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Lausanne Global Analysis · May 2017
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May 2017 Issue Overview
David Taylor
Welcome to the May issue of the Lausanne Global Analysis, which is also available in Portuguese and Spanish. We look forward to your feedback on it.
You may have noticed some changes to our layout and some new functions beginning with our March issue. The Lausanne Global Analysis has been redesigned as a primarily web-based publication, with beautiful imagery and fonts optimized for reading on your mobile device or computer.
However, we have received several comments from readers who relied heavily on the downloadable version, so we have reintroduced a simpler PDF version of each individual article. The PDF has a less elaborate design, and is available particularly for readers with slow or limited internet access. To download any LGA article as a PDF, simply click the PDF button on the right side of the screen. You will be given an option to download that article as a PDF, or print it on your home printer in A4 or US Letter size. We have also discontinued executive summaries since very few of our readers were using them. We welcome your input on the redesign through email to analysis@lausanne.org, and hope you enjoy the new design!
This issue has a strong theme of engaging with and reaching out to Muslims. We look at how refugees in Europe are turning to Christ and in turn reviving the church there; we assess Disciple-Making Movements as a Biblical solution for the remaining task of reaching least-evangelised peoples; we consider how we should view Islam and the importance of developing a biblical worldview that gives a framework for relating to Muslims; and finally we ask what the Caliphate means and how we should respond to many Muslims’ aspiration for it.
‘The arrival of millions of migrants in Europe is shaking the foundations of secular post-Christian Western civilization’, writes Sam George (Lausanne Catalyst for Diasporas). The epicenter of the refugee crisis is the continuation of wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, producing nearly half of all refugees in the world. God is doing something new and exciting in the midst of this great crisis. Large numbers of refugees are turning to Christ and being baptised. Many have had dreams or visions of Jesus. Only God could have turned such a desperate situation into such a mission opportunity, and what is happening lies beyond the strategic planning of any church or mission agency. On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, God is once again reviving the church in Europe, this time through refugees from the Middle East. Who could ever have foreseen something like this? Churches and ministries involved with refugees are experiencing renewal. ‘The diasporas arising out of displacement, including the flight of refugees from the Middle East to Europe, are fertile ground for new activity of the Spirit of God and with it the advancement and indeed transformation of Christianity’, he concludes.
‘In the mid-1980s, 24% of world’s population (1.8 billion people) had little or no Gospel access’, writes Kent Parks (President & CEO of Beyond, formerly called Mission to Unreached Peoples). Today, that figure has grown to 29% (2.1 billion people). Tragically, only about 3% of global missionaries serve this 29%. A holy urgency has caused many to re-study Scripture as a strategy manual. The resulting changes have produced amazing results. At least 158 church planting movements resulting from a process called Disciple-Making Movements have begun since the mid-1980s, but especially within the last 15-20 years. Churches must reproduce more quickly than traditional expectations because it is the only way to exceed population growth and give all peoples access to the Gospel. At least 30% of global missionaries should be assigned to serve the 30% of the world’s population who have never enjoyed gospel witness of any kind. Jesus’ simple but deep strategies (rather than our often complex but non-reproducible efforts) need to be used to change whole people groups. ‘Church planting movements which transform societies represent the only strategy which brings the scalable growth needed to exceed population growth and to finish the task’, he concludes.
‘Over the four and a half decades since I perceived God’s concern for Muslims, I have heard many discussions about how Christian mission should be directed’, writes Ida Glaser (Director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, UK). Underlying them are questions about how we should view Islam, echoed in the polarized responses to Muslims in today’s evangelical world. The major problem is that we do not know how to fit the variety of Islam into our thought categories.
Our teachers and preachers urgently need a way of reading the Bible that enables the whole church to relate to the whole variety of Islam and of Muslims. From cover to cover, the Bible speaks into the world of Islam. Let us put the Bible ‘in conversation with’ Islamic thinking and with Muslim people. Muslims are still waiting for the coming of Jesus and other messianic figures, to deal finally with evil by destroying the wicked and rescuing the good. As Christians, too, wait for the final judgment, what difference does it make to our witness that the Messiah has already come, and has dealt with evil on the cross? The cross brings together the judgment that cleanses and the pain that forgives. ‘How can we make that cross the basis of all our responses to Islam?’, she asks.
‘The term ‘Caliphate’ has become more familiar recently due to the rise and now decline of Islamic State (IS)’, writes a researcher on global religious trends and religious liberty (name withheld by request). However, a global Caliphate is the aim of several other Muslim groups and has been an aspiration for some Muslims going right back into history. The Caliphate represents a ‘golden age’ of doctrinal purity coupled with political ascendency. Before the title was abolished in 1924, Islamic revivalism had already begun, leaving a gap in Sunni Muslim leadership as revivalism was beginning to gather pace. The few polls that have been conducted suggest substantial support among Muslim populations for a Caliphate. The defeat of IS militarily will not end the search for a Caliphate, whether through violent or non-violent means.
The principal tools of the church, as always, are love in action and prayer. Christians should love Muslims enough to share the gospel of Christ with them, overcoming our fear of evangelism to them. Policymakers need to be made aware of the long-term, religious aspiration which lies behind the Caliphate in trying to form effective counter-radicalisation strategies. However, ultimately, government policies cannot be the long-term solution. ‘Only the gospel holds out the prospect of a long-term solution to radicalisation as embodied in the aspiration of the Caliphate’, he concludes.
We hope that you find this issue stimulating and useful. Our aim is to deliver strategic and credible analysis, information and insight so that as a leader you will be better equipped for the task of world evangelisation. It’s our desire that the analysis of current and future trends and developments will help you and your team make better decisions about the stewardship of all that God has entrusted to your care.
Please send any questions and comments about this issue to analysis@lausanne.org. The next issue of Lausanne Global Analysis will be released in July.
 David Taylor serves as the Editor of the Lausanne Global Analysis. David is an international affairs analyst with a particular focus on the Middle East. He spent 17 years in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, most of it focused on the Middle East and North Africa. After that he then spent 14 years as Middle East Editor and Deputy Editor of the Daily Brief at Oxford Analytica. David now divides his time between consultancy work for Oxford Analytica, the Lausanne Movement and other clients, also working with Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the Religious Liberty Partnership and other networks on international religious freedom issues.
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Is God Reviving Europe through Refugees?
Sam George
The current refugee crisis in the world is widely considered to be the greatest humanitarian crisis of our times. According to the United Nations, there are over 65 million forcibly displaced people in the world today. The magnitude of human displacement on account of wars and political and societal instability is unprecedented. The arrival of millions of migrants in Europe has not only received much media attention, but it is also shaking the foundations of secular post-Christian Western civilization.[1]
65
million forcibly
displaced
60%
of Syrians have
been displaced
50%
children
under 18
The contemporary refugee crisis has stirred our collective consciousness and catapulted immigration to a prominent place in national debates. It has come to the forefront of security discussions and electoral politics in many countries. It has also redefined the development and economic agenda in relation to other parts of the world. These disruptions have already reshaped our worlds in significant ways and will reshape our futures, far beyond our current imaginings.
The epicenter of the refugee crisis is the continuation of wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, producing nearly half of all refugees in the world. About 60% of Syrians have been displaced from their homes, and roughly half of them are children below the age of 18. This is unprecedented for a single nation in recent history. When neighborhoods are bombed, livelihoods gone, family members killed, and their own lives endangered, people are left with no option but to flee.
Refugees in Europe turning to Christ
God is doing is something new and exciting in the midst of this great crisis. In December 2016, I had the opportunity to witness first-hand what God is doing among and through the refugees in Europe. I travelled through ten cities in five countries over three weeks visiting many refugee camps, as well as churches and missions agencies working with them. A month before, I visited three cities in three other countries. Over this period, I interviewed many refugee ministry leaders in Europe in order to assess and study the desperate situation and the response of God’s people to it.
It was amazing for me to be present at meetings where hundreds of refugees turned to Christ.
It was amazing for me to be present at meetings where hundreds of refugees turned to Christ. I visited several fellowships and churches that have baptized hundreds of refugees. One church in Germany had baptized over a thousand Syrian and Kurdish people over the previous six months. At our own meetings each night in different cities in Greece and Germany, we saw almost all of the refugees present responding to the gospel. There are over 100 Arabic-speaking churches across Europe, some predating the crisis and others started in response to it. They are not only very engaged with the issue, but also highly effective on account of their linguistic and cultural proximity to the refugees.
Churches transformed
Only God could have turned such a desperate situation into such a mission opportunity, and what is happening lies beyond the strategic planning of any church or mission agency:
One refugee ministry leader admitted, ‘God brought me here to Germany a few years ago and prepared me for this ministry to refugees. I never saw this coming!’
One pastor in Northern Germany confessed, ‘Starting an outreach to the refugees was the best thing that happened in this church over the last 50 years and is the most exciting part of our church life right now’.
Yet another pastor in Greece informed me that three quarters of his church now comprise refugees, all of whom have joined within the previous six months.
Pastors and mission leaders showed me videos of their recent baptisms and introduced me to several new refugee believers from other religious backgrounds.
Refugees’ stories
I met refugees from Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran. Most were men in their 20s and 30s, maybe some in their 40s. I met some refugee women with small children in family camps, while other camps held teenage boys who were separated from their families. Most camps in Germany provided shelter in modified shipping containers and family members were kept together as far as possible. The living conditions of refugees in Greece were bleak. Some refugees were eager to meet us and share the stories of their escape, their wanderings and homelands, while others exhibited clear signs of extreme trauma or disillusionment as a result of what they had endured along the journey.
A few refugees I met had been forcefully drafted into radical groups. Some told me about horrendous incidents while fleeing their homeland—how everything known to them vanished overnight. Siblings or parents were killed before their eyes; homes, workplaces and businesses were destroyed; and many showed me gunshot wounds on their bodies or exhibited clear evidence of psychological scars, which they will carry to their graves.
However, they wanted to leave their old way of life behind and were keen to embrace new things in a foreign land. Like all migrants, they were questioning some underlying assumptions and worldviews that had defined their lives and culture, while showing great openness to explore new ideas. They asked deep questions about life, meaning, purpose, truth, God, etc. Truly, migratory displacement is a theologizing experience.[2]
I was surprised to learn about many of their supernatural encounters with ‘Isa’. They told me about their dreams or visions of Jesus and several cases of miraculous encounters while fleeing from conflict zones. Their stories of escape, loss, survival, and determination were breathtaking. They were deeply grateful to have survived the ordeal, and I found them sincerely desiring to rebuild their lives. Their eagerness to seek God and the fervor of their worship and prayers were soul-stirring. Their dramatic life transformation and new hopeful outlook are a testimony to the power of the gospel, and there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of their conversions. Their willingness to take up any work and their motivation to succeed are extraordinary.
Turning crisis into opportunity: reviving the church
I believe that one of the ways in which God is reviving Christianity in Europe is through refugees. They may be the least likely agents, and what is happening is a highly unexpected means for a major move of God. However, that is surely what the Christmas story is all about: a teenage girl, a carpenter, a manger, shepherds, Persian astrologers, Bethlehem, and the like. God breaks into our world where we least expect it. Refugees are God-bearers (theotokos) reviving the stagnant churches in Europe, used by God in the same way that he has always operated through people who are willing to risk all to bring him into our worlds.[3]
Refugees are God-bearers reviving the stagnant churches in Europe, used by God in the same way that he has always operated through people who are willing to risk all to bring him into our worlds.
After all, practicing hospitality to strangers is not just about offering something to the newcomers, but also experiencing how strangers bless host nations in unexpected ways. Opening our hearts and neighborhoods to people who are familiar with hospitality as part of their culture and who are unlike ourselves brings divine favor upon the land and its people. Surely that is what mission is all about. It is not that we are changing the world, but that God wants to change us by letting us see what he is doing in the world in the least expected places and through the least likely agents.
According to Andrew Walls, Christianity’s center is always on the move, as reflected in the current shift in the demographic center of gravity of Christianity; and margins revitalize the center.[4] Mission theology is a continual work in progress, moving toward greater inclusivity. Mission in the margins always emerges in new and unclear forms, but it is characterized by clear signs of advancement of the gospel, empowerment by the Holy Spirit, and (as a result) changes to the very nature of Christian faith and our conceptions of it. Thus, mission is a boundary-breaking phenomenon, diffusing across cultures and geographies.
The churches and ministries involved with refugees are experiencing renewal while those who are skeptical are missing out on a move of the Spirit.
In the year of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, God is once again reviving the church in Europe, this time through refugees from the Middle East. Who could ever have foreseen something like this? The churches and ministries involved with refugees are experiencing renewal while those who are skeptical are missing out on a move of the Spirit. God is indeed doing new things in the world. What a privilege it is to see him at work where one least expects it!
An African Diaspora scholar has described Europe as a ‘prodigal continent’[5] in the course of discussing ‘reverse mission’ and chronicling the impact of African Christians on Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. Now that role is also being taken up by new Christians of Middle Eastern descent and Asians who are bringing a new lease of life to a moribund and plateaued European Christianity. Once the Great European Migration took the Christian faith to the far corners of the world; now Christians from those same margins are returning the favor in bringing a fresh revival in European churches.
In today’s world, people are on the move everywhere. God is also on the move among people on the move, as is evident from the fact that many refugees are turning to Christ and becoming a means to revive churches in Europe. The diasporas arising out of displacement, including the flight of refugees from the Middle East to Europe, are fertile ground for new activity of the Spirit of God and with it the advancement and indeed transformation of Christianity.[6]
Endnotes
- Editor’s Note: See article by Arthur Brown entitled, ‘The Refugee and the Body of Christ’ in September 2016 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis. ↑
- Timothy Smith, ‘Religion and Ethnicity in America’, The American Historical Review 83, no. 5 (1978): 1155. ↑
- Editor’s Note: See article by Darrell Jackson entitled ‘Mission in Europe 25 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall’ in March 2016 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis. ↑
- Andrew F. Walls, Cross Cultural Process in Christian History (New York: Orbis Books, 2002), 31. ↑
- Afe Adogame, The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 169. ↑
- Editor’s Note: See article by Sadiri Joy Tira entitled ‘Diasporas from Cape Town 2010 to Manila 2015 and Beyond’ in March 2015 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis. ↑
 Sam George, PhD, serves as a Catalyst for the Diasporas with the Lausanne Movement. He is of Asian Indian origin and lives with his family in the northern suburbs of Chicago, USA. He is the author of Coconut Generation and editor of Diaspora Christianities (forthcoming). He is working on a new book on the current refugee crisis.
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Finishing the Remaining 29% of World Evangelization
Kent Parks
In the mid-1980s, 24% of world’s population (1.8 billion people) had little or no Gospel access. Today, that figure has grown to 29% (2.1 billion people). Two interchangeable terms, while technically different, essentially define this population:
Unreached People Groups (UPGs) — less than 2% evangelical Christians (Joshua Project).
Least Evangelized Peoples (LEPs) – with little or no Gospel access per a multiple-factor list (World Christian Database).
Tragically, only about 3% of global missionaries serve this 29%. Christ-followers should be outraged by this spiritual injustice. That Jesus’ command to make disciples of all ethne is unfulfilled is disobedience. Doing more of the same activities expecting different results is futile and irresponsible.
29%
(2.1 billion people)
have little or
no Gospel access
3%
of global missionaries
serve this 29%
Mission revolution
A holy urgency has caused many to re-study Scripture as a strategy manual—and has as a result revolutionized results among some UPGs. Sound motives fuel these efforts, including a deep love for Jesus; a joyful desire for all to have the chance to love and serve him; a holy concern to bring spiritual justice; and a commitment to obey Jesus’ command. The resulting radical methodological changes have resulted in amazing results reflected in the quantity and quality of disciples and churches.
Church-planting movements
Globally, ‘Book of Acts’-type movements (called ‘Church Planting Movements’ below) have recently emerged, often among the ‘hardest’ peoples to reach. The reality of these movements should not be skeptically or lightly dismissed. These exciting, transformational results—with millions of new believers and churches in hard places—should receive greater emphasis from those committed to bringing Jesus’ gospel to all peoples.
At least 158 Church Planting Movements (CPMs) resulting from a process called Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs) have begun since the mid-1980s, but especially within the last 15-20 years, and largely, but not only, among UPGs.
A movement is defined as when a number of the initial churches each reproduce to fourth generation churches.
A movement is defined as when a number of the initial churches each reproduce to fourth generation (great-grandchildren or later) churches. When this ongoing reproduction happens in multiple ‘family-tree branches’, critical mass and ability to reproduce is achieved. This does not seem to be the case if the reproduction stops at only second-generation (children) or third-generation (grandchildren) churches.
Biblical model
Jesus launched a movement in three years, with disciples learning to love him and obey all his commands. The numerical growth of disciples in these three years is clear: twelve, 72 others (Luke 10), 500 (1 Cor 15:6), more than 3,000 at Pentecost and then at least 5,000 (Acts 4:4). The belief that God uses people to start movements today is based on Jesus’ promise that His disciples would do greater things (John 14:12-14).
 Every segment. Jesus went to every town and village (Matt 9:35-38). He sent the twelve to a specific population segment (Luke 9:1-6). He sent 72 others, but now to all the places to which he was about to go (Luke 10:1-23). Thus, when Jesus expanded their scope to make disciples of all population segments globally, his disciples were already experienced in the pattern.
 Jesus’ pattern. His pattern was simple but deep. He modeled it regularly (eg Luke 4 and 8) and sent them to do the same (Matt 10, Luke 9 and 10). He focused on discipling whole groups (oikos—households), such as one of his first households of peace (Mark 1—Simon and Andrew’s household) and the Samaritan village (John 4). Sent workers were to pray for local workers to be found within the harvest. The welcoming person of peace (one spiritually hungry and God-prepared) is the focus. The person of peace opens his/her social unit/group to hear the message. Focusing on discipling whole groups makes great sociological, numerical, and practical sense, which results in sustainable growth.
 Holistic role. The disciples’ role is holistic—both to tell the good news of the Kingdom and to heal the sick and cast out demons. They are to depend on the receiving household rather than providing all the resources or answers. They must focus on discipling the household of peace rather than going from household to household. This new group will be better able to disciple and influence their community than the outsider can.
 Discipling groups. This focus on discipling groups continues in the Book of Acts, as all but three people (Saul, the Ethiopian eunuch and Sergius Paulus) came to faith in groups. Paul and his teams, following Jesus’ model, started movements among population segments, which were multi-cultural, multi-religious, and often hostile. These movements ensured that all in each area had a chance to hear of Jesus:
 Jerusalem: ‘numbers of disciples increased rapidly’ (Acts 6:1, 7).
 Cyprus: ‘. . . the whole island’ (Acts 13:6).
 Phrygia: ‘The word of the Lord spread through the whole region (Acts 13:49).
 Galatia: In Iconium ‘a great number of Jews and Greeks believed’ (Acts 14:1); in Lystra . . . ‘some disciples’ (Acts 14:22); and in Derbe . . . ‘won a large number of disciples’ (Acts 14:21).
 Macedonia: In Philippi, the families of Lydia and the jailer (Acts 16); in Thessalonica ‘some Jews and a large number of God-fearing Greeks and many prominent women’ (Acts 17:4); and in Berea many Jews believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men (Acts 17:12).
 Achaia: In Athens ‘some believed’ (Acts 17:34); and in Corinth the family of Crispus and many Corinthians believed (Acts 18:8).
 Ephesus: Within ‘two years, . . . all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord’ (Acts 19:10). Some 15 million people (Roman census) in much of the area of modern Turkey could only have had access within two years if obedient disciples were reproducing.
Paul’s missions: Only the use of several disciple-making movements with multiple branches can explain Paul’s following statement: ‘. . . from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum [the Balkans], I [Paul] have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ’ (Rom 15: 19). Within the 15 or so years represented in this statement, Paul and his small teams would not have had the time or physical ability to ‘fully proclaim’ Jesus in this whole area. The only way this scriptural statement could be accurate is if they served as catalysts to raise up reproducing disciples and groups who reproduced all across this region.
Some key principles
God through his Holy Spirit is the teacher. The outsider helps new disciples to learn directly from the Father and to obey everything Jesus commanded. (Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33-34; Matt 23:8; John 6:45; 14:25).
Obedience-based group discipleship is an essential factor. Without it DMMs do not happen. The group members hear the Scripture, retell it to each other, discuss God-given insight and the obedience God is asking from the passage. People are to obey what is learned each week. Each person is to share the passage with another. At the next meeting, each shares what they obeyed (or did not) and who they told. Group accountability is built into the process. Their theology is strong. ‘Accurate obedience’ leads to ‘accurate belief’.
Results transform. Testimonies from several movements indicate that alcoholism diminishes in their area. For example, a drunken colonel in South Asia fired his rifle point blank at his newly believing wife—and miraculously missed. He then broke her legs with the rifle. Through her continued witness, he quit drinking and became a believer and reproducing church-starter. In other movements, husbands learn from God to stop beating their wives.[1]
Churches seek God’s provision together to help the poor and widows and orphans in their communities, such as a South Asian movement where whole communities quit selling their daughters into sexual slavery. In another South Asian movement, one church branch hired a Hindu seamstress to train young women to earn a living. They only asked that this training group read each week’s Bible story and ask the simple questions. Soon, the Hindu seamstress, five Hindu girls, and three Muslim girls came to faith and were baptized—along with the Hindu and Muslim families, because they saw the change in their daughters.[2]
Movements today
Researchers are tracking over 150 church planting movements, and more are being added every year. There is at least one per continent. Disciples reproduce. Leaders reproduce. Churches reproduce and love and obey him by helping the widow and orphan, healing the sick, stop selling children into slavery, casting out demons, and sharing the good news of the Kingdom:
- A movement born four years ago in India has over 7,000 congregations including some eighteenth generation churches.[3]
- One of the earliest movements began about 25 years ago in another part of India among the Bhojpuri language group. It has been audited several times by researchers. The latest audit shows at least 8 million baptized believers and approximately 200,000 congregations, which serve their community through literacy efforts, health education, etc.
- Movements of several thousand congregations are growing in several continents in areas hostile to the news of Jesus.
- A movement has emerged in the US among groups often ignored by existing churches.
Exponential growth necessity
Churches must reproduce obedient churches more quickly than traditional expectations.
Churches must reproduce obedient churches more quickly than traditional expectations because it is the only way to exceed population growth and give all peoples access to the gospel. If it takes five years for a church to reproduce, it will require 30 years for one church to become 64 churches. On the other hand, if each church starts a church every twelve months, 32,000 churches could start (and sometimes have started) within 15 years.
Concerns addressed
Does this kind of rapid growth result in heresy? Less heresy is evident in these movements than is often seen in more traditional approaches. Most heresies historically have been fostered by a key leader/s (eg Judaizers), not groups. The group process of obeying God’s Word together reduces this possibility.
Are movement proponents diminishing or insulting existing churches? This is not the case. These proven and biblical strategies to disciple many people groups should excite the church, even if these approaches cause re-examination, discomfort, and change in order to achieve greater impact.
Is not a formally trained human leader required for accurate teaching / prevention of heresy? Might this be an arrogant lack of faith that God is really the best, most able teacher?
Might movement success hurt feelings of traditional workers? The more important concern should be how the Least Evangelized Peoples feel without Christ.
Implications
Many missiological theories promote strategies that should reproduce. Church planting movements are based on strategies which have reproduced.
The existence and legitimacy of church planting movements should not be skeptically dismissed.
The existence and legitimacy of church planting movements should not be skeptically dismissed, as is the tendency among some in Christian mission circles. The comment that UPGs have been over-emphasized needs to be disputed. The call to have a ‘balanced’ mission emphasis should be affirmed.
It is indeed time to bring balance. At least 30% (not the current paltry 3%) of global missionaries should be assigned to serve the 30% of the world’s population (UPGs) who have never enjoyed gospel witness of any kind, using proven best practices.
Jesus’ simple but deep strategies (rather than our often complex but non-reproducible efforts) need to be used to change whole people groups. These proven, biblical, multiplicative, and transformative discipling methods should be used rather than theoretical, unproven, and unscalable approaches. Church planting movements which transform societies represent the only strategy which brings the scalable growth needed to exceed population growth and to finish the task.
 Kent Parks leads Beyond (formerly Mission to Unreached Peoples), an organization which focuses on catalyzing church planting movements which transform Unreached People Groups (UPGs). He and his wife Erika, (Beyond’s Director of Training), served 20 years as missionaries among Muslim UPGs in Southeast Asia. He also serves as Co-Facilitator for the Ethne Global UPG Initiative (www.ethne.net), and as Catalyst for Least Evangelized Peoples for the Lausanne Movement. He holds a PhD in missions strategy.
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How Should Christians Relate to Muslims?
Ida Glaser
The UK Times newspaper last autumn introduced its readers to the use of taweez[1] in popular Sufi Sunni Islam. Why? Because it was reporting on the conviction of a Salafi for murdering an imam who practised this form of Islam[2].
The variety of Islam
Times readers, already familiar with terms like Sunni and Shi’a, Sufi and Salafi, were being introduced to yet another sort of Islam that is practiced by 41% of Pakistanis and 26% of Bangladeshis[3]. How, I wonder, will they integrate this information into the categories of ‘extreme’ and ‘moderate’ Islam that the media have been using hitherto? And how do Christians integrate the variety of Islam into their worldviews?
I have heard many discussions about how Christian mission should be directed
Over the four and a half decades since I perceived God’s concern for Muslims, I have heard many discussions about how Christian mission should be directed. We should focus on ‘folk’ Islam—on the huge percentage of those who use taweez and whose lives are dominated by beliefs in jinn. We should focus on service—to abused women, to minorities suffering from racism and to people in poverty. We should focus on apologetics, on polemics, on dialogue, on co-existence . . . or maybe on political concerns. Perhaps Christians should be at the forefront of countering ISIS-type terrorism.
How should we view Islam?
Underlying such discussions are questions about how we should view Islam, and these are echoed in the polarized responses to Muslims that are tearing apart today’s evangelical world. I think that the major problem is that we do not know how to fit the variety of Islam into our thought categories. As the secular world struggles to add the world of taweez into its understanding of ‘religion’, so Christians struggle to find room for Islam in their understanding of the world; so we choose existing categories and focus on those Muslims who fit them. Our teachers and preachers urgently need a way of reading the Bible that enables the whole church to relate to the whole variety of Islam and of Muslims.
We need a biblical worldview that gives a framework for relating to all peoples of all faiths.
Put this way, we see that the challenge is broader: Islam may be a special case, but we need a biblical worldview that gives a framework for relating to all peoples of all faiths. My book, The Bible and Other Faiths,[4] seeks to provide just that: a way of reading the Bible that so takes into account the religious world ‘behind’ the biblical texts that it helps us to make sense of our own religious world. My recent book, Thinking Biblically about Islam,[5] deals with the special case of Islam.
Biblical frameworks
Thinking Biblically about Islam develops two biblical frameworks for thought, and applies them in two ways:
The biblical frameworks deal, first, with developing a view of humanity that includes Muslims and, second, with developing a way of understanding Islam. The two are related, because ‘Islam’ is practised by human beings—which is, of course, why it displays such variety.
The applications ask, first, how we might think about various aspects of Islam—the Qur’an, Muhammad, the Umma, and Shari‘a—and, second, how our biblical studies might transform us in our relationships with Muslim people.
The double two-fold analysis reflects a tension that underlies much of the polarization of Christian responses to Islam: that we are trying to understand Islam as a system that post-dates Jesus Christ and sees itself as superseding Christianity, and also trying to relate to the huge proportion of human beings who are Muslims. On the one hand, many Christians feel that Islam should never have come into existence, and that Muslims are intruders in their world. On the other hand, many Christians live in places where they meet Muslims every day, and have Muslims as friends and colleagues and family members whom they love.
Here is a ‘taster’ of the two biblical frameworks:
The framework for a view of humanity that includes Muslims
This is developed from Genesis 4-11. It is a standard analysis of text as a chiasm (the Greek capital chi looks like X)—that is, it has a shape ABCB’A’ or ABA’ or ABCDC’B’A’ etc. The first and last elements ‘match’ as they set themes and subjects, and may repeat words. The central element is the heart of the matter. The intermediate elements ‘match’ (here, they are both genealogies) and tell you how the whole argument sticks together.[6] Hence the analysis matches Genesis 4 and 11, Genesis 5 and 10, and then sees Genesis 6-9 as central.
Genesis 4-11
is a chiasm
ABCB’A’
Genesis 6-9 is central
God’s response to spreading violence
is one of anger and pain (6:6)
From Genesis 1-3, we learn that all human beings, including Muslims, are both made in the image of God and fallen. Genesis 4-11 gives an analysis of a religious fallen world that can be read as a chiasm. The beginning and the end deal with individual and societal religion; the centre point is the flood story; and in between come the genealogies that are so important to the whole structure of Genesis:
A Chapter 4: Human beings outside Eden seek to approach God through a religious act. It is not clear why one is accepted and another is rejected, but it is clear that this results in violence.
B Chapter 5: Humans have a common origin, and all (except Enoch who points to a hope of life) share in the genealogy of death.
C Chapters 6-9: God’s response to spreading violence is one of anger and pain (6:6). The flood story is read as offering two possible ways for God to deal with the evil—the judgment of the flood, and the covenant commitment that follows Noah’s sacrifice. The latter indicates God’s preference for the duration of history.
B’ Chapter 10: Human societies have a common origin, and are under the providential life-giving hand of God.
A’ Chapter 11: There is a human tendency to use religion to propagate a particular people’s power and territory. This is dangerous religion, which God will judge in order to limit the resulting evil.
This analysis provides some simple but powerful categories for thinking about Sunni and Shi’a, about Sufi and Salafi, and about users of taweez and ISIS supporters who kill idolaters.
A: Individual religion. We can understand all Muslims as people trying to approach God, whether with Abel-like or with Cain-like motivations. We can expect violent religious quarrels to arise over questions of what pleases God.
So we can expect schisms like those between the Sunni and the Shi’a. However, we can also expect some of the Sufis, who seek the face of God as a lover seeks the beloved, to be ‘Abel’s’ of the Muslim world. The story makes us ask how far we can judge which of the ISIS supporters who sacrifice their own lives are like Cain, and which are like Abel.
A’: Societal religion. We can understand the various political dimensions of Islam as manifestations of a normal human tendency to fuse religion, ethnicity and power.[7] We can be sure that, where this fusion builds exploitative power structures that are against God, he will limit the damage that they do to his good creation.
B and B’: Genealogies. All this is the shared human condition. Muslims are not intruders in our world: we are all part of God’s world. One implication is that we can expect the Genesis patterns among Christians as well as among Muslims. Christians, too, can argue over who is acceptable to God. Christians, too, can fight and kill each other. Christians, too, can use religion to build empires.
C: At the heart of it all is the problem of evil. I do not mean here the question of the origin of evil, although the book does explore some key differences between Muslim and Christian views on the subject through a study of the Adam stories in the Qur’an and the Bible. Rather, the big question raised by the Genesis Noah story is how God deals with evil, and that has implications for how human beings should deal with evil in themselves and in others.
We can ask what these particular Muslims see as evil, and how they are trying to deal with it.
This suggests a key to biblically based thinking about the varieties of Islam: we can ask what these particular Muslims see as evil, and how they are trying to deal with it. Take, for example, the taweez users’ and ISIS supporters’ polarization. Taweez users focus on evils that affect them and their families in their everyday lives; they deal with this through ritual and, often, through trying to control the jinn whom they see as responsible for their troubles. ISIS supporters focus more on political evils, which they see as caused by wrong worship; they often deal with them by trying to destroy the causes.
I hope that the Christian reader is by now sharing something of the pain as well as the anger in the heart of God (Gen 6:6). I hope, too, that, like the One whom we serve, that reader is determined to prefer the way of sacrifice and covenant commitment to the way of judgement in response to evil. That takes us to Jesus and His cross, and to the blood which cries out so much louder than that of the martyr, Abel. Perhaps our biggest pain is that that the cross and the blood is missing from Islamic thinking, and so not considered by either taweez users or ISIS supporters in their struggles with evil. That takes us to the heart of the second analytical framework.
The framework for understanding Islam
This is developed from the transfiguration. Writing the book has led me to realise the centrality of the transfiguration to the synoptic gospels; and John’s Gospel can be read as an exegesis of the transfiguration.[8]
The questions to which the transfiguration is the answer are Islamic questions: How does Jesus relate to the previous prophets? What does it mean that he is Messiah? How do we deal with the scandal of His insistence that he will be shamefully killed?
Up to this point, the Gospels have been largely in harmony with the qur’anic view of Jesus; and the Qur’an raises the very questions that the Gospels raise. However, Muslims answer them differently.[9] They deny the crucifixion and put Jesus on the same level as all the other prophets. In effect, they reverse the transfiguration and then develop a prophetic-legal tradition built on a figure who combines the law-giving community-founding paradigm of Moses with the law-enforcing monotheistic zeal of Elijah.
Such observations provoke a re-reading of the legal and prophetic paradigms represented by Moses and Elijah, not least as ways of dealing with the evils of human sinfulness.
Such observations provoke a re-reading of the legal and prophetic paradigms represented by Moses and Elijah, not least as ways of dealing with the evils of human sinfulness. On the one hand, how can the biblical material help us to appreciate the strengths as well as the weaknesses of Islam? On the other hand, why is it that the biblical accounts of these prophets find their fulfilment in the cross of Christ rather than in the Medina of Muhammad?
Hence, an understanding of the purpose and nature, riches and limitations of biblical law and prophethood offers some categories for thinking about Islam; and it opens a way of reading the New Testament that sheds light on how and why it holds such good news for Muslims. From cover to cover, the Bible speaks into the world of Islam, and into the bewilderment of secular and Christian people who are struggling to understand it.
What is the implication for evangelical leaders? Let us seriously put the Bible ‘in conversation with’ Islamic thinking and with Muslim people, and let us preach the whole counsel of God into our hurting world.
Muslims are still waiting for the coming of Jesus and other messianic figures, to deal finally with evil by destroying the wicked and rescuing the good. As Christians, too, wait for the final judgment, what difference does it make to our preaching and to our lives that the Messiah has already come, and has dealt with evil on the cross? The cross is the acceptable sacrifice available for the Cain’s as well as for the Abel’s; it challenges all fusions of religion and power, and it brings together, once and for all, the judgment that cleanses and the pain that forgives. How can we make that cross the basis of all our responses to Islam?
Endnotes
- Taweez is an Urdu word usually translated as ‘amulet’ or ‘charm’. It refers to a package or other object which is worn around the neck or otherwise tied onto a person. It contains a paper in which is written some qur’anic verses or mystical diagrams. It is prepared by a popularly recognized holy person, and is given as a prescription for dealing with problems that might range from physical sicknesses through unacceptable behaviour to danger from black magic. ↑
- For on-line reports and discussion of this incident, see, for example, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/05/alleged-killer-imam-court-islamic-state-rochdale, http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/14748549.Why_was_use_of_taweez_s_so_offensive_to_killers_/ ↑
- This is, according to the Times, the percentage of people who reported actually wearing taweez in a Pew survey in 2006. The Times, 17, no. 9 (2016): 15. ↑
- Ida Glaser, The Bible and Other Faiths (Langham: InterVarsity, 2005). ↑
- Ida Glaser and Hannah Kay, Thinking Biblically about Islam (Langham: Langham Global Library, 2016). ↑
- Many biblical passages and books are structured like this. A and A’ indicate what the argument is about, and the central point is the heart of the discussion. ↑
- Editor’s Note: See article by Jonathan Andrews entitled, ‘Living as a Christian, Registered as a Muslim?’ in the March 2017 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis. ↑
- Taking John 1:14 as a hermeneutical key. ↑
- How far the Qur’an answers them differently is a contentious issue, especially where its silences are filled in by traditions of anti-Christian polemic. See, for example, the discussion of questions surrounding the crucifixion in Todd Lawson’s The Crucifixion and the Qur’an: a study in the history of Islamic thought (Oxford: OneWorld, 2009). ↑
Photo credits
Feature image from ‘Making dua‘ by Omar Chatriwala (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
 Ida Glaser serves as Director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, UK, seconded by the Anglican mission agency, Crosslinks. She is an associate tutor at Wycliffe Hall and a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford. She is co-series editor for the new Routledge Biblical Interpretation in Islamic Context series. This article introduces her latest book, Thinking Biblically about Islam (Langham, 2016).
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What Is the Islamic Caliphate and Why Should Christians Care?
Anonymous
The term ‘Caliphate’ has become more familiar over the last 2-3 years due to the rise and now decline of Daesh/Islamic State (IS). However, a global Caliphate has been the acknowledged aim of a number of other Muslim activist and terrorist groups for the last 15-20 years. Indeed, the desire for a Caliphate has been an aspiration for some Muslims going right back into history.
What is the Caliphate?
Meaning ‘vice-regent’, ’deputy’, or ‘successor’ in Arabic, ‘Caliph’ was the title given to the heads of the Muslim community, the ‘Umma’, following the death of Muhammad. There are very few references to it in the Qur’an. It is only applied to an individual once as a title—the Prophet David in Q38.26. It is applied to all Muslims in Q2.30 (the creation story, in which Caliph is the title given to the humans who were to rule earth as vice-regents of Allah).
The desire for a Caliphate has been an aspiration for some Muslims going right back into history.
Two recognised dynasties of (Sunni) Caliphs followed the first four ‘rightly guided’ (rashidun) Caliphs (the four Caliphs recognised by both Sunnis and Shi’a): the Umayyads and Abbasids. Their rule came to an end with the capture of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.
From that time on, a number of Muslim dynasties claimed the title ‘Caliph’, the final one being the Ottoman Sultans in Turkey. Before the title was finally abolished in 1924 following the Turkish defeat in the First World War and its shift to a secular presidency, Islamic revivalism had already begun. So by the time the title was abolished, the Caliphate had re-acquired a kind of trans-national communal leadership standing that it had not enjoyed since its earliest years. The abolition of the post therefore left a gap in Sunni Muslim leadership at exactly the moment when revivalism was beginning to gather pace.
Significance today
In 2006
65%
wanted to unify
all Muslims under
a Caliphate.
Very few polls have asked Muslim populations about their desire for a Caliphate specifically. Those that have been conducted indicate substantial support for the concept, even if there is less support for groups such as IS which claim to be creating one. A Gallup poll of Muslims in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia conducted in 2006 found that 65% of those surveyed wanted to unify all Muslims under a Caliphate. A poll of British Muslim students by The Daily Telegraph in 2008 found 33% of respondents desired a Caliphate.
A Gallup poll of Muslims in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia conducted in 2006 found that 65% of those surveyed wanted to unify all Muslims under a Caliphate.
It is reasonable to connect support for IS or a desire for a ‘shari’a state’ to a desire for a Caliphate, as the Caliphate (especially that of the first four Caliphs) represents the ‘ideal’ Islamic state where, according to Muslims of this persuasion, shari’a was the state law of the Umma. Recent polls across the Middle East and other Muslim-majority states have found significant support for an ‘Islamic state’. For example, a poll by the MacDonald Laurier Institute published in 2011 found that 62% of Canadian Muslims desired shari’a in Canada.
Groups seeking a Caliphate
A number of Muslim groups are actively seeking a Caliphate, although their conceptions of it differ. These groups include (but are not limited to) Al-Qa’ida, IS, Hizb ut Tahrir, and the Muslim Brotherhood. When the Muslim Brotherhood briefly held power in Egypt in 2012-13 they quickly moved to establish shari’a as the law of the land. Even groups that are generally more nationalistic than globally orientated, such as the Taliban and Hamas, are also seeking to establish Islamic states.
There are three main differences among these groups:
- The methods they are seeking to establish a caliphate.IS uses violent confrontation whereas Hizb-ut Tahrir and the Muslim Brotherhood are working through established political systems in order to bring about their aims.
- The nature of the manifested political system that would embody the ‘ideal’ Caliphate.
- Global versus local.
Some such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qa’ida are aiming for global Caliphates. Others such as the Taliban and Hamas are more focused on establishing more ‘local’ or ‘national’ Caliphates (although they could be seen as steps towards an eventual global Caliphate). The Muslim Brotherhood began as a nationally-focused revival movement, but has evolved over the decades towards espousing a global Caliphate ideology.
Measuring the support that these individual groups enjoy among the global Muslim population is almost impossible. However, a poll published by the highly respected Pew Research Centre in 2015 found that, although there was considerable variation across Muslim majority states, an average of 10% of respondents reported a favourable view of IS. In those same states, between 99% (Lebanon) and 28% (Pakistan) had a negative view of IS, with anywhere between 1% (Lebanon) and 62% (Pakistan) of respondents not able to give a firm view. This figure of 10% approximately coalesces with the number of Muslims who adhere to the Hanbali interpretation of shari’a—the form practised in Saudi Arabia and most associated with groups such as Hamas, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qa’ida and the Deobandis.
State support
The desire for a Caliphate, or Islamic state in some form, is not confined to terrorist groups or other proscribed organisations; it also exists in states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Neither would self-describe as a Caliphate, but their desire to be seen as ‘pure Islamic states’ arises from the same aspiration. The new arrival on the scene is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey.
The desire for a Caliphate also exists in states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Erdogan has talked openly of re-creating the Ottoman Empire, for example in the speech he made at the Foreign Policy Centre in Washington DC in 2014.[1] He has also systematically sought to expunge the name of the post-First World War secularising leader of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal ‘Ataturk’. Erdogan’s argument for the re-creation of the Ottoman Empire is based upon a version of Ottoman history that could be best described as containing blind spots, particularly regarding its treatment of religious minorities.
Which Caliphate?
Erdogan’s utopian vision differs from that of the non-state groups mentioned above in that his harks back to the more recent past, whereas the Muslim Brotherhood and others seek a return to the perceived purity of the Rashidun Caliphate. This represents for Muslims an era where Islam was a powerful global player, even though the height of the Muslim empire came under the Abbasids. That vision is attractive for those Muslims who cast the rise of the European powers and later US domination as a humiliation of their faith. Since it also involves a return to the practice of faith in its ‘purest’ form, the Caliphate represents a time of doctrinal purity coupled with political ascendency.
Those Muslims who sympathise with IS and Al-Qa’ida propose that Islam rotted theologically from the inside over centuries as ‘innovative’ practices (such as Sufism) were allowed to flourish. The revival of the Caliphate is therefore not simply about restoring Muslim pride and power, but also about returning to a practice of Islam that would be recognised by Muhammad and his immediate successors. It is thus no coincidence that in those lands under the rule of Muslims who claim to adhere to the ‘purest’ form of Islam, such as IS and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, Sufis, Ahmadiyyas and Shi’a are persecuted just as much as non-Muslims, for they are seen as corrupting Islam.
Outlook
It is probable that in the short term IS will be defeated, insofar as the territory under its control will be entirely wrested from it. However, IS has already begun to ‘franchise’ itself, with offshoots now flourishing in the chaos of post-Qadhafi Libya, as well as fighters slipping into the West to carry out attacks there.
Moreover, the defeat of IS militarily will not end the search for a Sunni Muslim Caliphate. As long as there are Muslims who espouse a literalist interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah (those parts of the Hadith—the traditions about Muhammed, his wives and Companions—which can be directly attributed to Muhammad himself), the aspiration for a Caliphate will continue to draw some towards its recreation, whether through violent or non-violent means.
The prominent French academic Francois Burgat has argued that the violence is symptomatic of the decline of Islam and that the lack of success of recent ‘jihads’ will ultimately turn Muslims off Islam itself.[2] There can be no doubt that increasing numbers of Muslims are turning away from Islam.[3] However, the aspiration for a Caliphate is so potent that it is likely to continue in some form into the forseeable future.
How should the church respond?
Clearly the principal tools of the church in such a situation, as always, are love in action and prayer (including praying for those Christians living under the Caliphate today). Beyond these responses, there are a number of specific things that Christians can do.
Christians should love Muslims enough to share the gospel of Christ with them.
They should love Muslims enough to share the gospel of Christ with them, such as through the work being done by some individual churches and agencies such as Mahabba,[4] Interserve, and Frontiers. The only long-term answer to the struggle to achieve a new Caliphate is the gospel. In order to present it to Muslims in action and word, Christians need to get over our general fear of evangelism and our specific fear of evangelism to Muslims.
The aspiration for the Caliphate speaks to a longing for ‘greatness’. This could be seen either as a re-assertion of political dominance or a desire to see Islam ‘respected’ once again. There is a sense of impotent anger which radicalisers seek to exploit in funneling people towards a violent response. However, there is also a potential opportunity here for evangelism from at least three angles:
Christians believe that spiritual struggle is the key struggle which will ultimately bring us through judgment to be with God forever and that this has been enabled by God’s sacrifice for us, rather than any works we have done.
The prestige of our God’s name is not dependent on the conquest of territory, or on displays of human strength. Indeed the opposite is true: God’s power is made manifest through our weakness.
The Caliphate represents an idealised community for Muslims.
The Caliphate represents an idealised community for Muslims. The nature of caliphal rule historically and the vision of what constitutes an ideal Muslim community could be contrasted with what constitutes an idealised Christian community. That exercise would offer an opportunity to talk about the differences in perspective and vision between Christianity and Islam such as the assurance of salvation in Christianity.
We also need to make policymakers aware of the implications of the Caliphate and the breadth of support for it. They need to be aware of the long-term, religious aspiration that lies behind the Caliphate in trying to form effective counter-radicalisation strategies.
However, ultimately, government strategies or policies cannot be the long-term solution. Governments cannot be seen as making value judgments about any one religion. At best, they can counter suspicions of democratic pluralism, the whole concept of democracy—the idea that sovereignty rests with representatives of the people—being anathema to the Caliphate worldview.
They can also disrupt networks and take military action to defeat those claiming to be fighting for a Caliphate. This will serve to undermine the ‘validity’ of the Caliphate vision for some Muslims, as battlefield success is seen as a sign of the favour of God and the greater power of one God over another.
However, only the gospel holds out the prospect of a long-term solution to radicalisation as embodied in the aspiration of the Caliphate.
The author (name withheld by request) is a researcher and writer on the inter-connected fields of identity, radicalisation, global religious trends and religious liberty. He has written a number of books and articles, and is a regular public speaker.
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