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.
IIRC, Islam loses about 6,000 each day to Christianity. Their conversion numbers from Christianity are miniscule and are primarily women who marry a muslim.
There is a good deal of evidence that Christianity is eating Islam.
Hmmmm....
It's only recently (last 60 years), as a reflection of the idiotic western guilt about Slavery, that politicians and their negro cronies started using the history of bigotry during the 50's and 60's as a propaganda point.
Christian evangelism of Muslims must begin with the knowledge that Mohammed is not a prophet but was a thoroughly evil despot. He distorted the truth of the Judeo Christian world in a vain attempt to defeat and assimilate Jews and Christians.
The Crusades were Muslim invasions that were forced back by Christian nations and the Roman church. They were not Christian invasions. Christians never invaded the centers of Muslim nations, only those areas invaded first by Muslims.
The Muslim belief system must be treated for what it is, a thoroughly dark, malevolent, demon centered religion worthy of no respect by genuinely loving people. Until Muslims are confronted with the reality of their personal hell, enforced by their malicious religion, they will not experience their need for the salvation of Christ. More than any other culture of people Muslims stand in terror before their demiurge god. They must confronted by those who know the One True and loving God who stands before all of creation.
You make a great point. My perspective changed some when I realized that the vast majority of muslims are people born into this counterfeit religion and never hear the truth. For example, muhammed believed Christians viewed the Trinity as God the Father, Mary, and Jesus Christ. muhammed never had a copy of the Bible to draw on, but was influenced by radical heretics who denied that Jesus is God incarnate.
Who is Satan?
Such a response may be overly simplistic and naive. Actually, there are other, more specific reasons:
Qur’an:8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”
Qur’an:9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Qur’an:9:29 “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.” Qur’an:9:123 “Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.”
Qur’an:47:4 “When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle, smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them…Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.”
Obsolete verses? That 1400 year old view continues to 2010:
- “Arab and Muslim regimes are betraying their people by failing to confront the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.
- “All Muslims…crucially need to understand that (what) the (Muslim) nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.”
- Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, October 2010
"…democracy is…forbidden for Muslims…democracy (is) incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker… humans have no right to make laws."
(http://www.news.com.au/national/islamist-leader-burhan-hanif-tells-aussie-muslims-told-to-shun-democracy/story-e6frfkvr-1225887784755#ixzz0slho45BW)
>Muslims themselves are very open to Christianity.<
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With all due respect, I wish that you could give me proof of that.
Having lived in Muslim countries for 25 years, I have never seen evidence that Muslims are even interested in Christianity.
Do you see evidence of it in our free society where any Muslim can pick up a Bible and study it, unhindered by their co-religionists?
Wow. A lot to read. (though I know most of it)
The Antichrist will only be able to take the seat in the temple of God in Jerusalem and declare himself God because a majority of the people have become antichrist.
Also, it is possible that the Antichrist will not be just one person, but a very tightknit group of say, 3 people. Just in what you quoted, there are at least TWO, the Dragon and the Beast. Isn’t there also a harlot?
One of them will be the Leader, as far as the public is concerned, so he could be labeled the Antichrist.
At any rate, the Antichrist (whether one person or several) will have the ‘power’ of all the humans who have become antichrist. I think that is what is being explained by the Dragon giving the Beast power. The Dragon controls the populace, and gives the power to the Beast (making the populace do whatever the Beast wants).
Basically, we agree, don’t you think?
It's probably pretty wise on their part.
Because of the way islam treats any who disagree I believe individuals can only be reached in small groups, or one on one. Unfortunately, because so little of the truth about Christianity reaches Islamic countries the majority of muslims have no idea how the Scripture have bee perverted by islam.
Suppose you knew the asnwer to this question. Would your head be better attached to your neck after being savagely attacked by throwbacks to the 9th centruy, or would you like to carry your lunch to school?
I thought that Marilyn Manson was Satan.
Just a thought, but after God had Israel taken into the Babylonian captivity the Jews never practiced idolatry again. Maybe God is allowing Satan to use Islam to cleanse Christians in the same way.
Which should make Christians very eager to embrace any converts and invite them into their lives. These are people (converts to Christianity) that have lost everything in pursuit of the Truth.
Matt 10:14 And whoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
In other words, present the gospel and if they do not recieve it, MOVE ON! To shake off the dust from the feet was a significant act, denoting that they regarded them as impure, profane, and paganish, and that they declined any further connection with them. It is recorded that this was actually done by some of the apostles. See Acts 13:51; Acts 18:6.
We can present the gospel, but we ONLY sow the seed, It is the Holy Spirit who makes the heart “fertile” or not.
Even though it is very plain from scripture, that was hard for me to understand. I wasted alot of time with various people, beating them over the head with the gospel, to no avail, and always thinking maybe if I presented it another way they would “get” it. I have since wised up.
In one of Joel Rosenberg’s nonfiction books (Epicenter?), he recounts several instances of Christ appearing to muslims in remote villages and converting them. So He is opening the path.
Amen.
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