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The Audacity of 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.
I am from northern Nigeria. My home state is in the region that has been characterized by incessant religious violence between Muslims and Christians. Today, the city of Kaduna, which used to be the symbol of national unity and integration, is divided into two parts. A river running through the center of the city creates a natural demarcation. All the Christians live on the southern side of the river while Muslims have migrated to the northern side. Prior to 2001 Muslims and Christians used to mix and live in an integrated community. But the Shari'a violence that broke out in 2001, which led to the slaughtering of Christians, has created deep fears and permanent division. The only thing that can break this dividing wall is dialogue.
"A theology that does not dialogue is a death theology," argues Jürgen Moltmann. Mission and theology are twins. Therefore they are inseparable. Both can only be alive and well when they dialogue with other theistic faiths: Islam and Judaism.
So Chawkat Moucarry is not far from the truth when he says for the Christian, "Dialogue is a way of life." The plain truth is that Christians are apologists in every sense of the word (1 Pet. 3:15). When Jesus sent out his disciples on their first missionary expedition, the instruction he gave them implied dialogue: "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. … I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent [harmless] as doves" (Matt. 10:11-13, 16; NIV).
In Nigeria, the perspectives and resultant attitudes of some Muslims make dialogue a daunting job. Dr. Musa Gotom, former general secretary of the Churches of Christ in Nigeria, once pointed out to me, "Here in the North [of Nigeria] there is no dialogue."
In 2009, for instance, we had Boko Haram sectarian violence. Boko Haram, which means "western education is evil," was part of the larger agenda of Muslims to reform Islam and situate Islam in its glorious economic and political past. The Boko Haram group was reacting to the West's continuous control of global economic and political power.
The Boko Haram are not alone in expressing their displeasure over Western globalization of economy and politics, which often benefits the West to the detriment of the Third World. Muslims tend to look at it from cultural and religious perspectives, resulting in seeing Christians in the Third World as co-conspirators with the West. This situation has made it extremely difficult for Muslims to be willing to dialogue with Christians.
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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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