Church Next Door: Local Christians Face America’s New Religious Diversity, draft manuscript by Dr. Paul D. Numrich. Please do not quote or cite without author’s permission.]

Chapter 4: Hosting Muslim Neighbors: Calvary Episcopal Church

[figure approx. here: reproduction of Calvary Internet homepage]

As in dozens of mosques throughout metropolitan Chicago, immigrant Muslims gather at Batavia Islamic Center in far west suburban Kane County every Friday afternoon for a congregational prayer service. They meet in a basement prayer room, its cement floors covered with Oriental rugs and other pieces of carpeting, the area divided into men’s and women’s sections, with chairs around the perimeter for non-Muslim visitors. The “front” of the room is actually the northeast corner, as indicated by a pulpit and a small accoutrement pointing the direction (following the curvature of the earth from the United States) to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, which all Muslims face in prayer.

As in other Chicago-area mosques every Friday, the faithful at Batavia Islamic Center perform the traditional Islamic prayer rituals, listen to a sermon, and socialize briefly before most of them rush back to their workplaces. They originate from India, Pakistan, and other parts of the Muslim world, and follow the majority Sunni tradition of Islam.

But this mosque is unique in one important way: Batavia Islamic Center meets in the basement of a church, Calvary Episcopal Church. It is not unusual for Muslim groups in the United States to purchase former Christian facilities and transform them into mosques. However, at least in Chicago, this is the only case of a functioning church hosting a mosque. And this institutional arrangement has been in place since 1987.

“‘Interfaith’ is a buzzword now,” says Mazher Ahmed, co-founder with her husband, Hamid, of Batavia Islamic Center. “You think, ‘Oh my goodness, interfaith—it’s a great thing.’ But at that time [the 1980s], who knew about interfaith? I don’t think people even understood what interfaith was all about. That is why I feel real proud that we have started a tradition—and not because of the necessity of 9/11.”

Established in downtown Batavia in the 1840s, Calvary Episcopal Church is old by American Midwest standards. The congregation built an educational wing in the late 1960s anticipating an influx of new members from the prestigious Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory on the outskirts of town. But the expected membership windfall never materialized. Instead of accommodating new Episcopalians, by the late 1980s Calvary Church’s extra space would host a growing immigrant Muslim congregation.

The Ahmeds relate the history of the mosque and its relationship with Calvary Church in grateful fashion. When the couple arrived in Batavia from their native India in 1972, they asked Muslim relatives and acquaintances about where the immigrant community gathered for Friday prayers. They were dismayed to discover that most did not perform the Friday prayers on a regular basis. Back then there were only a few mosques in the metropolitan area, the closest being on the north side of Chicago, an hour’s drive from the far west suburbs.

A Muslim group in Elgin, north of Batavia, soon bought a former church facility and turned it into a mosque, but they did not offer Friday prayers. Hamid Ahmed explains that they were afraid to ask for the time off from work to attend prayers. “But I said no, this country allows you to do your religious stuff,” he recalls telling them. He convinced them to allow him to open the mosque for Friday prayers.

But the drive to Elgin posed an inconvenience for the Ahmeds and others from Batavia. So the Ahmeds opened their home for the prayer services beginning in 1977. When attendance grew to the point that people were praying in every room on the first floor of the house, the Ahmeds decided it was time for another move. For a year, the congregation used a vacant cabin owned by a private social club in Batavia before outgrowing that space too.

In the meantime, Hamid inquired among his co-workers in the county government offices about vacant schools the Muslims could rent. Word spread to the county superintendent of schools, Jim Hansen, who called Hamid into his office. Hamid thought Jim wanted him to redraw a school district’s boundaries in his capacity in the county mapping department. But, as Hamid and Mazher tell it today, Jim said, “I have in my mind a place you can use, but I would like you to see it first. It’s a church. Do you think it will be OK if you pray in a church?”

Mazher’s reaction was, “Goodness gracious, why not?” Hamid agreed: “A church is God’s place.” So Jim arranged for the Ahmeds to see his church, Calvary Episcopal Church, and to meet with its rector, Fr. Drury Green.

“They [the Muslim congregation] were looking for space to use,” Fr. Green told us. “We had a lot of unused, empty space. It began that way, very easily. . . . It was a relationship that was rather casual and kind of grew.”

Jim Hansen agrees about the serendipity of establishing a relationship between mosque and church. “Hamid always says that I am the one responsible. But it was kind of an indirect, almost by-chance thing.” One gets the impression that Jim feels he was simply in a position to facilitate the connection. “I explained to Fr. Green who Hamid was. I got them together—that was about it as far as my active participation goes.”

Yet Jim Hansen’s motivations for helping the Muslim congregation ran deep into his family background and personal philosophy. His mother, who died when Jim was young, loved to help people. His brother worked for agencies of the US government and the United Nations that aided needy groups, for instance through teacher training in Nigeria. In the 1960s, while Jim served on the Batavia city council, he was instrumental in the passage of an open housing ordinance that benefited the small African-American population in town—“a real ordinance with teeth in it,” he emphasizes.

When we asked him for his views on religious diversity, Jim said, “I really think it’s great that we do this [host the Muslim congregation]. . . . It’s a demonstration to the community. These people should be treated in a Christian manner even if they are not Christians.” He continued: “I believe in diversity. . . . My own feeling is, diversity, whether it is among Christians or all people, the more we diversify the better. Even if you don’t think they are right. I am not sure that we are right.”

Fr. Drury Green describes Calvary Church as basically open to other religious groups, Christian and non-Christian. Most of the congregation feels that hosting the mosque is simply a good thing to do. Theologically, Fr. Green points to several motivations for the relationship. “Since I was around the building, I always had a lot of informal conversation [with the mosque members],” he told us. “I loved being around the children and young people, who are really a reminder that we are all children of God. Somehow young children are great at doing that just by your contact with them.”

“Some of the informal dialogue I had with the [Muslim] community, and perhaps others also, focused on the idea of being People of the Book. And that Islam and Judaism and the Christian faith all have a common heritage, the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament.” Fr. Green also draws inspiration from the Anglican tradition’s Book of Common Prayer, particularly the place in the Baptismal Covenant where the congregation is asked, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” (1979 version). “It seems to me that from a theological standpoint,” Fr. Green explained, “respect and dialogue, mutual respect and mutual dialogue, are increasingly important. . . . Certainly since 9/11, the Muslim-Christian-Jewish dialogue is even more important. I see this of primary importance, not only for the international community, but within our own society. We have increasing numbers of people from different religious bodies. In the Chicago area there are Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims, to name just some.”

For the Ahmeds, religious dialogue is a passion. Mazher is a tireless public speaker. When conservative Muslims object to this, Hamid replies that Allah gave his wife a great gift that she should use, and that the Qur’an nowhere forbids women to speak in public. (“That usually shuts them up,” he told us.) Mazher is also on the executive committee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religion and a leader in several Muslim organizations. She is passionate about the need for intra-faith as well as inter-faith dialogue in today’s world, pointing to the “undercurrents” of tension within every religious community. “Is interfaith dialogue worthwhile when our home religious communities are so fractured?” she asks. She wants the various Muslim groups as well as other religions to “come together as human beings” in order to respect each another.

“The need was always there for that. 9/11 only accelerated the process. We didn’t always see the need. We live in a neighborhood, we are part of a neighborhood. Therefore, we need to act like neighbors. There can be no ‘my way or the highway.’ We can’t do that now. Maybe we could a hundred years ago when we didn’t know our neighbors, but even then it was wrong.”

The Ahmeds tell some memorable stories about their Christian neighbors over 30 years of living in Batavia. Like Marcia next door. Back when the Muslim congregation met in the Ahmeds’ home for weekly prayers, Marcia unlocked the house every Friday for six weeks when the Ahmeds visited India, preparing the prayer rugs, shoveling snow from the sidewalks, and keeping an eye on the cars parked along the street. This story brings tears to Mazher’s eyes because Marcia died recently from cancer. Mazher says that Marcia received all the goodness from the prayers offered during those six weeks.

Then there was the elderly neighbor who accompanied the Ahmeds’ daughter to school on grandparents day since her own grandparents live in India. And the woman who translated the Friday sermons into sign language for a deaf Muslim man, sitting between him and the khatib (“preacher”) in the basement prayer room of Calvary Church.

Of course, not all of the Ahmeds’ neighbors have shown them such Christian neighborliness. But they point out that “the bad neighbors make you appreciate the good ones,” and most of their neighbors have been very good. Paraphrasing a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, Mahzer told us that if your neighbor goes hungry while you eat, you have committed a sin because you did not fulfill your duty as a neighbor. “The concept of sharing—if they are in need of your support, your help, you should be there—this concept is in all religions. Whether it is Christianity or Islam, you have this concept of being the neighbor. What constitutes a neighbor? Who is your neighbor?” Mahzer answered her own question: “Who is next door?”

For the Ahmeds, this makes the relationship between Calvary Church and Batavia Islamic Center especially poignant, since it is neighbor helping neighbor across religious boundaries. “This was because of a human need,” Mahzer explained. “They came from two different places, two different faiths, but they still worked it out. [The church] had a space they didn’t use, and it was great of them that they thought, ‘Well, these people do not have a space, so let them have that space.’ They had this kindness and compassion in their heart.”

Fr. Michael Rasicci has been rector of Calvary Church since 2002. We asked him about his approach to religious diversity, as well as his congregation’s approach generally. He believes that Christians should share the Gospel, but “We always have to do it in a way that is respectful of others and their beliefs. And not by approaching as some do, saying that unless you believe in Jesus Christ, believe in Jesus Christ in our way, you are lost. I don’t think that that approach is really true. And I also don’t believe it gets us very far. I think that ultimately God is the one that makes those judgments.” Fr. Rasicci admits that sharing the Gospel through evangelizing or witnessing to others does not come easily to most Episcopalians. He says he would be “extremely pleased, although very surprised” were his congregation to engage in this kind of activity.

Fr. Rasicci draws upon the documents of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), the major Roman Catholic conference in the 1960s, especially the “Declaration on Religious Freedom,” which stresses both respect for the world’s religions and the Church’s duty to share the Gospel. “One must remember that whatever the situation, God has already been there, and that in some ways most of the world religions, if not all, share in parts of the truth that we would say, as Christians, we have the privilege to have in its fullness. People who are truly good people because of their religious affiliation, and their living out of their faith, are certainly going to be judged by God according to the criteria in their own religion.”

Fr. Rasicci draws biblical guidance from the passage in John 10 where Jesus mentions his “other sheep.” “There might be many flocks and more than one shepherd,” Fr. Rasicci speculates, “and I can give that a wide interpretation, saying that Jesus died for all of humanity, he didn’t just die for me. And that the redemption that Christ won for humanity is meant to be something that all people share. They have a relationship to God and that still means, to me, they have the opportunity to live into that fullness of life that we have.”

The Old Testament story of Abraham is particularly pertinent to the relationship between the three monotheistic religions that originated in the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Rather than dwelling on the divergent views of Abraham, Fr. Rasicci prefers to invoke the genius of the Anglican tradition that seeks God’s larger perspective. “We call it ‘inclusive’ today—it used to be called ‘comprehensive’—trying to see the whole picture and where people can fit into this whole picture of God’s plan and the plan of salvation. Where these other religions fit into this, as opposed to how we can say who’s in and who’s out. . . . This is the way God would want us to be.”

Fr. Rasicci summed up his congregation’s approach to religious diversity in this way: “I would say our belief in God as the creator of all life moves us to take Christ’s commandment to love seriously, and that includes people who differ from us in their approach to God. I think Christ, as our Lord, will judge us not on our theology, but on how we loved.”

Over the years, Calvary Episcopal Church has provided its members and the local community with numerous opportunities to learn about Islam. The Ahmeds often speak to the congregation and bring in Muslim guests. Many church members help out when the Muslims hold their annual Iftar celebration, a dinner breaking the fast during the sacred month of Ramadan, at the church. Together, the church and the mosque have played an important role in the local response to the events of September 11, 2001. For instance, on the first anniversary of 9/11, they participated in an interfaith prayer service at a United Methodist church. Mazher Ahmed is not disappointed that several local churches chose not to participate on principle. She believes that some day all the churches will come together for inter-group harmony.

“They can do a whole lot,” she explained to us, “more than the government can ever do. Because your daily life is connected with the church, not the government.” She is hopeful about the future. “I am sure that one of these days we will all come together. . . . We will change the world and show that this little community of Batavia, this middle class, Midwest town, can be an example to the world out there that we can coexist, that we can be happy, and that we can help each other in spite of our differences.”

Excerpt from “Killing is wrong and it doesn’t matter who does it,” by Mazher Ahmed, Daily Herald, September 11, 2002:

[A]ll of a sudden at 8:46 a.m. Sept. 11 [2001] the peace of my Midwest town as well as the rest of my country was shattered when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. That moment changed everything in our lives—we lost our innocence and openness, which are synonymous to the American way of life.

These terrorists are not the true representation of Islam, which teaches us to be human, kind, compassionate and love our neighbors. It says in the Quran if you kill a person, you kill humanity. It is not OK to kill innocents. Even when fighting a war, you’re not supposed to kill the children, women and aged and you’re not supposed to destroy farms. These are the rules of engagement. What these people did was not an act of war. It was an act of terror. . . .

We have made bonds with [several local] churches. We are planning a day of prayer event around Sept. 11. I want to keep these friendships and keep this bond we have so Sept. 11 does not happen again. I think knowledge brings you closer. Ignorance breeds contempt. We as human beings are always afraid of the unknown.

[www.dailyherald.com/special/9.11.02/essay.asp?intid=37495470]

In another post-9/11 initiative, Batavia Islamic Center and Calvary Episcopal Church, in cooperation with the US State Department’s International Visitors Center of Chicago, hosted a series of panel discussions on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam featuring delegations of international Muslim visitors from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The delegation from Africa was so astounded that a church would allow a Muslim congregation to worship in its facility that they took pictures of the church to show their fellow Muslims back home in Africa.

“That was so funny,” says Mazher Ahmed. “They were speechless. They couldn’t believe they were allowed to pray in a church.”

In the early 1990s, the Muslim congregation in Batavia opened a new mosque facility in Aurora, just to the south. However, the extra drive time was inconvenient for several members, so a group within the Muslim congregation eventually renewed their arrangement with Calvary Episcopal Church in Batavia. Besides, they had come to consider Calvary Church their “home” in many ways. The new Aurora mosque retained the congregation’s original name, Fox Valley Muslim Community Center, while the Batavia group adopted the name Batavia Islamic Center.

According to our sources, there has been little negative sentiment expressed within Calvary Church during its long relationship with Batavia Islamic Center, and most of that has had to do with mundane matters like forgetting to lock the building after an activity. Fr. Green recalls the concern that arose once over Islamic ritual ablutions. Muslims are required to wash various body areas, including the feet, in preparation for prayer. When they used a bathroom sink, some church members objected. An alternative was arranged, allowing access to the janitor’s closet with its large tub and spigot. Like good neighbors, the two groups worked things out to mutual satisfaction.

St. Thomas United Methodist Church:

Churches throughout the country reached out to local Muslim communities in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001. St. Thomas United Methodist Church in suburban Chicago held a joint service for peace with the mosque across the street a few days after 9/11. The two groups reunited the following year for a worship service and picnic. One lay leader of the church stated that this event was not a “one shot deal.” “They are going to be our neighbors,” said Dave Thomas. “We are planning interfaith dialogues. They are members of our community.”

[www.gbgm-umc.org/nillconf/umroct02.htm#101801]

For More Information

Calvary Episcopal Church’s contact information is 222 S. Batavia Avenue, Batavia, IL 60510, phone 630-879-3378, Web site http://home.quixnet.net/~calvary/index.html. Calvary is affiliated with the Episcopal Church, USA, whose Web site contains a general interfaith page put out by the Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations (www.episcopalchurch.org/ecumenism/interfaith/index.html) and a Q & A page on Islam prepared by the Presiding Bishop's Advisory Committee on Interfaith Relations (www.episcopalchurch.org/ecumenism/interfaith/muslimQA1001.html).

Various versions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer can be found at http://anglicansonline.org/resources/bcp.html.

Documents of the Second Vatican Council, such as “Declaration on Religious Freedom” (Dignitatis Humanae), are widely available in printed form and also archived on the Vatican Web site, www.vatican.va.

Neither Batavia Islamic Center nor Fox Valley Muslim Community Center has a Web site. The Web site for the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, a local Muslim umbrella organization, is www.ciogc.org.

The US State Department operates International Visitors Centers in several major cities in the US. The Web site for the Chicago Center is www.ivcc.org.

For another interesting relationship between a church and mosque, see the story of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church and Islamic Society of the East Bay, who built their facilities side-by-side in Fremont, California, at www.beliefnet.com/story/82/story_8210_1.html.

For Discussion

1. Calvary Episcopal Church has had a relationship with Batavia Islamic Center since 1987. Other churches, like St. Thomas United Methodist Church featured in the sidebar at the end of the chapter, established relationships with nearby mosques in response to the events of September 11, 2001. Do you think these recent relationships will last very long? How important to long term viability are the circumstances under which relationships between churches and mosques begin?
2. What role does serendipity play in the relationships between local churches and non-Christian groups? How important are the individuals involved? How would the relationship between Calvary Church and Batavia Islamic Center have evolved without the Ahmeds, Jim Hansen, or Calvary’s rectors?
3. Evaluate the various motivations for hosting the Muslim congregation expressed by Calvary Church leaders, such as treating non-Christians with respect. Recall Fr. Rasicci’s observation that evangelizing or witnessing to others does not come easily to most Episcopalians. Do you think Calvary Church should do more along these lines?
4. Fr. Rasicci spoke of the genius of the Anglican tradition that tries to see “the whole picture” from God’s perspective, an “inclusive” or “comprehensive” understanding of where various groups fit into God’s overall plan of salvation. Where do you think Muslims fit into God’s plan of salvation?
5. Discuss the notion of neighborliness, so prominent in this chapter and expressed by both Christian and Muslim interviewees. What does it mean to show Christian neighborliness to non-Christians? Which acts of neighborliness in this chapter most impressed you?
6. What do you make of the fact that several Batavia churches declined to participate in the interfaith prayer service on the first anniversary of 9/11? Is Mazher Ahmed naïve to think that some day all the churches will come together for inter-group harmony? Is she also naïve to think that “this little community of Batavia, this middle class, Midwest town, can be an example to the world out there that we can coexist, that we can be happy, and that we can help each other in spite of our differences”?
7. The notion of “sacred space” is common in the world’s religions, the idea that certain places are uniquely special or holy. Jim Hansen wondered whether Muslims would want to pray in Calvary Church, while the visiting African delegation expressed surprise that a church allows Muslims to do so. What do you think about religious groups sharing sacred space? Did it make a difference in the case presented in this chapter that the Muslims worship in the church basement rather than the sanctuary?

Back