Ex-Muslim Brotherhood member speaks to Grace Lutheran Church

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Ex-Muslim Brotherhood member speaks to Grace Lutheran Church

By Katie Kerpowski

The Winchester Sun

12:00 AM EDT, July 19, 2011

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Members of a local church gained a firsthand account into the system and beliefs of the Muslim Brotherhood from a former member and gained a better understanding of Muslim extremism and religious warfare.
The Rev. Hicham Chehab, born and reared in Beirut, Lebanon, has lived in the United States for about six years and is a preacher at Salam Arabic Fellowship, an Arabic worship service in the Chicago area. Chehab spoke at Grace Lutheran Church Sunday about his time in the Brotherhood and his long conversion journey, and said those he spoke to begin overcoming some of their fears toward the Muslim and Arab worlds.
Speaking to about 30, he emphasized the importance of sharing the gospel with the lost — how he described himself while a member of the Brotherhood, after losing his older brother to Christian militia and after first beginning the challenge of organizing an Arabic church in Chicago.
“Jesus is doing the work,” he said in his sermon. “I am not doing the work, I¿am only his humble assistant. And Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Every one of us has a calling … and our calling as Christians is to share the gospel with the lost.”
Chehab said at first during his sermon that people listening seemed overwhelmed with the information, because of the extensive historical background needed, but the overall reception was positive.
“Actually … it really kind of helped them overcome some of their fears towards Muslims and Arabs and helped them understand better the cultural and historical circumstances of the Middle East,” he said Monday.
In his sermon, Chehab compared America to what the Roman Empire was in Paul’s time, when he used the empire to spread the gospel because of its diversity.
“Now, America has all nations here, all ethnicities — Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists. They are in your Dunkin’ Donuts, in your gas stations, in your motels, in your colleges, in your businesses. God wants you to share the gospel with them the way the early Christians shared the gospel with those in the Roman Empire.”
Chehab said listeners seemed particularly intrigued with this point.
“People were interested in hearing this — that America could be a leader again in spreading the gospel,” he said.
Chehab also shared personal stories from growing up in the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest Islamist body and political opposition in many Middle Eastern states, most notably Egypt. He was recruited at 13 to his first military training camp and was taught how to shoot rifles.
“‘You put the rifle on your shoulder here, and if you want to shoot straight, you imagine a Christian in your sight,’” he recalled an instructor telling him at the camp.
Through email, Pastor Thomas Hoyt of Grace Lutheran said Chehab presented the Muslim religion as one that attempts to regulate the entire life of the adherent, and said those who heard him speak were enriched by the experience.
“An emphasis was also placed on the desire to control the government with the imposition of Muslim law (Sharia law) as its power grows among the people,” Hoyt said. Chehab discussed the importance of following Muhammad’s actions placed on him while in the Brotherhood.
Steve Allen has been attending Grace Lutheran for a long time and is a member of the church’s men’s group that worked to bring Chehab to Winchester. He said what he took away from his presentation was that people in the U.S. don’t realize what America is up against — a religious war — and that some Muslims are still in the conquering mindset.
“Muslims (are) proactive, and they go to church six times a day and a lot more on Fridays … and I¿think that was one of the shocking things he said was that you live it all day long,” Allen said Monday. “You live that whole life … and they are aggressive from the beginning … and they’re aggressive to get rid of people that don’t believe the way they do.
“It’s not like people hate us to hate us. It’s because people hate us for what we believe. And that’s the hardest thing.”
Allen said that from the beginning of Islam, the religion has been about taking over, but a lot of people — just as some have done in Christianity — have softened on that. He cited Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas City, which has used military funerals to protest gay rights, as one example of extremists on the Christian side.
“You’re not going to find the more mainstream Muslim people believing that they got to go out and kill Christians,” he said. “They’re not going to feel that way, and you can feel perfectly safe with them.”
Chehab, who will give a presentation to U.S. immigration officers at the end of July and has given an antiterrorism course to the Army Reserve, said most of those in attendance wanted to know how to reach out to Muslims. He expressed the importance of creating personal relationships, stressing that people don’t have to go far to meet a Muslim in the U.S.
Hoyt echoed Chehab’s statement about parishioners wanting to form friendships with Muslims.
“We need to make friends of them, respecting them as people,” he said. “It is only with personal relationships and developing trust will they be accepting of the Christian message of hope, love and forgiveness as taught by Christ.
“Our church family was pleased to offer this information to the community of Winchester. We hope to bring a message of peace and unity in Christ.”
Chehab’s sermon can be viewed through the Grace Lutheran website at http://tinyurl.com/3fqz8jx.

Contact Katie Perkowski at kperkowski@winchestersun.com or follow her Twitter, @TheSunKatie.