I was asked the following questions by an undergraduate student at Elon University in 2018.
How do you think Christians have reached out to the Muslim-American community in the past 20 years?
There has been a long history of Christian-Muslim interaction that dates before the founding of the United States with early interactions within Muhammad’s lifetime and through later significant Christian leaders like John of Damascus (d. 749 A.D.) and Raymond Lull (d.1316). In the early part of the twentieth century, American Christians, particularly Presbyterians, were sending missionaries into the Muslim world. Samuel Zwemer who traveled the Muslim world and taught at Princeton University is a pillar and example for the Church who lived during this time period. Zwemer was a scholar who apologetically and polemically responded to Islamic beliefs with the love of Christ. Other notable Christian scholars such J. Dudley Woodberry, Senior Professor of Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary, has written extensively on the Church’s mission to Muslims. Yet, with all these, it can be said that in the overall history of Christian missions, missionaries to Muslim communities have languished. The reasons for this lack of interaction are many, but in the last twenty years, there have been many changes that have increased the number of Christians interacting with Muslims in the name of Jesus.
At my organization, Crescent Project, our founder, Fouad Masri often tells the Church that “more Muslims have come to faith in Jesus Christ in the last 20 years than in the last 1400 years!” The statistics for this claim are backed up by researchers such as Jim Haney, Director of Global Research at the International Mission Board, which are published in the book, A Wind in the House of Islam, by David Garrison. While this book emphasizes that Christ is drawing Muslims to Himself across the globe, America is also feeling the changing effects of the global migrations of Muslim immigrants who have flooded the U.S. for the purpose of education, business, and as refugees over the last twenty years. While it was once true that Christians had to travel across the world to engage Muslims with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, now the world has come to the American Church. Peoples Next Door with the Baptist Convention of NC has performed significant ethnographic research across NC and in other metro areas such as Washington D.C. that details the presence of major Muslim people groups living in the U.S. While this research is far from encompassing and Muslim communities are growing so quickly across the U.S. that such research is almost impossible, the information we have was simply unavailable twenty years ago. The late Nabeel Qureshi who worked with RZIM, often told local churches that “we are the God chosen generation to respond to Islam and Muslims.” Christian apologist Jay Smith says that the Church is the only institution in our society who can respond to Islam and Muslims because government institutions are constrained by political correctness in how they cannot respond to Islamic claims. Truly we are living in the most significant historical time of Christian-Muslim relations that provides an amazing opportunity for the American Church to interact with Muslims and respond to Islamic religious claims.
With such a remarkable time as this, how is the American Church doing in reaching out to the Muslim community in the US? While there has been a significant increase in local churches mobilizing their people to interact with the Muslim community, the progress has been slow. Many Christians and churches are unsure of the unknowns of Islam and Muslims. This lack of knowledge in local churches manifests itself in fear but mostly in apathy. Many pastors and church leaders do not see the significance of the various Muslim people groups living in the U.S that have been labeled “unreached people groups” by Missiologists such as Ralph Winter. It must be acknowledged that every church and every Christian cannot reasonably be expected to be motivated and burdened to engage the Muslim community, but surely there could be more Christian involvement.
Positively, since September 11, 2001 Muslims are now on the radar for many Christians in a way they were not before. This is illustrated by Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, who in their book, Answering Islam, point out that only around 20,000 books were sold between its first publishing in 1993 to 2001, but around 22,000 copies were sold in the first two months after September 11. More and more Christians are willing to talk about their fears and understanding, many times mis-understanding of Muslims. Though the discussion regarding Islam pre-September 11 was limited, this conversation among Christians, churches, and seminaries has significantly increased. While Columbia International University’s Zwemer Center and Fuller Theological Seminary’s Intercultural Studies department have long been recognized for their emphasis on Muslim Studies, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently opened the Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam in 2014 and other Christian centers for the study of Islam have been founded in London, UK and Melbourne, Australia. Crescent Project is celebrating its 25th anniversary and has trained thousands of Christians to love Muslims and many of these opportunities came after 2001. With Nabeel Qureshi’s book, Seeking Allah Finding Jesus, making it to the New York Times Bestseller list, more and more Christians are realizing the need and the opportunity to tell Muslims about their greatest treasure, Jesus Christ.
Have their (Christians) attitudes shifted?
As previously pointed out, Christians are increasingly conversing and learning more about Islam and Muslims with the goal of engaging them with the Gospel message. Having deep conversations about Islam and Muslims through books, studies and seminars, and seminary classes is moving the Church to the next level of actual engagement with the Muslim community. Crescent Project offers a six-week study called the Bridges Study, which introduces Christians to the history of Islam, Muslim beliefs and practices, and how to love and share the Christian Gospel with the Muslim community. Within Crescent Project’s study, the Christian’s “attitude” is directly confronted in session three which is entitled “Attitudes of an Ambassador.” This chapter challenges Christians to represent Jesus via being His ambassador to Muslims by engaging them with a loving, friendly, bridging, and biblical mindset. In 2017, after completing our Bridges Study, one Christian man admitted to me that before the class, he really did not like Muslims, maybe even hated Muslims. But post the study, he was convicted of his ungodly attitude and now he not only loves and prays for Muslims, but he has even had a Muslim Pakistani family into his home. Stories such as this one are happening across the U.S. and many have been documented by Crescent Project since its inception in 1993.
Recently, the conservative media and administration has discriminated Muslim-Americans. Do you agree this aligns with how the Christian church should respond to Muslims?
There are many “conservative media” organizations that report on Islamic activities in the U.S. and around the world such as Fox News. There are also non-profit think tanks who hire researchers to write on concerning issues revolving around Islam in the US and around the world such as the Middle Eastern Institute, the Middle Eastern Forum, Clarion Project, and the Gatestone Institute. John Esposito from Georgetown University has long been a critic of conservative media promoting “Islamophobia” in the U.S. and around the world. Christians and churches are wise to think through the claims of every media institution regarding the subject of Islam, whether the media organization is labeled conservative, liberal, or somewhere in the middle.
The battle between the late Jewish scholar Bernard Lewis from Princeton University and the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said from Chicago University may serve as a window into the bigger debate of what is often simply called “discrimination” against Islam by some groups. Discrimination is defined in different ways and is often very subjective. Said wrote a book called Orientalism that literally changed the face of Middle Eastern Studies in the US and around the world. As a literary critic, Said claimed that all of Western textual history (oxidant) regarding the East and Islamic history (orient) was flawed and viewed through the lens of imperialism, racism, and superiority. Lewis was very vocal in his disagreement with Said’s view of oriental history from a Western perspective. This great debate has influenced many universities, churches, and even media institutions whether they know it or not. Media organizations and journalists of the Lewis flavor may criticize Islam and its history, while media organizations of the Said persuasion may be more critical of anyone or any institution who speaks negatively about Islam and Muslims. Media organizations and the Church must realize that the discrimination and Islamophobia debate are part of a bigger dispute that the late Samuel Huntington from Harvard University, following Lewis, called the “clash of civilizations.” The civilizations at war in this ongoing debate are “The West” and “The East,” namely Western civilization and Islamic civilization.
From a Christian perspective, Nabeel Qureshi in his book Answering Jihad, provides what I believe is the ideal paradigm for the Church to respond to the ideological and theological challenge of Islam and in how to relate to Muslim people. Qureshi says that “criticism of Islam is often taken to be criticism of Muslims” but he notes that “Islam is not Muslims, and Muslims are not Islam.” Islam is a religion which promotes an ideological system of socio-religious beliefs and laws that are founded upon Islamic religious texts such as the Qur’an and the Hadith, while Muslims are adherents of the religion of Islam. Qureshi goes on to say that “one can criticize Islam while affirming and loving Muslims.” If the media implies or even encourages Americans to hate Muslims, Christians simply cannot adhere to such a paradigm because Jesus commanded His followers to love not only all people, but even people who may be considered their enemies. On the flip side, if the media says popular statements such as “Islam is a religion of peace,” then as a confessing people whose beliefs and ethics are founded upon a revealed text called the Bible, Christians must challenge this simple statement by the media as being ignorant concerning the religion and history of Islam which unequivocally has a theme of violence. In conclusion, Qureshi encourages Christians to respond to Islam and Muslims with truth and love. Yes, from a Christian perspective Islam is a false-faith and yes, from a Christian perspective every Muslim, though engrossed in a false faith, still bears the mark of the image of God and is worthy of love and respect. The Church must respond to Islam and Muslims with truth and love.
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