U.S. NEWS: Muslims Went to Church for Class, Got the Cops Called on Them

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(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Muslims Went to Church for Class, Got the Cops Called on Them
A congregant at an evangelical church called police after seeing local Muslim students there, asking questions about Christianity. It was their homework assignment.
Katie Zavadski 12.09.16 1:00 AM ET

A concerned congregant called the Department of Homeland Security to a Rochester, New York, church on Sunday after spotting two Muslims in their midst.

The Muslims weren’t terrorists, they were students.

The two men were students from nearby Nazareth College, whose sociology course asked them to visit a house of worship from a religion other than their own. They picked the evangelical Browncroft Community Church in a Rochester suburb, and had already been there once before. During their second visit they went to the coffee hour and talked to congregants, and someone apparently contacted the feds and the state police.

Then on Monday morning, Religious Studies Department head Susan Nowak got a surprising message.

“I had a message from our campus safety, saying that the State Police had contacted us and that there was a cause for concern over a Nazareth assignment,” Nowak told The Daily Beast.

The assignment was the two young men engaging with their Christian neighbors, Nowak confirmed. (The school is not releasing their names out of respect for their privacy.)

Nazareth, despite what the biblical name might evoke, is not a religiously affiliated college; it dropped its Roman Catholic affiliation in the 1970s, Nowak told The Daily Beast. Instead, the college picked up a commitment to religious pluralism: Every undergraduate is required to take a religious studies course, and engage with faith traditions other than their own.

Often, that engagement includes attending religious services belonging to another faith, be it at a mosque or a synagogue—or what Nowak describes as “the closest thing to a megachurch” around. They introduce themselves as students and ask probing questions: What are your core values? How do you see them as the same or different from those of other religions?

“This is what we say about Nazareth: Our president is Jewish. The executive director of our interfaith center is Muslim,” she said. “And I, the director of our religious studies program, am a Roman Catholic nun.

“So if you want to know if Nazareth is committed to pluralism, there it is,” she added.

Nowak says engaging with other religious communities is often frightening for students at the start of the year, but becomes one of the most rewarding parts of their courses. So many from the small college have been out on such excursions that Nowak joked religious leaders ask, jokingly, which of three professors sent them out.

The same was true for the two Muslim men, who returned to the Browncroft Community Church for their second visit on Sunday. Their first visit earlier in the semester had passed without incident.

“What they said, and what was really one of the most difficult things for them to process, is that they felt very well received,” Nowak said. “They left feeling that this was a very good encounter, and a rich, positive learning experience.”

“Some of the church members hugged them before they left,” Nazareth President Daan Braveman told The Daily Beast.

Braveman told The Daily Beast that he spoke to Browncroft’s senior pastor, Rob Cattalani, on Thursday.


“He is very interested in continuing the dialogue, and the faculty member who teaches the course at issue is going to the church on Wednesday to talk to one of the pastors,” Braveman said. “So there may be some good that comes out of this, too.”

Nowak, the director of religious studies, said that until now, Browncroft Community Church has not been an active member of the interfaith dialogue happening on campus through the college’s well-funded interfaith center. But she added that she hopes this incident may serve as a tipping point to push Browncroft into the conversation.

“The [Muslim Students Association] students, as hard hit as they were by this example, instead of calling for a protest at the church, they’re calling for a dialogue. The two students involved have said, ‘we do not want a protest, we want a dialogue,’” Nowak said. “We need to commit ourselves to dialogue, to get to know each other.

“It’s hard work, but it may be the most important work that we do in this point in our history,” she said.

[noraina]

Wa alaykum assalam,

It reminded me of when I heard a Muslim man seen holding a rice cooker was reported to the police because they assumed he was planning to create a bomb.

There is just so much suspicion and distrust around subhanAllah, so much fear-mongering from different groups. But the way those two students responded was really good.

[Bosanac]

Is the story legitimate? I only ask because I don't recognize the site, the daily beast, and I know there are a lot of tabloid/fake news sites out there.

[Search]

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficient, the Most Merciful)

(Peace be upon you)

Is the story legitimate? I only ask because I don't recognize the site, the daily beast, and I know there are a lot of tabloid/fake news sites out there.

I'm glad you asked this question because I'm wary of fake news and fake news sites myself after reading after reading reports on how Trump voters were heavily influenced with faux stories and alt-right conspiracy sites.

However, to answer your question, The Daily Beast is a legitimate news organization. The Wikipedia page on The Daily Beast reads: "The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website, with progressive liberal views, focusing on politics and pop culture." Also, the original story was actually picked up by Yahoo! which is how I initially came upon the story itself as I have a personal email account on Yahoo!

So, yes, this news story, as sad as it is, is unfortunately true.

As an aside, all of us have to understand that non-Muslim Americans are increasingly wary of Muslim Americans, and I can't completely blame them although I do not think such prejudice is helpful or conducive to having a healthy environment in which we can move forward from the ugly rhetoric that characterized Trump's campaigns and against which we can come to work together as both Muslims and non-Muslims for the betterment of our communities. The reason I do not completely blame the person who reported them is because we know from previous attacks like the Orlando massacre or others that were initiated by Muslims that these persons scouted certain places to determine which would be the best to unleash an attack. I'm not saying this, by the way, in any way to exempt the original person who reported the Muslim students to authorities from any prejudice that he/she might have that led to this unfortunate decision. However, I understand why he/she did so, even though I'd wish not to perhaps.

For example, in real life, I know a Muslim psychiatrist who treats patients, and he himself disclosed that he has many non-Muslim patients who are so afraid that they'll die of terrorism that they feel they can't function well in their day-to-day life and are obsessed with how Muslims supposedly want to destroy them and kill them. Of course, this type of heightened paranoia is actually fed by the fake news sites and alt-right propaganda and conspiracy sites with their regular peddling of Islamophobia; and the advice he gives them as a psychiatrist is of course to turn off the television and not watch the news or visit those sites, because paranoia and fears are fed by such things, engendering the feeling that we live in a quite unsafe world when that is not true. I can't help but agree. We live in a world that is far too beautiful and vibrant with good people, and we as human beings have core things in common more than we do any differences, and we shouldn't let anything rob us of the chance to remember that truth even as we trust in God.

(And peace be upon you)

[Serinity]

In situations like this, it is best that we respond civilized and calm (that'll, In shaa' Allah, remove any suspicion from the cops)

Like, say, someone reported me for "terror threats", would I run? No. Take it chill, buy a coffee to the cops, and smile. :-) An innocent need not worry. Talk, spread positivty. That way, we are responding a way that is contradicatory to what the Media wants the public to believe.

The more we Muslims do this, etc. Then In shaa' Allah, the Population will realise the false stigma on Muslims.

The more one is open to dialogue, then the other party will, in shaa' Allah, also talk it out.

Allahu alam.

[greenhill]

I like the story….

There will always be suspicion. I am very pleased with the reaction all round, the positive steps taken at almost every level, the creation of awareness as a result and the encouraging steps forward by opening the opportunity for dialogue.

I think it is great!