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Experiencing Dialogue
A response to Chawkat Moucarry's 'A Lifelong Journey with Islam'
To facilitate a truly global conversation, we ask Christian leaders from around the world to respond to the Global Conversation's lead articles. These points of view do not necessarily represent Christianity Today magazine or the Lausanne Movement. They are designed to stimulate discussion from all points of the compass and from different segments of the Christian community. Please add your perspective by posting a comment so that we can learn and grow together in the unity of the Spirit.
Commending Jesus Christ is my yearning in the many opportunities for dialogue that I experience. "A Lifelong Journey with Islam" is just that kind of winsome defense for a dialogical engagement with Muslims that commends Christ. That I affirm. So rather than reiterate the themes Moucarry has developed, this response will be a reflection on some four decades of personal dialogical engagement with Muslims. My lively engagement with Muslims commenced in the early 1960s when our family joined a mission team in Somalia, which was 100 percent Sunni Muslim. We realized the calling to bear witness among Muslims would involve long-term immersion within Muslim society with a lively Christ-centered dialogical engagement.
Presence and Dialogue in a Restrictive Context: SomaliaOur mission had already been in Somalia for a decade when we arrived. The excellent schools and medical programs the mission had developed earned trust and appreciation. Then the first Somalis became believers. Their exuberant but insensitive efforts to share the treasure of the gospel brought strong repercussions. One of the mission team was killed by a self-appointed jihadist, the mission was closed for three months, and the religious freedom that the constitution of newly independent Somalia guaranteed was changed to make it illegal to propagate any religion except the "true religion of Islam." The department of education assigned faculty to teach Islam in each of our schools. While we were considered honored guests, we were greatly restricted.
Yet the Holy Spirit was not bound, and "Nicodemus" persons sought us out inquiring about the gospel. Although public dialogue was impossible, our servant ministry "was a letter from Christ" (2 Cor. 3:3) read by much of the Somali nation. We were a dialogical presence. God was very important for Somali Muslims; occasionally we sat in the tea shops in the evenings with friends; inevitably the conversation became an informal dialogue. Some of those engagements I will never forget, especially explorations of the nature of the peace of Islam in comparison to the peace of the gospel! Our Muslim colleagues had never before had the opportunity to engage Christians about their faith. Remarkably the Holy Spirit called forth unobtrusive fellowships of believers in the locations where we as well as a sister Protestant mission served.
Then a Marxist coup overturned the democratically elected government of Somalia. Before long all Westerners had to leave. It was the Marxist, not the Muslim authorities who required our mission to leave.
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M. P. Hixson
Love, I am convinced, is the only vehicle by which a Muslim can be touched by the gospel. Without ever showing love how can we expect a person to embrace Jesus the Christ, who is love? So how does one show love to a Muslim? I believe Moucarry gave a wonderful example of how to love an unloved people group: dialoging. When a Muslim senses that what he or she believes, thinks, and feels is valued by us, then they are for sure more apt to be open to relationships and idea sharing. The danger, however, for me is to expect quick results. Being an American I sometimes want result very fast, but with the issue of dialoging with Muslims this simply cannot be an expectation. It takes time, patience, and lots of listening before results (and by results I mean conversion) to take root. Nevertheless, the Scriptures tell us that when love is our method, then Christ is exalted and He will make Himself know to those who earnestly seek Him. We must simply proved a way for people to begin the seeking.
Diji Ladeji
We should love the muslim and pray for their salvation, we shold also make's as our point of duty to take the gospel to the muslim since that is the only way of savaltion. we should pray that their eye may be open to the truth of the gospel. God help our friends muslims all over the world to know you trutly.
R. Bryant
In response to Telliwel Bah post on February 24 it’s true that dialogue can cause us to consider things we may have never thought of before, but is that bad? What is wrong with learning what other people believe about their religion, being forced to think of things that we have never thought of before, and then going away to study the answer? Let’s face it, most of us don’t know the scriptures like we should and if it takes a muslim questioning what we believe to force us to learn more, how is that wrong? We should always be ready to give an answer for the faith we have within us, even if that means saying that we will study it more and give them an answer tomorrow.
Michael Tripet, United States
Polemics is the idea of waging war against the Muslims by attacking their religion. As stated this does not work. This type of response creates more heat than light. So, in witnessing to Muslims we cannot attack them, because they will only attack back. So, we are to love them, just as we do all people. We need to express our love to them. This is what Christianity has to offer that no other religion has, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. This is how we will win the world for Christ. We will not win others to Christ through our persuasive augments of apologetics and philosophy, convincing others of our error. It is by our expression of love. In the book the unexpected journey, Rainer interview Christians who came to Christ from various other religions and cults. The common theme every conversion was that they saw in Christians something different. And that difference was genuine love for each other and for them as a human being and a non-believer.
Jesse Hendrix, USA
This is a response to Telliwel Bah's post that was made on February 24. In it he said that for true dialogue to happen you must be willing in principle to change/modify your beliefs. He then seemed to indicate that this should cause us to be wary of dialogue. I do not think that we need to be fearful of dialogue. If we are confident in our faith and have searched out the reasons for why we believe what we do, then we will be able to handle most objections to Christianity that come up. If an objection comes up that we have not yet encountered it will be good exercise for us to seek out a proper response, both for the sake of ourselves and for the person who posed the objection.
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