Questioning Chavis Muhammad

Christian Century, June 4, 1997 by Linda A. Mercadante

Wise, who has experience with young black Christians who become attracted to the Nation of Islam, observed that the Nation members play on the ambiguity of the religious terms they use. "There are persons in our community who buy into their social, political and economic beliefs and, because of lack of sophistication," do not fully understand the Nation's theology.

Chavis Muhammad reiterated several main themes: God is one; obedience to God is key; the Nation of Islam "practices what it preaches"; Jews, Christians and Muslims are born of the same root; and one can be both a Christian and a Muslim with no contradiction. On one hand, he insisted he believes everything taught by founder Elijah Muhammad and leader Louis Farrakhan. "I'm privileged to be working with the most effective leader in the world today, and the most misunderstood," said Chavis Muhammad at the press conference. Yet he also affirmed that "Jesus Christ is still at the center of my life," and that by joining the nation of Islam he is not departing from but expanding his faith, which is "built upon the foundation of the church." Though panelists pressed christological, trinitarian and ecclesiological issues, especially the sufficiency and uniqueness of Christ and the finality of Christian revelation, he never confronted these issues. Nonetheless, he repeatedly asserted that "Jesus is the Lord of my life."

Given Chavis Muhammad's stress on one God, one people, cooperation and unity, I asked him to explain the black-only membership policy of the Nation and its anti-Semitic reputation. He did not answer this. At the press conference, a reporter paraphrased comments by Farrakhan on the previous Sunday's Meet the Press that were distinctly anti-Semitic, but Chavis Muhammad (and Upchurch) diverted the discussion by demanding exact quotes, which the journalist did not have. Panelist Gordon Huffman, professor of Christian mission at Trinity, citing the Nation of Islam's World Wide Web literature, said its characterization of Jews, Christians end whites used language "we would repudiate . . . if it came from white supremacists."

But these hard issues were avoided, even though in 1993 before joining the Nation, Chavis Muhammad himself, as executive director of the NAACP, had denounced the words of Nation spokesman Kahlid Abdul Muhammad, who in a speech at Kean College in New Jersey had claimed that "the so-called Jew . . . is sucking our blood in the black community." [See "Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitism: A look at The record, CHRISTIAN CENTURY, March 2, 1994.]

Chavis Muhammad avoided the racial and political positions of the Nation, stressing instead the religious aspects. If the religious aspects were crucial, why then, I asked, had he joined the significantly smaller Nation of Islam rather than the much larger, religiously orthodox (Sunni Muslim), world-recognized, racially open but primarily black Islamic groups of W. Deen Muhammad, the son of late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad? Chavis Muhammad admitted to having no experience with the larger groups. About W. Deen Muhammad he said, "He is the biological son, but I choose to follow the theological son."