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After sunset, fellowship members regroup nearby at a restaurant that Muslim regulars at Speakers Corner also frequent. Smith and his Muslim friends greet one another, sometimes dine together, and engage in deeper spiritual conversation. One of these friends whom Smith meets is named Mahdi. Even though Jesus has appeared to Mahdi in two dreams, he professes he will never leave Islam.

Smith also hosts advanced study groups. One is called "Codgers," designed to train Christian debaters; another is SWAD (Scholars With a Dream), which conducts doctoral-level research on Islam.

Smith helped create the Pfander Center, which prepares missionaries for ministry among Muslims. The name Karl Gottlieb Pfander is rarely mentioned today among Christians, but Islamic historians know it well. In Agra, India, 154 years ago, Pfander debated a Muslim theologian (Rahmatullah Kairanawi) for two days of high drama on the integrity of the Bible. Both sides claimed victory afterwards.

Partly due to this debate, Protestant missions gained greater credibility among Muslims and Hindus inside colonial India, and two high-profile Indians from a Muslim background were baptized less than 10 years later.

On YouTube, Smith has a collection of videos he calls "Pfander Films" in honor of the German missionary. These films, 62 and counting, have collectively received more than 450,000 views. One video, titled "Who Hijacked Islam?" received 29,000 hits in a 12-month period.

Smith invites other Christians to join him. "If we really want to see radical Islam brought to its knees, some of us are going to have to move beyond everything we have been taught," Smith wrote in a 2007 prayer letter.

"Rather than simply seek after converts, we must roll up our sleeves and engage publicly and passionately, knowing that we won't initially see many converts. Down the road, we will certainly find hundreds—no, millions—brought home."

His influence has begun to ripple into European evangelical missions. One Brussels-based missions leader spent time with Smith at Hyde Park. Via e-mail, this leader told CT that Hyde Park Christian Fellowship is "a place to go for help in unmasking Islam if it is needed in a particular case."

The leader now supports a more straight-talking, bolder kind of Christian witness for urban Europe. He wrote, "It is better to be straightforward (and loving) about what we believe than to be overly careful. I think more people ache for authenticity than what we want to imagine."

On occasion, Smith hears that the fellowship's work has brought a Muslim to Christ. A few years back, an Iraqi hospital administrator received a copy of a Smith paper challenging Islam. After careful examination, the administrator was persuaded and gave his life to Christ. Today, he works in Muslim outreach. "You won't find people of that caliber unless you go after the best and brightest," Smith says.

Smith maintains the church is uniquely able to confront Islamic teaching. "The only way to deal with this radical form of Islam," he asserts, "is with an equally radical form of Christianity."

Deann Alford is a senior writer for CT and lives in Austin, Texas.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Video clips of Jay Smith in action are available on YouTube.

Hyde Park Christian fellowship's debate site has more about the organization's purpose.

Previous articles about Islam and Christianity are in our special section on other religions.

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June 2008, Vol. 52, No. 6