Christianity and Islam, the world’s top two faiths in numbers of adherents, have clashed off and on for centuries, and there still is plenty of suspicion on both sides. Islam’s power is growing throughout the world as both a spiritual and political force. Some Muslim extremists take direct aim at the decadence of the West through well-placed bombs and threats of terrorism. Meanwhile, many Muslims believe they are under threat from the militarily superior West.
In the face of such tensions, about 75 leaders of parachurch, missionary, and church mission groups gathered in January to chart not confrontation, but evangelism. Missionaries to Muslims called for dialogue, not demonizing.
“We need an attitude that’s constructive and Christlike,” said Bryant Myers of World Vision, a co-organizer of the International Briefing on Islam and Christian Mission in Colorado Springs. “We need to have a crucified mind instead of a crusade mind.”
Today, rather than weapons, the tactics of persuasion are high-tech, and sometimes even subversive. For example, evangelical parachurch groups working in Islamic countries often find themselves shadowed by representatives of “paramosque” groups, which receive funding from oil-rich Arab countries, mimic Christian groups’ successful humanitarian efforts, and seek to force evangelicals out of their countries.
Co-organizer Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the London-based Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, spoke against “a crusade mentality whereby we see Muslims as enemies.” A Muslim convert to Christianity, Sookhdeo expressed sadness over the legacy of the crusades, which began 900 years ago and concluded nearly 200 bloody years later.
“Of the past we can only repent,” he said. “In the present we must ensure that all we do is done in a Christlike way.”
DIFFERENCES REMAIN: Nobody at the conference suggested Christians and Muslims ignore their differences and embrace in a cozy, universalistic hug. For although the two faiths have common roots in Jewish Scriptures and Middle Eastern geography, they have contrasting views of how to serve God and competing visions of how to order human affairs.
As this millennium nears its end, Islam is now the majority faith in more than 50 countries. Christians in some Islamic-dominated nations have been tortured and executed, either as a result of state blasphemy laws or as government-sanctioned intimidation. In January, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) urged President Clinton to confront “reigns of terror initiated by authorities who feel threatened by Christian faith and worship.”
A PERSECUTED MINORITY: It is in predominantly Muslim countries in Asia and Africa where Christians suffer some of the worst persecution at the hands of self-appointed defenders of Allah. In Northern Nigeria, for example, a military dictatorship with powerful Islamic ties, is trying to root out Christians.
“We live as second-class citizens in our own countries because we are Christians,” Josiah Fearon, Anglican bishop of Sokoto in Nigeria, told the conference. Fearon urged American believers to be cognizant of and responsive to the plight of fellow believers in the Islamic world.
“When a Muslim turns to Christ, he loses virtually everything, so his faith is doubly costly,” Fearon said. “We want to feel as if we belong to the same body.”
Fearon encouraged Western believers to enter into long-term relationships with Christian churches and agencies in Muslim-dominated countries. He said financial aid is needed for educating pastors, constructing churches, supplying theological literature, and defending persecuted believers in court.
While Christians overseas would like assistance in spreading the faith, Carl Ellis, director of Chattanooga-based Project Joseph, noted that Islam is gaining ground in the United States. Ellis attended last October’s Million Man March in Washington, D.C., organized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
“Islam is here, it’s on our doorstep, and we need to take it seriously,” said Ellis, author of the new InterVarsity book “Free at Last.” Ellis said that Islam is attractive to many Americans–black and white–who see Christianity as spiritually bankrupt.
DIFFERING STRATEGIES: Organizers of the conference, financed by the Maclellan Foundation and administered by Leadership Network, sought a unified vision for Christian mission to Muslims. But such unity seems elusive.
One group promoted a planned satellite television system that would beam Christian entertainment and teaching to millions of homes in countries that prohibit evangelism. Some participants argued in favor of the NAE’s effort to press the government to defend Christians in other countries, but legal scholar Lynn Buzzard cautioned that such efforts could be counterproductive. “If religious liberty becomes an American agenda, that only exacerbates the problem and creates the perception that Christianity equals the West, and that this is all about America versus the Arabs.”
Others discussed new approaches, such as prayer walks and various activities organized under the banners of the 10/40 Window or AD2000, but those measures received criticism from some participants as “flavor-of-the-month evangelism.”
“We American believers want to stay in our local congregations and reach the world, but that’s too big a leap,” said World Vision’s Myers. “What we need is a relational link, where you work together as two parts of the family of God over a long period of time.”
At least one veteran of Muslim missions declined to attend, saying it only reinforced an outmoded and ineffective paradigm. Citing reports that up to 90 percent of Muslims who convert to Christianity return to Islam, this Christian worker said many Western efforts promote a distinctly Western form of “churchianity,” not a well-rounded and culturally relevant form of Christianity.
Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
