A Michigan pastor who made headlines in September for clashing with the Muslim mayor of Dearborn told The Christian Post that Christians must love their Muslim neighbors while heeding Christ's command to be courageous, even in the face of potential persecution.

"I feel like the hate is almost demonic in our country and in much of the world, and I think we really need to ramp that down by standing up for our rights as Christians, one; but two, not meeting hate with hate, but meeting hate with love," said Ted Barham, a preacher within the Evangelical Plymouth Brethren denomination in Dearborn, which has proportionally the largest Muslim population in the United States.

'God bless you, mayor'

Barham went viral after Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a 35-year-old Muslim whose family came from Lebanon, denounced him during a city council meeting on Sept. 9.

Hammoud called Barham "a bigot," "a racist" and "an Islamophobe" after the pastor voiced his opposition to naming two street signs in the city after Osama Siblani, an Arab American leader who has reportedly praised former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

"I want you to know, as mayor, you are not welcome here," Hammoud told Barham. "And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city, because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence."

Barham responded by invoking God's blessing upon Hammoud, both at the time and during a subsequent city council meeting after their exchange made international news.

"The mayor, in a way, cursed me, as was seen around the world. And I would like to repeat what I said that day to you, Mr. Mayor: 'God bless you,'" Barham said during a city council meeting on Sept. 23.

Hammoud, who is facing a mayoral election this week, did not apologize amid backlash for his comments to Barham, although he later claimed that headlines about the story and the city had been "sensationalized," while assuring that Dearborn is "a city that welcomes and embraces everyone," according to the Detroit Free Press.

'A huge double standard'

Barham told CP he believes the fallout from his exchange with Hammoud was helpful insofar as it "provided a clear example of the suffering and the silencing that Christian minorities experience all over the world, including here in Dearborn."

"I think that's been a very helpful example, because Muslim people are getting more and more powerful here in the West," he said.

Islam is projected to surge in the West during the coming decades, driven primarily by immigration and higher fertility rates compared to non-Muslim populations, according to the Pew Research Center.

While he acknowledged that Muslims are entitled to rise to political power and secure representation in a democratic society, he expressed concern that religious tolerance appears to be a one-way street for Muslims globally.

"I don't think it's right that Muslim people are enjoying all the privileges that we give in our Western countries, and they are not giving us any of the same privileges and rights in return in their Muslim countries," he said.

Barham, who previously led a joint ministry of churches in Oxford, United Kingdom, noted the pressure against Christians sharing the Gospel in Muslim-majority portions of the Western world — such as Dearborn or large swaths of London — is more subtle than in nations where Islam dominates. However, he warned of potentially catastrophic consequences if Western religious liberty withers in the countries that gave birth to it.

"I think a very helpful thing that's come out of this is to show that there's a huge double standard, because our fellow Christians are persecuted severely all over the Muslim world — some countries more than others — but in every Muslim country, our fellow Christians are persecuted and silenced, and that needs to stop," he said.

"Those doors of freedom of faith need to open in those countries, and we need to hold people to account for that," he added. "That is a very important and very urgent issue."

Barham, who was born in Zambia, said he left the U.K. and Canada — both countries where he holds passports — because "even in those Western countries, I don't have the freedom to gently and respectfully encourage Muslim people to believe in the Lord Jesus."

"In Muslim countries, we are silenced because of Sharia law; and in Western countries, we're silenced under the slur 'Islamophobia,'" he said. "So we don't have full freedom of faith and freedom of speech as Christians anywhere in the world."

"And if we lose that freedom here in America, then we've lost it everywhere," he added.

Barham hopes his viral exchange in Michigan might help highlight some of the severe persecution Christians are experiencing in other parts of the world, where they face much worse than a viral mayoral scolding. Having lived in the Middle East, he claimed he personally knows Christians whose family members have been killed for leaving Islam.

While he said he is not afraid for himself, Barham remains "very conscious of my fellow Christians all over the world, and I am very concerned for them, and I do want to speak up for them."

'Do not be afraid'

Regarding what he would say to Christians who might feel fear toward the rising tide of opposing ideologies, Barnham said, "Jesus said, 'Do not be afraid.' So we shouldn't be afraid. He says, 'I'm with you right until the end of the world,' and we should remember He's with us."

He encouraged Christians to make the most of their rights, offering the example of the Apostle Paul's wise use of his Roman citizenship in Acts 16, when he was able to escape jail in Philippi and elicit an apology from the magistrates for his persecution before being escorted out of the city.

"I'm not saying that I want to be escorted out of the city, because I want to stay here," he said of his situation. "But what I'm saying is that Paul [exercised] his rights as a citizen, and I think we need to use those rights, too."

"This is where the world and the Kingdom intersect, where we use our rights as citizens to promote the message from another world; the message of the Good News."