Christians and Muslims

Some barriers are cultural rather than theological.

There are between 600 and 700 million Muslims in the world, and Islam has been more resistant to the Gospel than any other ethnic religion. Indeed, Muslims regard Islam as superior to Christianity: “As Christianity superseded Judaism, so Islam has superseded Christianity,” they say. Now too there is a resurgence of Islamic faith, even in the West. In the United States, for example, the Muslim Students’ Association claims 117 campus groups, while in England the Ahmadiyya sect is investing about two million dollars on a program to “evangelize” Britain, including “committed Christians.”

At the same time, especially in situations of social change, there is among Muslims a new openness to the Gospel. We await with great expectation, therefore, the outcome of the North American Conference on Muslim Evangelization that was to be held October 15 and 21 in Colorado Springs. Jointly sponsored by the North American Lausanne Committee and by World Vision International, and directed by Donald McCurry, it was to bring together 150 key men and women deeply concerned to bring the Gospel to Muslims.

In the Middle East the largest Christian contact with Muslims is that of the ancient Orthodox Churches. But, generally speaking, these churches do not see themselves as having an evangelistic task. “We have coexisted beautifully with Islam for 1300 years,” an Orthodox Archbishop said to me a few months ago. He hoped that such peaceful coexistence would continue. But it was being disturbed by “Protestants” (a big enough umbrella to cover even Jehovah’s Witnesses), who were distributing propaganda tracts in the villages; it had to be explained to the Ministry of the Interior that they were “agents from the other side” (i.e. Israel). The Orthodox Churches were letting their light shine, but not preaching. “Are any Muslims coming to Christ through this light?” I asked.

“Many buy and read Bibles, and want to become Christians, but it is forbidden.”

“You mean that baptisms are forbidden? But are there no secret conversions?”

“No, definitely there are no conversions at all; the government does not allow conversions.”

“I expect the Archbishop means that the government allows no open conversions,” I persisted, “but surely the government cannot legislate for the work of the Holy Spirit?” My point was not conceded, however.

An exception to this Orthodox nonexpectation of Muslim evangelization is Dr. Charles Malik, well known to readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY as a former contributor and as a past president of the United Nations General Assembly. He has recently retired from the chair of philosophy in the American University of Beirut. “I am a Trinitarian Christian,” he had said to the architect designing his house, “and I wish this to be reflected in the building.” He is a Chalcedonian Christian, too. So one side of his home is fitted with a series of three windows, each with three panels, while the windows on another side contain both a central cross and two stone supports symbolizing the two natures of Christ.

We sat on the terrace in the hot sunshine, beneath the Chalcedonian windows, drinking Turkish coffee and listening uneasily to the intermittent gunfire in the middle distance. Malik spoke with passionate conviction about the necessity of defending Christianity in Lebanon. “There is nothing like it anywhere in Africa or Asia, this long Christian tradition rooted deeply in the soil of our Lebanese villages. Surely Western governments are not so bankrupt of wisdom that they will allow a Christian culture to be destroyed for the sake of Arab oil?” I then asked him how he could see the Muslim world penetrated for Jesus Christ. “There must be missionaries,” he replied, “humble, suffering missionaries, to live there, to witness there, to suffer there, and to die there. There is no other way.”

I think I detect among evangelicals a new sensitivity, both theological and cultural, in our attitudes to the evangelization of Muslims. The bad old days of bitter polemic against Mohammed and Islam are, I hope, over. Even direct confrontation between Bible and Koran, between Jesus and Mohammed, is not likely to prove the most fruitful approach. Instead there is a humble desire to build bridges. Bishop Kenneth Cragg writes of “the Christian potential of the Koran,” and of the “convertibility” of those elements in Islam that are not incompatible with the Gospel. He wants to persuade Muslims that “Christ is the conclusion of their own logic.” Another brother, a national of a Middle Eastern country, although determined not to compromise any biblical essentials, has yet developed “seven fundamental principles” that he sees as common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These include the great truths that God created and loves man, that man is separated from God by sin, that sin can be removed only by faith not by works, and that Jesus is the Saviour who died and rose to redeem us. Each of his seven propositions is supported by appropriate quotations from Towrah (the law), Zabur (the Psalms), Injeel (the New Testament), and Qur’an.

The highest barriers that keep Muslims from faith in Jesus are cultural rather than theological, however: “people reject the gospel not because they think it is false, but because it strikes them as alien. They imagine that in order to become Christians they must renounce their own culture, lose their own identity and betray their own people” (Pasadena Statement 1977). The very word Christian is associated in a Muslim’s mind with all that he abominates most—the memory of those brutal Crusades, the materialism and moral decadence of the West, and our (to him) incredible espousal of Zionist imperialism. It is inconceivable to him that he should ever betray his Islamic inheritance. To become a Christian would be treason as well as apostasy, and would deserve the death penalty. So the question is whether a whole new way of presenting the Gospel can be developed. Can we show that “however much new converts feel they need to renounce for the sake of Christ, they are still the same people with the same heritage and the same family” (Willowbank Report), and that “conversion does not unmake, it remakes” (Kenneth Cragg)? Is it possible to conceive of converts becoming followers of Jesus without so forsaking their Islamic culture that they are regarded as traitors? Can we even contemplate Jesus mosques instead of churches and Jesus Muslims instead of Christians? It is with radical questions like these that the October conference was to grapple.

Neither theological bridges nor cultural sensitivity alone will win Muslims to Jesus Christ, however. The only way to a Muslim’s heart is love. “We Christians have lived alongside Muslims in this country for over 1,000 years,” an Egyptian Christian said to me in slightly broken English, “but we still hate and despise their religion. We ought rather to show our Christianship by our active love.”

Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, himself a convert from Islam and now Anglican Bishop in Iran, has expressed it admirably in his autobiography Design of My World (1959): “Words alone cannot bring the Muslim to the foot of the Cross.… Christians must show in their lives how Christianity is in truth the incarnation of the love of God. Most of the Muslims I know who have followed Christ have done so because of the sacrificial life and sustained love of some Christian friend. You cannot bring the Muslim to Christ unless you love him personally.”

John R. W. Stott is rector emeritus of All Souls Church, London, England.

John R. W. Stott (1921 – 2011) is known worldwide as a preacher, evangelist, author, and theologian. For 66 years he served All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London, England, where he pioneered effective urban evangelistic and pastoral ministry. During these years he authored more than 50 books, and served as one of the original Contributing Editors for Christianity Today. Stott had a global vision and built strong relationships with church leaders outside the West in the Majority World. A hallmark of Stott's ministry was his vision for expository biblical preaching that addresses the hearts and minds of contemporary men and women. In 1969 he founded a trust that eventually became Langham Partnership International (www.langham.org), a ministry that continues his vision of partnership with the Majority World Church. Stott was honored by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

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