Religion professor in demand here and abroad
By Elizabeth Turnbull
News Editor

Growing up in Oklahoma, Charles Kimball, the chairman of the religion department, could never have expected that his Jewish grandfather, Presbyterian mother and Baptist interest would lead him to become one of the nation’s top experts in Middle East Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations. But those searching for answers to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. have once again beaten a path to his doorstep.

Since the attacks, Kimball says he has given well over 100 interviews ranging from news articles to radio broadcasts to television specials.

“Sept. 11 spawned a flood of media interest in Islam and the Middle East,” Kimball said.
And in each interview, he says his goal is to bring an accurate understanding to the Muslim tradition and to reinforce the idea that Islam is not the enemy.

“One of the things that I try to do is to help put a human face on the ‘other,’” he said. “These are human beings that have families and aspirations.”

Kimball believes that much of the attention he is currently receiving is not due to his academic knowledge, but rather his personal experiences with the Middle East.
“My perspective is steeped in the events,” he said, “not only in academic experience.”
Kimball first received national attention in 1979. He was one of seven Americans invited to negotiate the Iran hostage situation and the only one to meet with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

“That was a very dramatic event to be involved in for two years,” he said.
He had spent the previous year living in Cairo, Egypt as part of his doctoral studies and remembers it as “the year that Anwar Sadat stunned the world and made peace with Israel.”

Kimball said the Iranian students and government leaders were very responsive and appreciative because he made the effort to study their religion and daily culture, not just life in times of crisis.

“I took them seriously as human beings before there was a revolution or an embassy takeover,” he said.

After the Iranian hostage negotiations, Kimball’s life in the fast lane did anything but slow down.

During the 1980s, he says he made over 35 trips to the Middle East meeting with top government officials, including Yasser Arafat.

From 1983 to 1990, Kimball directed the Middle East programs for the National council of churches. In 1983, at 33 years old, about 15 years younger than his colleagues, he founded several inter-denominational organizations, including Churches for Middle East Peace, which is still going today.

However, finding himself the father of a six-year-old daughter and three-year old son in 1990, Kimball opted to switch lanes and slow down a little, thinking it a “good time to return to academia and teach and write,” he said.

He took a teaching position at Furman University until once again being called into the spotlight during the Gulf War crisis.
“Events conspired to keep me from the quiet life in the ivory tower of academia,” Kimball said.

In the early ‘90s, Kimball wrote three books, Religion, Politics and Oil: The Volatile Mix in the Middle East, Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle East and Striving Together: A Way Forward in Christian-Muslim Relations.

Kimball says he enjoyed his time at Furman and found it difficult to leave. But when the university offered him a position as chairman of the religion department and the chance to have a hand in starting the Divinity School, he said it was an opportunity he could not pass up.

While he is once again in the spotlight after the Sept. 11 attacks, Kimball admits that his life as an academic is quieter than his life when he was directly involved in the ‘80s.
“There is something that’s very gratifying about being in the midst of events and feeling that what you’re doing is making a difference in the lives of people,” he said. “It’s not the same as the stuff I was doing before, but it gets you out there.”