Columbus resident Tim Orr is shown at a recent speaking engagement with Muslims.
Columbus’ Tim Orr stopped to consider what he might have thought nearly 30 years ago during his East Chicago pastoring days if someone had told him he would be spending much of his future speaking and exchanging ideas with Muslims.
But he didn’t have to backspace quite that far in time when considering his current, expanding role as a Christian evangelical and Islamic scholar building bridges between followers of the world’s two largest faiths (Christianity remains No. 1 in number of adherents).
“This would have been a shock to consider all this maybe even as recently as a couple years ago, especially as far as the global part of it,” the 54-year-old Orr said with a chuckle.
He recently has been invited by the Center for Studies and Research in Karbala, Iraq, to speak there in the future. And he is slated to speak at the University of Tehran in Iran in November.
Plus, just this week, he has been in Omaha, Nebraska, at a conference sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Omaha, speaking on the topic “Islamaphobia, White Christian Nationalism and Evangelicals: A Path Forward.”
His mission is to help create that path as one fostering healing and harmony in an often-polarized world. He now can see the possibility of such speaking engagements becoming a full-time passion.
“Through the years, you slowly build trust (with universities and groups),” Orr said. “And when you build trust, you open yourself to more opportunities.”
Two years ago, Orr earned a master’s degree in Islamic studies, with a thesis on Islamic feminism, from The Islamic College in London. He travels there twice per year for a schedule related to ecumenical dialogue and scholarly research. He has published book reviews in the Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam.
For 15 years, he has been a religious studies adjunct professor at IUPUC, where he won the Jaqueline D. Franz Outstanding Part-time Faculty Teaching Award in 2015. For several years, he was a contributing Faith columnist in The Republic. While he regularly investigates a range of beliefs, his personal spiritual grounding is as an evangelical.
“What I’m doing now involves being a global thought leader in Christian-Muslim relations,” Orr said. “When you’re doing this, your thoughts are deemed worthy to be heard.”
As one who loves academics, he will pursue a doctorate at Hartford International University in Hartford, Connecticut, next year in religious studies with a focus on Shi’i Islam.
“I see myself as a Christian minister, also as an academic, and also as a public intellectual,” he said. “And the way that God has been leading me, those all are intertwined. I’m no longer first and foremost a Christian minister.”
He mentioned that his current work demands a level of “spiritual humility” that makes no room for problems such as arrogance. He also is a bit of a novelty when meeting Muslims in other countries.
“I’m often the only evangelical Christian they’ve ever met,” he said. “… But when you begin to build real relationships with people who are different from you, it eventually tears away the image of the so-called generalized ‘other.’ That includes the fears or preconceived attitudes you may have previously had.”
That has helped him make friends in the local Muslim community. Zulkifly Yusuf, a former president of the Islamic Society of Columbus, Indiana, and former Columbus resident, has been among those friends.
“By him knowing more about Islamic beliefs, he can speak up, and he can be one to clarify (Christians’) misunderstandings about Islam,” Zulkifly has said in the past. “And his answers can be even more impactful, because they’re coming from someone outside Islam.”
Even before now, he has spoken out about some American Christian evangelicals’ inaccurate views of Muslims and some of their beliefs. He has said that faulty perspectives can contribute to unnecessary tension among believers of the two faiths.
“But before Christian evangelicals can change, they have to recognize that one of their main problems is white Christian nationalism,” Orr said. “I believe that white Christian nationalists are not fundamentally racist. They’re fundamentally culturalists.
“And those trying to maintain the culture of white Protestantism are white Protestants. And they often believe that anybody other than them aren’t really full American citizens.”
Part of Orr’s passion is summarized on his website at timorr.org: “In the global world in which we now live, understanding how to relate with one another helps to foster a more cohesive society where people begin to understand one another.”
A step further
For more about Tim Orr, his background and work, visit timorr.org.
