How October 7 Altered My Work: A Conversation with the Middle East Forum

Dexter Van Zile, managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism, recently interviewed me about how my work changed after October 7, 2023. The interview prompted me to think through some important ways that ministry and research have changed since that tragic day. We discuss my many years working with Muslims, what I saw in London on October 8, and how I now spend far more time writing about Islamism and antisemitism. You can read the full interview below, but I wanted to share my own thoughts on this journey in my own words.

Mink to the interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVHzK5wj5MQ&t=1s

I arrived in London on October 7, 2023 expecting to spend the next two weeks doing the same thing I’ve done many times before. Meeting Muslim scholars and students. Talking theology. Building friendships. Engaging in Christian-Muslim dialogue. I crossed the Atlantic having avoided most news until that point and still didn’t know the extent of Hamas’s attack against Israel. My plan was to visit dear friends and colleagues I had been building relationships with for years, many of them from within the Shiʿa Muslim community. By the time my plane landed, however, nearly everything about that trip would look different.

Demonstrations were already happening in London by October 8 and I began hearing the ideological language that would quickly dominate headlines throughout the West. “Resistance” to “apartheid” and oppression were describing words as the deaths of Israeli civilians were abstracted if mentioned at all. None of this should have been surprising. I’ve been studying this language for years. Even so, what stunned me was how seemingly certain everyone appeared to be about what this attack meant and who was responsible for the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Condolences and grief were replaced with explanations.

It took me weeks, but that week in London forced me to reevaluate many of my previous assumptions about my work. For over a decade I studied Islamic theology, forged authentic relationships with Muslims, and encouraged Christians to see Muslims as neighbors and individuals, not ideological opponents or religious abstractions. Much of my work approached Islam at its best and highest ideals because I believed relationships could solve, or at least calm, many of the divisions between our communities. I haven’t given up on relationships, but I do believe October 7 taught me that patience and kindness is useless if we are unwilling to speak the truth about difficult theological, ideological, and political differences.

The relationships I had built were impacted as well. After I spoke out against what has taken place in Israel and expressed solidarity with the Jewish people, friendships I thought could survive years of theological debate were now suddenly strained or broken. A friendship I had built with a scholar lasted years, but ended over my public statements supporting Israel and the Muslim reactions I observed in London. While that loss was difficult, it also forced me to admit that dialogue can only go so far.

Since that day, my research has turned toward trying to understand what ideas are animating the events we’re witnessing. What do religious and political movements believe about history? About suffering? About enemies? What about their own incomplete goals and dreams? One question in particular keeps coming up: Why are Jews and Israel repeatedly invoked to explain why ideological and revolutionary utopias have gone unfulfilled? That question drives my work now. My next book is titled What Antisemitism Explains.

At the same time, October 7 did not cause me to end relationships with Muslims. I remain convinced Christians should love our Muslim neighbors, listen to them, treat them with dignity, and speak honestly about significant theological and political disagreements. I don’t want Christians to meet Muslims with fear or hostility or contempt. But I don’t think we best serve Muslims by papering over hard truths just to maintain pleasant relationships. Love does not demand that we abandon discernment. Truth does not demand that we stop exercising compassion.

In hindsight, I realize that the decade I spent learning about Islam and building relationships with Muslims was not overturned by the violence on October 7. Those years provided me theological insights and friendships. They granted me experiences living within Muslim communities and access to conversations few Christians have. They’ve prepared me to see certain elements of this new moment that I might otherwise have overlooked. October 7 did not undo the last ten years of my ministry. Instead, it illuminated what those years had been preparing me to understand.

That illumination is now opening doors for preaching and teaching, research and writing, university engagement, and continued friendship with Jewish and Christian leaders. Your prayers, encouragement, and financial contributions allow me to pursue those opportunities and to keep developing this work. I never could have imagined I would be here when I started friendships with Muslims over ten years ago. But now I see those years in a new light. Thank you for helping me walk through this next chapter.

I hope you’ll watch the full interview linked below. Dexter does a good job leading the interview which allowed me to tell my story. He also asks about questions now driving my research and writing. The focus of this ministry has shifted, but God’s calling on my life is becoming much clearer. I want to love people well. I want to pursue the truth, even where it leads. And I want to keep helping Christians understand the ideologies and powers shaping our world. Thank you for being a part of that.