God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

by David T. Lamb

Third, we make friends with people from other ethnic backgrounds. In the year 1219, while Christians from all over Europe were traveling thousands of miles to kill Muslims, Francis of Assisi traveled thousands of miles to talk to Muslims about Jesus. He famously risked his life in the middle of a siege to befriend one of their leaders, the sultan Malik al-Kamil in Damietta in northeast Egypt, a man as culturally different from Francis as one can imagine. Yet the sultan was impressed by Francis and reportedly said to him, “I would convert to your religion, which is a beautiful one, but I cannot: Both of us would be massacred.”[21] If more Christians today practiced hospitality toward people of different races like the Samaritan did in Jesus’ parable or befriended people of other faiths (Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and atheist) like Francis did in Egypt, there would be more Christians.

Francis of Asisi love of neighbors