Reading the Koran

With Pastor Marshall

The Class

Pastor Marshall offers this class on the Koran four times a year – usually in January, April, June and October. It meets on the four Thursdays in each month from 7-9 pm. Each of the four sessions discuss some 50 verses from the Koran – sizing them up from a Christian point of view – noting either their congruence or incongruence with historic Christian teachings.

In session I surahs (or chapters) 1-7 are discussed, surahs 8-21 in session II, surahs 22-40 in session III, and surahs 41-114 in session IV. Note that the surahs are arranged in the Koran with the longest ones first.

The purpose of this class is to become familiar with the contents of the Koran. It is not a class on the history of Islam. Nor is it a class on the interpretation of the Koran in its original Arabic text. There are three approved English translations of the Koran. We use the 1930 edition by M. M. Pickthall.

The class tuition is $50.00. This includes your own copy of the Pickthall translation of the Koran, study sheets on the selected verses and many handouts on features of the Koran to enrich your reading. Some of those handouts provide information from the magnificent international five volume commentary, The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, edited by J. D. McAuliffe. Others include Martin Luther's preface to the 1543 Latin edition of the Koran and Melanchthon's "warning" published in the same volume.  

 

 

The Teacher

Pastor Marshall has been a Lutheran pastor (ELCA) since 1979.  He is married to Dr. Jane L. Harty and they have three children, Susannah, Ruth and Anders.  Pastor Marshall graduated from Washington State University in 1971, magna cum laude, with a BA in Philosophy.  Upon graduation he was elected into the prestigious academic fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa.  In 1975 he graduated from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, with a Masters of Divinity degree.  While at Luther Seminary he published his first academic article, "God and Worship." In 1978 he received a Masters in Religion degree from Claremont Graduate School and was advanced into the PhD program. That same year he published his first academic article on Martin Luther, "Luther's Two-Factor Hermeneutic." He then began writing his PhD dissertation on the philosophies of religion in Wittgenstein and Whitehead, but never finished it.  

Pastor Marshall has published over 50 articles in academic journals and professional magazines, specializing in the thought of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and Sψren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). His essays have appeared in Touchstone, The International Kierkegaard Commentary, The Christian Ministry, dialog, The Ecumenist, Sψren Kierkegaard Newsletter, Currents in Theology & Mission, Trinity Review, Pro Ecclesia, Lutheran Quarterly, Lutheran Partners, The Bride of Christ, Lutheran Commentator, Logia, Lutheran Forum and Word & World. In 2003 he published his acclaimed pamphlet, Making a New World: How Lutherans Read the Bible.

While at Claremont Graduate School, Pastor Marshall was a research assistant for Professor John A. Hutchinson, author of Paths of Faith (1969, 1991, 4th ed.) and Living Options in World Philosophy (1977) – for which Pastor Marshall worked on the index. His doctoral advisor was Professor John B. Cobb, Jr., author of many books, including Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism (1982) and Transforming Christianity and the World (1999).

Pastor Marshall studied Islam and the Koran with Jamil Razzak and Abdul Mohammad from the Idriss Mosque in Seattle, 1420 NE Northgate Way.

Pastor Marshall is a conservative Lutheran – believing in and practicing the historic Christian creeds. So he is not a liberal and could not rejoice in Robley E. Whitson's classic study on world religions: The Coming Convergence of World Religions (1971, 1992). Pastor Marshall believes that significant differences exist between the great religions of the world and that these should not be smoothed over. Instead they should be respected, studied and understood.  

Students' Recommendations

"Thank you for an altogether exciting and enjoyable course in reading the Koran.  I appreciate that you are a meticulous and careful instructor.  But I really appreciate your ability to teach, inform, provoke, uplift, honor, engage, and inspire – all in the same setting!  I learned a lot from this course about the Koran, and I learned a lot about the Gospel."  (2-3-07)

"What a rich experience and if I may say, it was much more than I had anticipated when I heard of a class on the Koran being taught by a Lutheran pastor in West Seattle.  Your breadth and depth of knowledge of the Koran is formidable and I pray that opportunities for you to sit down and discuss with both Christians and Muslims will increase in the days ahead.  I also appreciate your example of faith in word and practice."  (2-4-07)

Signing-Up for the Class

If you are interested in this class contact Pastor Marshall by email deogloria@foxinternet.com or by telephone 206-935-6530.  See also the video interview with Pastor Marshall on the West Seattle Blog, http://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=7858

 

Saturday Workshops

Pastor Marshall also offers, by special arrangement, one day abbreviated versions of his class.  These are held on Saturdays from 10 am to 3 pm.  The cost is $10 per person, with a minimum enrollment of 20 persons.  Lunch is provided.  

 

 

TEACHING THE QUR'AN HELPS UNDERSTAND MUSLIMS

 

By the Rev. Ronald F. Marshall  

I have been teaching the Qur'an – the holy book of Islam – in West Seattle at our church, over the past three years. It's a four week class wherein a schedule is provided to help the students read straight through the entire Qur'an in a brief time.

 The classes are open to the public. Some one hundred people from all over the Puget Sound area have attended my classes. The next four week session begins Thursday night at 7 p.m., April 20. I offer these four week sessions every January, April, June and October.

 Ever since September 11, 2001, people have wondered if the Qur'an teaches Muslims to kill people they disagree with. This is because the leader of those 9/11 terrorists, Mohamed Atta, included in his directions to the other eighteen terrorists, some twenty quotes from the Qur'an to inspire their dastardly deeds. (You get a handout on those quotes in my class, by the way, so you can see what Atta actually wrote down.) But did he have it right, or did he twist the Qur'an for his own evil purposes?

 Because this is such a sensitive and contested matter, it's better for you to find out yourself. So people have been coming to class to do just that.

 What I do is provide eight worksheets with some twenty-five questions on each one, asking about a particular verse from the Qur'an. So after completing the class you will have discussed some two hundred verses from throughout the entire Qur'an. What I look for are verses that either coincide with historic Christian teachings or don't. Both types are noted. That is because I'm a Christian pastor from a Lutheran church leading the discussion, and not a Muslim hoping you will take up Islam as your way of life.

 What I'm doing, then, is reading the Qur'an as literature, rather than as God speaking to us. I know how difficult this can be for some Muslims. They would rather wish for the Qur'an only to be read devotionally, with fervent faith in Allah and his prophet, Muhammad.

 When I was in a secular college and took a class on the Bible as Literature, I remember some Christians protesting the class. But I liked the class, even though I didn't share the professor's cynical and skeptical conclusions about the Bible. In that class I learned to see what the eyes of unbelief saw in the Bible – something I just didn't have. That class helped me learn how to talk to unbelievers about the Bible. Nothing wicked about that, I thought, despite what I heard other Christians on campus saying.

 I would hope Muslims could appreciate the same in my class. This month my class was scheduled for the first time to be taught through the continuing education program at South Seattle Community College . But because of the complaints of many local Muslims, the class had to be canceled at the college and transferred to my church. Too bad for us all.

 One of the surprises in my classes is that I find more verses in the Qur'an to agree with than to question – making my literary method more than simply negative.

 For instance, when Qur'an 2:45 says we should try to be patient even though it's hard to do, I say amen to that. No problem there. There are many other passages in the Qur'an like that one which I also endorse. But when Qur'an 4:157 says Jesus Christ wasn't crucified, I raise an eyebrow. I have serious questions there  

 

because historic Christianity  teaches that it's only through faith in the crucifixion of Christ that we are saved from our sins for all of eternity.

 Sometimes my students have been surprised that I don't let my disagreements with the Qur'an wipe away all the good that I see in it. But honesty forces me to avoid that. Even so, I still know that such a respectful selective reading of the Qur'an isn't always pleasing to all Muslims because Qur'an 15:91 stands directly against such a reading.

 But even so, my classes are still lead in a spirit of discovery and respect. For I'm against all hostility and ridicule of Islam. My classes aren't about tearing down the Qur'an. They're about learning the differences between the Bible and the Qur'an on a wide range of issues. As such many of my students have said they learned more about the Bible in my classes on the Qur'an than they ever imagined possible.

 So my class is about the difficult task of building bridges between two religions. I don't do this by saying the two books are the same. No, I do it by exposing the differences and respecting them all the same. In our tense, polarize climate, such simple fact-finding builds bridges, I believe.

 My class will not solve the big issues of the day, like the Israeli-Palestinian one, or the Iraq civil war. But it will clarify what divides us. By so doing the world will be a better place. For when there's clarity, there's less misunderstanding, and that makes for less hurt feelings. All that is to the good.

 But can you really learn anything from me about the Qur'an since I'm not a Muslim? Well, I've studied with Muslims over the last twenty years and they have helped me understand the Qur'an. I've also studied world religions in graduate school and that has helped. I've read a lot about the Qur'an in McAuliffe's five volume Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, as well as in the voluminous notes in Muhammad Asad's classic thousand page commentary on the Qur'an. These studies I'm glad to share with my students who usually haven't had the time or wherewithal to do it themselves.

 In my class I have some fifty handouts from other writers – many Muslim – to supplement my instruction. That also helps balance-out what I have to say. Twice I have had Muslims take the class which has also enriched my understanding of the Qur'an. Presently I'm talking with a Muslim teacher in the University district.

 As you can see this is just an introductory class on the Qur'an. I don't know the Arabic language of the original Qur'an. I don't know the entire history of Islam. I've never traveled to any of the Islamic centers of the world.

 At most what I can do is help you get started on a respectful understanding of Islam's holy book from an historic Christian perspective. I can help you ask informed, kind questions if you ever happen to chat with a Muslim about the Qur'an.

 From what my former students tell me, my class has actually help with just that – right here in West Seattle ! That makes all the extra hours I've spent teaching this class worth it. Wouldn't you agree?

 If you're interested in signing up for my class, call me at 935-6530 or email me at deogloria@foxinternet.com

 

 

(This article is reprinted by permission 

from the April 19, 2006 issue of the West Seattle Herald)