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Clearly, this ideology is at odds with President Bush's statements that Islam is a religion of peace, his visit to a Washington, D.C., mosque and his invitation to prominent Muslims to break their Ramadan fast at the White House. Sufficiently amplified, it could also presumably complicate American efforts to bolster moderate Islam in the Middle East. The Administration, however, does not see it that way. Government officials admit the existence of a few "cowboys," but by and large, says one, missionaries "are often helping people, and not simply because they want to convert them," and Muslims are happy for the aid. During discussion of Graham's role in Iraq, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development noted to a reporter for the Beliefnet website that the government could not in any case control private charitable organizations. And a senior Administration official told TIME that given the President's close ties to the Christian right and his support of faith-based charity work, there was little chance the White House would discourage Christian aid organizations from going to Iraq.
The national debate over missionaries in Iraq has provoked a parallel discourse in the evangelical community, or rather, a new chapter in the ongoing dialogue about how best to deliver God's word. At a gathering called last month by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank, fervor and self-criticism mixed with a sense that Christianity's overtures to Muslims might be entering a critical stage. "If we don't get this right this time, we could become irrelevant," worried one participant. Another, Serge Duss of the Christian charity World Vision International, asserted that the current controversy is "merely a blip on the screen." The value of Christian missions would not be judged on the past few months but on the past half-century, during which, "because we love God and love our neighbor," they have been "in the forefront of providing not only humanitarian aid but development, child health care, sanitation and communications." At times, Duss said, "we have been able to be more overt about our Christian faith and at times not. And this," he added, "is where we need to be very wise."
And wisdom, in the end, comes from above. The muezzin has called two more times, and Josh, the first-time missionary, looks out his window at a stooped old woman in a billowing cloak, picking her way up a neighboring hill. The sight fires some kind of synapse in the place of convergence among his youthful eagerness, the desire to share, the impulse to meddle and the conviction that God's providence will sort them out. "I see people like her, and I wonder, what's her story?" he says. "What can I do to help her? When I feel the calling on my heart, I don't see how it is possible to be here and not want to be able to speak to people, to love them, to get to know them. Every day I say to God: use me. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to say." --With reporting by Perry Bacon Jr. and James Carney/Washington, Amanda Bower and Manya Brachear/New York, Jeff Chu/London and Matthew Kalman/Jerusalem