quran

A Syrian refugee opens her Quran Nov. 18, 2015, at the Muslim Association of Lehigh Valley in Whitehall, Pa.

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A bigot doesn't always yell. Sometimes he offers you coffee and a seat at his table. But eventually, he'll ask you to leave because there will be nothing left to say.

I came into this situation -- at a stranger's kitchen table -- with the naive assumption that a man who wrote terrible things about Muslims had never met any. But it was also about simple curiosity: What kind of man has such a dark view of the world?

Last week, in response to a column I wrote about an exchange student headed to Turkey, I received an email that read in full: "Rather than waste a lot of my time in an attempt to enlighten you..... I'll just jump right to the point. The Muslims need to be wiped off the face of the Earth. There will come a day in your life when you will agree. In the mean time, please refrain from painting such a lovely picture of evil."

I initially decided this message was unworthy of a response and moved it to my trash folder. But a few hours later, I reconsidered.

Usually the terse, hateful emails I get are anonymous. But this author had signed his name and address, and that intrigued me. This guy - his name is Glen - thinks it's totally OK to call for genocide against roughly one-fourth of the world's population.

Who is he? How did he come to think this way?

I wrote back simply: "Would you be interested in meeting with me and some local Muslim folks?"

And he responded: "I would look forward to a meeting."

So I contacted the Muslim Educational Trust in Tualatin and asked if they've be up for talking with a man who had some inflammatory ideas about Islam. I sensed this wasn't the first time they'd gotten this kind of request, and they said "sure, come on down."

Glen and I exchanged a few more emails, but when it came time to nail down a meeting date and time, he went dark. I sent another message. Nothing.

I wasn't deterred. At this point, Glen was a living Rubik's Cube I wanted to solve. Was he a real person? Did he regret his email? Was I being trolled?

So, I showed up on his doorstep.

Glen's wife was defrosting a refrigerator in the garage when I walked up the driveway and asked for her husband. She invited me in, where I found Glen seated at the kitchen table with his laptop in front of him.

Glen is 65 and retired. His wife, who does not share his opinions, asked I not use their last name. Glen did not want to talk on the record, either. But I said I'd gone too deep not to write something, and I stayed seated.

I asked why he bailed on our meeting. He said it wouldn't be worth his time.

He was fixated on the fact that I wasn't a Christian, and thus speaking to me would be pointless.

"A practicing Christian would not write that article," he told me.

Glen gets his ideas from a literal interpretation of the Biblical apocalypse. He thinks Muslims will attack Israel and bring about the rapture, so he distrusts all Muslims. Period.

"It's written in the Bible," he said. "This is how it's going to play out."

I'm no Biblical scholar, but I think it's pointless to try to argue rationally about hate speech with someone waiting for the rapture. Maybe this visit was, in fact, a waste of everyone's time.

We had a mostly nonsensical discourse in which I tried to ask about stereotypes and bigotry, and he accused me of being someone who would have helped Hitler murder Jews.

I'll spare you the rhetoric. He never raised his voice or sounded angry. He seemed bemused by my questions. I told him I'd never interviewed someone with such smug self-satisfaction, which elicited a small chuckle from his wife.

It had, briefly, crossed my mind that this man might be violent. But people say awful stuff online that they would never say in person, and I figured the odds of this turning threatening were small.

Glen was polite, but no less full of hate, in person.

I was frustrated with my inability to find any common ground with this man until I realized Glen has far more in common with ISIS than with me.

Both he and the Islamic State believe the rapture is coming. Both have an extremist interpretation of religious texts. Both use that to justify the belief that an entire religious group should be destroyed. Both represent only a small fraction of their faiths. The difference seems to be that ISIS is taking military steps toward wiping people from the face of the earth, and Glen is content to send out emails.

I came to this house seeking to understand why Glen believed what he did, so in that respect, the meeting was a success. I get it.

But no minds were changed. No breakthrough. No kumbaya. No dent in Glen's hubris.

When this futility became clear, Glen suggested it was time for me to leave.

As I walked out the door he said, "I'll pray for you."

I let out a small laugh, but said nothing in return.

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.com