This morning I reviewed the book A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue by Badru D. Kateregga and David W. Shenk on Amazon. (Click the link and scroll down to read the review.) The authors are friends, academic colleagues and team-teachers of a comparative religions course at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. I posted my thoughts on Amazon. My review was approved and went live. I started to post a link to a Muslim friend I had thought of frequently as I read. Suddenly some of the things I had said felt harsh. I hadn’t said them in the way I would have said them face-to-face with my friend.
Fortunately, Amazon has a procedure for editing your review after posting. I went back, cut a few unnecessarily strong words here and added a few clarifying words there and reposted my review before sending Shaleen the link. I didn’t change what I believed, or even what I said; I just found a more gracious way to say it.
