Posted on 04/09/2011 10:24:59 AM PDT by wmfights
The future shape of the world appears to be a worldview competition between Christianity, Islam, and Western Secularism. For Christians, both of these worldviews represent real and lasting challenges to evangelism. Neither of these is a particularly new challenge, and the Christian encounter with Islam is now over a millennium in duration.
Writing over thirty years ago, when most American evangelicals had little knowledge of Islam, missiologist J. Herbert Kane of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outlined six reasons why the evangelization of the Muslim world has been so difficult. His explanation of “Why the Muslim Soil is So Barren” remains both instructive and important.
1. Islam is Younger than Christianity
Having borrowed from both Judaism and Christianity, Islam “has just enough Christianity in it to inoculate it against the real thing.” As with Mormonism, Muslims claim a later revelation that corrects and supersedes the Bible. This represents a very real challenge to the Christian, who will base the argument for the Gospel on the biblical revelation.
2. Islam Denies the Deity and the Death of Christ
Islam not only denies the deity of Christ, it finds the idea abhorrent. “If a missionary but mentions the deity of Christ the fanatical Muslim is likely to spit on his shadow to show his utter contempt for such a blasphemous suggestion.” Furthermore, the Qur’an denies that Christ actually died on the cross, thus taking away the very act of our atonement. “There appears to be no way around these two obstacles,” Kane lamented. “The Christian missionary can find many points of similarity between Christianity and Islam, and certainly he will want to make full use of these; but sooner or later he must come to the central theme of the gospel — the cross. At that point he runs into a stone wall. He can remove many offending things, but he can never do away with the offense of the cross. That and the deity of Christ are hurdles that can never be removed.”
3. Islam’s Treatment of Defectors
“All religions, including the broadest of them — Hinduism — look with disfavor on the devotee who changes his religion,” Kane advised. “But it remained for Islam to devise the Law of Apostasy, which permits the community to kill the adherent who defects from the faith.”
For Islam, “conversion is a one-way street.” Even when death is not a real threat, losing the bonds of community and family are huge costs.
4. The Solidarity of Muslim Society
Even where Muslims are not in a majority, such as in Western nations, they often concentrate in specific areas or communities where this solidarity can be approximated.
Under such an arrangement, efforts by Christians to evangelize meet a unified resistance, and a decision to leave Islam can be construed as an unpatriotic act, tantamount to rejecting one’s nation and people.
5. The Public Practice of Religion
Often overlooked by many Christians is the fact that a faithful Muslim demonstrates that faithfulness in a public pattern of prayers and observances. A convert who ceases these observances becomes immediately evident. This system of public prayer and ritual represents a powerful support for Islam and a powerful deterrent to conversion to any other belief system.
6. The Memory of the Crusades
As Kane explains, “To Christians in the West the Crusades were a bad dream, of which we have only the faintest recollection; but to the Arabs they are the greatest proof of the Christian hatred for Islam.” Christians bear the burden of a long and intensely bitter Muslim memory. Though atrocities were common on both sides, the atrocities committed by Christians were uniquely a repudiation of central Christian teachings.
In the mind of many Muslims, the Crusades feel like a living memory. To many within the Islamic world, Christians remain Crusaders, and evangelism is just another way of continuing the crusading mission.
Professor Kane’s breakdown of these obstacles is not only interesting and helpful, it also serves as a reminder that these issues are hardly new. At the same time, Christians must evangelize, no matter the obstacles to Christian witness.
Christians must remember that the Holy Spirit can break down the greatest wall of resistance and the Word of God is, as He says, like a hammer that shatters a rock. Dr. Kane’s arguments help us to understand the challenge, but were not meant to suppress evangelism. To the contrary, he wanted the church to be better informed as we fulfill the command of Christ.
The antichrist spirit is present, as you say, and has always been present.
Everyone wants to know WHO the ANTICHRIST is, and what they don't understand is that everyone has the potential to be 'antichrist'.
When enough people become anti-christ, the battle is over and so , in a sense, the 'end' has come.
Maybe it's already happened. We can't really get a good tally on who's 'good' and who's 'evil' so we will never really know when IT happens. It's not like there will be an announcement.
Because many Muslims believe (and practice) that those who convert from Islam should be killed. I have friends in Islamic countries who are open with me about their non-Muslim status... but they are very careful not to allow such status to get anywhere close to public knowledge locally.
It's only recently (last 60 years), as a reflection of the idiotic western guilt about the Crusades, that muslims started using the history of the crusades as a propaganda point.
Heck, we've had religions in the US that kill their own followers.
To know how those teachings came to be and what they reguire you to believe for them to be considered true is enough to reject them.
islam claims that the koran is a word for word copy of the koran that sits in front of allah in heaven. The words were supposedly given to muhammed by the Angel Gabriel over a 20 yr period. In islam the principle of abrogation is foundational. This belief is that a later revelation supersedes an earlier revelation. If you hold to this belief (which muslims do) then their god can change his mind at anytime and there is no fixed truth, it can always be changed by a later revelation.
Agreed.... also does seem to be a slow steady lifting away of the Holy Spirit as the west continues to attack Christianity and deny God His rightful place.
Reminds me of when God kept warning Israel to trun back to Him....then He began leaving the temple in slow movements....pausing and speaking as He went to see if they were even paying attention that He was leaving.
God is also taking His hand off America and leaving man to have his own way. We know the ultimate end for this.
Good answers both.
I think the answer may be very, very simple. Because of the nature of islam, and the way apostates are treated, one has to go against their own survival instinct to turn on islam and move to the light. You have to be very willing to give not only your own life, but that of your loved ones.
If you haven’t listened to John MacArthur’s sermon, “A Nation Abandoned by God,” you should Google it.
It has been my experience that it is not the everyday Muslims who believe they must kill infidels. It is their LEADERS in their Religion controlled Government who know that if Christianity is allowed to flourish, it would interfere with their POWER BASE. It would eventually lead to separating the POWERS(leaders) of CHURCH and STATE.
The Mullahs absolutely do not want that to happen, and will keep it from happening no matter who they have to kill.
...”then their god can change his mind at anytime and there is no fixed truth, it can always be changed by a later revelation.”
Exactly, but when you attempt to argue this point denial of this truth flows hard and strong. Their minds cannot digest this for if it were to do that then all of Islam could be a lie to them.
ping islam vs Christianity
What a great point!
In the rewritten Bible of islam it is Ishmael that Abraham is going to sacrifice and it is Ishmael that is given the inheritance.
Islam was brought to the world by Satan, and those who are enslaved to this belief and it's originator are the epitome of the spiritually dead.
You are so spot on.
When muhammed was given the first revelation he fell to the ground in a cave and was foaming at the mouth. He thought he was possessed by a demon and told his wife. She had him talk to monk who convinced him he was a prophet. I think his first thought was correct.
Thank you, will do.
Islam is Satan’s invention, and he uses fear to keep his victims in line.
Their prophet, Mohammed (sp? like I care) RULED by COMPULSION.
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2009/05/terrifying-brilliance-of-islam.html
3.... The Quran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or “modernize” any of the teachings within the idea-collection. It is perfect as it is. It is a capital sin to try to do so. This idea ensures the preservation of the whole collection.
These first three ideas are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting...
4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most ingenious ideas in the whole collection. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.
Islam has a system of law, called Sharia, and all Muslims are obligated to continually strive to make their government — wherever they are — follow it. Because of some of the other ideas added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the idea-collection has significant consequences. Not only is this perhaps Islam’s most brilliant innovation, it is also the most terrifying to non-Muslims. Read more about the political nature of the core doctrines of Islam.
5. Permission to spread the religion by war. This is another brilliant innovation. Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines to do so.
Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the idea-collection. Islamic teachings present it this way: The poor non-Muslims not living in an Islamic state need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah’s. If they won’t voluntarily change their laws to Sharia, then it is the duty of Muslim warriors to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah.
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2009/05/terrifying-brilliance-of-islam.html
3.... The Quran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or “modernize” any of the teachings within the idea-collection. It is perfect as it is. It is a capital sin to try to do so. This idea ensures the preservation of the whole collection.
These first three ideas are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting...
4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most ingenious ideas in the whole collection. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.
Islam has a system of law, called Sharia, and all Muslims are obligated to continually strive to make their government — wherever they are — follow it. Because of some of the other ideas added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the idea-collection has significant consequences. Not only is this perhaps Islam’s most brilliant innovation, it is also the most terrifying to non-Muslims. Read more about the political nature of the core doctrines of Islam.
5. Permission to spread the religion by war. This is another brilliant innovation. Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines to do so.
Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the idea-collection. Islamic teachings present it this way: The poor non-Muslims not living in an Islamic state need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah’s. If they won’t voluntarily change their laws to Sharia, then it is the duty of Muslim warriors to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah.
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