The Telephone Game

As a kid, I used to play a game called the 'telephone game'.  The rules were simple.  You'd sit a bunch of kids in a row and whisper something into the first kid's ear.  They'd whisper it in the next kid's ear and so on until you got to the last kid in the line.  He'd announce the message to the group and then the first kid reveal the original message which never matched.

The results always made us laugh though occasionally arguments would break out when kids claimed they were told something else.  This simple game mimics miscommunications that happen often between people.  This is especially true when no one investigates whether something they are told is true.

The other day my mom said she'd heard something that really upset her:

I'm worried for this country.  Just the other day a school decided to let Muslims pray in public but they won't even let Christians carry Bibles.

My first response was to laugh which I'm sure upset her.  After apologizing, I explained that there is no way anyone in the United States could ever stop a person from carrying a Bible as the 1st amendment gives people freedom of religion. She paused and said ...

Maybe not that but they won't let Christians pray in public but are using the school bells to call Muslims to pray five times every day.  They are allowing them to pray on their rugs on campus and won't let Christians do the same thing.

I hadn't heard this story and I asked if she remembered the school.  My first instinct has always been to take a skeptical view of things and I wanted to get a better understanding.

I think it was at Duke.

The words Duke and North Carolina are about the last places on earth I ever thought I'd hear claim say had become a  bastion of Islam.  My skepticism became acute and I googled 'Duke Chapel'.

I found that Brown's Schoolhouse was founded by Methodists and Quakers in 1838 but changed its name when the son of tobacco baron Washington Duke set up the Duke Endowment in 1924. This initiated a massive building campaign that quickly increased the school's facilities and enrollment.  The culmination of the building campaign was Duke Chapel, a huge church based on Canterbury Cathedral in England.  The structure holds 1,800 people and since it was completed in 1932 it has been the centerpiece of Duke University.

The church's original inspiration is shown through its statues of Methodists leaders like Francis Asbury, Thomas Coke, George Whitefield and John Wesley, Protestant leaders like Girolamo Savonarola, Martin Luther, and John Wycliffe, and American leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Sidney Lanier also adorn the structure.

In the 80 years since Duke Chapel was built it has moved away from the Methodist church to a more inclusive nature.  The mission statement of the chapel now reads:

Duke Chapel continues to be a Christian church of uniquely interdenominational character and purpose. Through its tradition of inspiring worship and music, and a calling to walk with people of all faiths and circumstances, Duke Chapel stands as a beacon of hope on campus and in the community that bridges faith and learning.

Duke itself has moved from a Methodist based education to a secular based education. but Duke Chapel still plays a huge part in the lives of its students.  The building holds Christian services on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, its church bells ringing from its massive tower allowing those within earshot to know that church service is about to begin.

In the spirit of inclusiveness, the church has given Muslims a spot in the basement for their daily prayer service.  Muslim's are required to pray five times a day, the start time based on the position of the sun.  A simple description of the timing is sunrise, midday, afternoon, sunset, and dusk.  These times change with the seasons which can make it tough to know when services start which is why mosques call out its members so they know when it is time for prayer.  Muslim Duke students requested that the church ring its bell to mark the start of each prayer session on Friday, a day the bells usually remain quiet.  

In January 2015 Duke Chapel agreed to their Muslim student's request and their timing couldn't have been worse.

The United States has been on a tentative war footing with multiple Islamic countries since Muslim terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  Things cooled after the United States left Iraq but heated again when ISIS invaded northern Iraq last summer.  Their stated intention was to conquer all of Iraq to set up another caliphate.  Making tensions even worse was their success in getting Muslims throughout the world to heed their call to join them in making their dream a reality.

ISIS has also has told Muslims that can't get to Syria that they should attack their own country which some have done, the most horrific being the attack of January 7, 2015 on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France.  

A week later, Franklin Graham, the son of the legendary preacher Jimmy Graham, responded to Duke's decision to allow Muslim's to use their bell tower.  He posted the following statement to Facebook on January 14, 2015:

Duke University announced today that they will have a Muslim call to prayer from their chapel bell tower every Friday. As Christianity is being excluded from the public square and followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn't submit to their Sharia Islamic law, Duke is promoting this in the name of religious pluralism. I call on the donors and alumni to withhold their support from Duke until this policy is reversed.

Social media exploded as this message made its way through the internet and eventually found its way to my mom.  It's easy to understand why she was confused.  The second line says 'Christianity is being excluded from the public square' and while I'm sure Graham was speaking to things like nativity scenes at town hall, Christians throughout the country passed this message to one another on Facebook as the message changed.

It is easy to overreact to things on Facebook and Twitter.  A constant barrage of messages combines with limited space to make misunderstanding easy.  As each person sees something posted to their Facebook they each add their own opinion and the story changes.  It's a telephone game on a massive scale.

Having said that, I'm sure few Christians wants Muslims to pray inside a church and that would be especially true a week after a horrific terrorist attack 

That doesn't mean they are right.

• Yes - Religious items aren't allowed to be displayed on public property due to the 1st amendment but Christians have the exact same rights as Muslims at Duke, a private university.

• Yes - ISIS executes people that aren't Muslim with a goal of world domination and so far appears to be as intolerant as any organization in recorded history.  On the other hand, no Duke students are members of ISIS so far as I'm aware.

• Yes - Duke wanted to allow its Muslim students to use its bell tower to make a call to prayer every Friday in accordance with its interdenominational mission statement. 

Franklin Graham has a history of playing politics and stirring the passions of his supporters to create policy change in America.  This is in stark contrast to his father who stuck to a message of tolerance once he reached the national stage.  A week after Graham's post, Duke rescinded its decision but that didn't stop the hate which continued on Facebook long after the initial post.

Tensions between Muslims and non-Muslim are high throughout the world but more hate won't improve things.  Irresponsible statements by Christian leaders like Mr. Graham is akin to throwing gas on the fire.  Add Facebook to the mix and it's like a telephone game played with millions only with much graver stakes.

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