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Christianity Today, March, 2011

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Share Sacred Spaces?

Observers discuss whether churches should lend worship space to other religions.

Compiled by Ruth Moon | posted 3/17/2011 08:44AM

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Discussion Starter: Hospitality

As debates over mosque construction plans continue to make headlines, churches are asking how to reach out as new religions come to town. Heartsong Church in Tennessee and Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Virginia have hosted Muslim worship communities in their church buildings, prompting the question of how much hospitality is too much.

"The community is our parish; letting faith provoke us into creating a more just, peaceful community is another form of worship. I believe concerns about sacred-profane worship space are always in submission to Jesus' command to welcome the stranger and love our enemies."

Jason Micheli, pastor, Aldersgate United Methodist Church

"The church is a people, not a building. No place in the teaching of Jesus or the New Testament refers to the church as a place. The church is the faithful who spend life with Jesus together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is no space that is more sacred than any other on earth in itself."

Steve Stone, pastor, Heartsong Church

"Evangelicals are notoriously vague about what constitutes our sacred spaces. Whatever a congregation actually decides to do, the very question can be an important teaching moment. What does it mean to set apart a specific space for the worship of the true God?"

Richard Mouw, president, Fuller Theological Seminary

"While we desire to reach out at a personal level with love, it's not wise to ignore the spiritual realm. Before you do, stop, think, pray, and seek the Lord's discernment, because there are spiritual forces in these divergent theologies aligned against the very truth we preach."

Mark DeYmaz, directional leader, Mosaic Church

"Other faiths have used our church's coffeehouse for casual meetings, as that is public missional space. But we don't rent our space for formal meetings of other faiths in our sanctuary."

Dan Kimball, pastor, Vintage Faith Church

"Christians need to be stalwart advocates for religious freedom while not succumbing to the temptation of religious pluralism. People should be free to worship according to their convictions, but it's necessary to recognize that Christianity is not the same as other world religions."

Ed Stetzer, president, LifeWay Research

Related Elsewhere:

Scholar Jason Hood wrote as piece on this topic called "Muslims in Evangelical Churches" for CT's website in January with a response from pastor Steve Stone.

Earlier articles on Islam include:

The Son and the Crescent | Bible translations that avoid the phrase "Son of God" are bearing dramatic fruit among Muslims. But that translation has some missionaries and scholars dismayed. (February 4, 2011)

From Informant to Informer | The "son of Hamas" senses God in his life before coming to Christ. (June 8, 2010)

Bloggers Target Seminary President | Liberty's Ergun Caner accused of false statements in his testimony about converting from Islam. (May 3, 2010)

Previous topics for discussion included whether Christians are stingy, Christians should resist the TSA, Christians should ban Christmas carols with questionable theology, when life begins, whether Christians should denounce believers who vilify others, Christians must pray in public forums using Jesus' name, whether they have a responsibility to have children, whether churches should increase their 2011 operating budgets, a Protestant-less Supreme Court, Mother's Day worship, incorporating churches, whether evangelicals are doing a good job at racial integration, whether Christians should leave the American Medical Association, the most significant change in Christianity over the past decade, whether the Supreme Court should rule that memorial crosses are secular, multisite campuses vs. church plants, and whether Christians should fast during Ramadan with Muslims.

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March 2011, Vol. 55, No. 3

Comments (12)

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What does the Bible say on this matter?

March 21, 2011 10:52am

Christians are commanded to not provide hospitality to people that are preaching a false religion: "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 9Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ,does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works." (from 2 John)

Jane Hinrichs

March 19, 2011 5:39pm

While the Church is not a building, people outside the church see our Church Buildings as the Church as much as our own people. If we let others worship anyone other than Almighty God it appears to them we believe there is more than one way to heaven, that all faiths are equal. That being said, if a church owns a building that is rented out for all kinds of purposes and is not seen as the church to the community, than that is a different case.

Chad Almadani

March 18, 2011 11:16am

I agree with the above comments. We are now considered the temple of God and are considered to set our selves apart as holy people. we must demonstrate this publicly. I'm also against the idea of facilitating a setting for Islamic worship within a christian church because the trajectory could possibly push us to a Unitarian mindset. But this does raise an important matter. We do need to create a setting like the court of the gentiles in the Old Testament where the temple overlapped with the world. A transitional area where people move between the secular and the sacred. The setting would be a missional contextualized approach to engage with the world.

anns sam

March 18, 2011 12:31am

Would God the Father have allowed pagan worship inside His tabernacle? Jesus drove our vendors from the corridors of the temple...would He have allowed idols and imaginary gods to be praised in the same temple? How can we allow non-existent Gods to be praised in the same place as the one True and Living God? I cannot even imagine that.

Vincent L

March 17, 2011 8:22pm

How about thinking that, when we rent out our space (ie. space that we have control over) to organizations of other faiths to use, we are actually facilitating their worship of idols? This is not a case of "my god is better than your god", but if we love them enough, would we actually *want* to help them continue in their path of destruction?

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