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Building a Common Society
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.
Of late, dialogue between Muslims and Western Christian academicians has moved from defensive polemics to more constructive discourse that seeks to achieve mutual understanding. Every effort is made to set aside inaccurate stereotypes of Islam so that it is judged in the best possible light. The commitment on both sides to dialogue and to exploring how to live together based on newfound commonality has raised optimism.
Nevertheless, Christians living in Muslim majority countries remain guarded. Optimism comes naturally when one is theorizing within the safe and comfortable confines of Western universities. The fact is, Muslims are more interested in pursuing dialogue with Western Christians because dialogue confers recognition and this is what Islamic scholars want from the West. However, dialogue with local Christians is avoided as Muslims are reluctant to confer recognition to the local Christian community.
Dialogue beneath the Gothic arches of Western universities should be welcomed, but surely genuine dialogue would gain more credence if it took place at the ground level, especially in countries where Islamic authorities do not feel the need to modulate their power so as to present an acceptable face, as they would when dealing with their Western counterparts. If indeed dialogue takes place, the Islamic authorities typically set the terms of engagement, reducing it to social rituals to confirm the dominance of Islam rather than to promote mutual understanding and respect. Naturally, local Christians lose enthusiasm for "dialogue."
A case studyI shall focus on the situation in Malaysia as a case study to explain the ambivalence of Christian minority groups toward Christian-Muslim dialogue.
To begin with, Malaysian Christians are intimidated by the battery of existing laws that may be used against them if they express frank opinions in dialogue. But honesty also requires local Christians to admit to a lack of confidence arising from a shortage of trained experts who can present their case persuasively, using the language of public discourse. Consequently, Christians tend to prefer to practice their faith in private rather than to engage in open dialogue. In the process the Malaysian church ends up sounding like a feeble voice crying in the wilderness at the margin of society—or ends up having no voice at all.
Nevertheless, Christians should enter the fray of national debates regarding civil society and nation-building. Failure to do so results in a de facto surrendering of the public sphere to the dominant majority.
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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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