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RICHMOND, Va. It isn’t that Muslims aren’t responsive to the
Gospel, International Mission Board strategist Sam McAlister* says. The
issue, he says, is that most Muslims have never heard it or seen a
committed Christian live it out.
Islam
claims nearly one-fourth of the world’s population ? 1.57 billion
Muslims. But fear — felt by both Muslims and Christians — ranks among
the most significant barriers separating the Muslim world from the
Gospel today.
After Sept. 11, 2001, Western culture collectively
branded Muslims as suicidal jihadists bent on the Islamization of the
globe politically as much as religiously by the fear-producing act of
terrorism. Though these stereotypes are softening as Americans’
understanding of Islam grows, strong anti-Muslim sentiment endures as
war with terrorist groups continues in Afghanistan and Iraq.
What’s
more, Americans’ phobia toward Islam doesn’t appear to stop at the
church threshold. A survey of more than 1,000 Protestant pastors
released by LifeWay Research in December 2009 showed that 77 percent of
evangelical pastors either somewhat or strongly agreed that Islam is a
“dangerous religion,” though the study did not explore the specific
issues behind their concern.
So what does all this mean in light of Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations?
McAlister,
who leads the IMB’s strategy for spreading the Gospel among Central
Asian peoples, believes Christians must transcend their own prejudices
if they are committed to fulfilling the Great Commission. The real
problem, he says, is a “lack of love” for Muslims that causes believers
to respond with fear and hatred rather than loving them as God does.
“The
stereotypes that you see in the Western media are no more true of the
Muslim world than to say all Americans are New York City gangsters or
Wild West cowboys,” McAlister says.
MUSLIMS ARE RESPONSIVE
McAlister
adds that there are widespread and deeply held misunderstandings among
Muslims about what Christians believe. Unlike Americans, he says,
Muslims don’t separate their religious and ethno-cultural identities —
to cease to be one is to cease to be the other. And, they don’t
understand how Jesus can be part of a divine Trinity if God is One.
These
differences and misunderstandings help explain why the decision to
follow Jesus as Lord is so difficult for Muslims and why many
mistakenly assume that what they see in Hollywood-perpetuated American
popular culture represents Christian ideals.
“The demonstrable
difference in the lives of believers is a key witnessing tool,
particularly in areas of honesty, morality, kindness and family life.
These are huge adornments to the Good News,” he says. “Without
exception, where we have planted ourselves and gone deep in language
and culture, established relationships and stuck it out, we have seen
fruit for the Gospel.”
FEAR HALTS WITNESS
It is
particularly frustrating that American believers’ heightened fear of
Islam can halt them from sharing the message of truth with Muslims at a
time of unprecedented Gospel advance in the Muslim world, McAlister
says.
Jim Haney, director of global research for the IMB, says
some of the world’s most responsive people groups to the Gospel are
Muslim. In 2008 alone, Southern Baptist missionaries and their national
partners baptized more than 12,700 believers and started 1,300 new
churches among Muslim people groups. Missionaries also engaged 30
unreached Muslim groups for the first time, totaling more than 35
million people.
But Haney points out that Southern Baptists
don’t have to go to Asia or the Middle East to share Jesus with Muslims
— they can start in their own neighborhoods.
“If you had an
opportunity to see a Muslim in your community come to Christ, would you
want it to happen?” Haney asks. “Or is your hatred for Muslims so great
you don’t see them as someone in need of the Gospel? To us [Americans],
Muslims are kind of like the Samaritans were to the Jews — we want to
[avoid] their territory. But Jesus sought the Samaritans out.
“If
we’re going to effectively engage Muslim people groups, it’s not going
to be because of strategy, it’s going to be because we love them. Maybe
love is the strategy.”
