JANUARY 27 Thoughts of an American Muslim

fully aware that they are doing wrong when they do, but amoral. A ‘people’ as the Qur’an puts it, ‘without any awareness (of right or wrong)’ (11:29). One might argue that there is a resurgence of religion here in the United States and point to the rising number of churchgoers. But figures are deceptive. Religion has become a ritual confined to the sabbath. What people do the rest of the week appears to have no connection with what is expressed in church. And yet national leaders insist on calling America a Christian country. What people say and what people do are two completely different thing. Reagan was, some months back, described as a great Christian, despite the fact that he doesn’t attend church. Ironically, while this statement was being made, a former president, Jimmy Carter did not concern himself with labels. With his Christian service group, he came to New York, renovated an apartment complex to be used by the poor, and left without seeking any publicity. Religion here is at best lopsided. One watches with fascination a fundamentalist Christian church service in a huge auditorium filled with impeccably dressed people listening to a group of teenagers singing a song relegating everyone else to hell. More often than not the Americans appear to be a people who are as the Qur’an puts it, lost in darkness (zulmat) after their ephermeral light has disappeared. ‘Whatever became of sin?’ asks William F. Buckley, Jr., who shares with the fundamentalists much of the conservative ideology, in a recent issue of The New York Times Magazine. It is, not surprising, precisely the question Karl Meninger of the Meninger Clinic asked in his book published in 1973, Whatever Became of Sin?, a volume aimed at solving all kinds of social problems through ‘an ethical system for today’s world.’ The book sold more than 125,000 copies in hardcover alone and about twice as many in paperback. The question these authors should be asking is, ‘Is anyone listening? Is anyone listening to those who remind the people of vital necessity of values to keep society together? The majority of Americans simply do not know that they are committing some wrong. And when the very few do, they do not know what to do about it. A fine, recent example is a school’s attempt to cut down and eventually eliminate promiscuity. It forbade the holding of hands within the school buildings. Evidently, educators still have to learn about the youngsters they have to deal with. The students reacted with the way they usually do, by overdoing what has been forbidden.