Piper on the insider movement

Should we use "Son of God" in Muslim Contexts?

There has been much debate concerning the so-called insider movement which advocates removing references in the Bible to Jesus as the Son of God. The debate is important. Obviously, Muslims are offended by any language that would refer to Jesus as anything other than a great prophet. And, since Muslims are anti-Trinitarian, references to God's Son would be, to them, blasphemous. What motivates the Insider Movement is, of course, noble. But how far should we go when seeking to reach out?

The PCA has released a report from a study committee charged to consider the validity of removing Son of God references as a strategy for reaching Muslims. The report will be released in a series of installments. This first installment is entitled “Like Father, Like Son: Divine Familial Language in Bible Translation.”

The report concludes:

Bible translations geared for Islamic contexts should not be driven by concerns that Muslims may recoil from biological terms applied to God or Jesus. That revulsion originates primarily out of religious conviction, not any communicative limitation of the terms themselves. The essentially biological terms (Hebrew, ben and ab; Greek, huios and pater) are divinely given and therefore should be translated into comparable biological terms. Footnotes, parentheticals and other paratextual comments may be used to explain the biblical and theological riches of Scripture, while never subverting the important truths embedded in the biological contours of Scripture’s words.

Not all translation workers share these methodological commitments. Therefore, churches should carefully assess the philosophies and practices of translation workers whom they support. Churches should direct resources toward faithful translation and, if loving attempts at correction fail, away from projects and persons advocating problematic approaches to translation. For the honor of the God who has revealed himself in his Word, churches and agencies involved in translation should collaborate to improve the spread of the Christian message worldwide, ensuring that Bibles oriented towards those in Muslim contexts retain the fullest range of theological meanings resident in the original languages.

The responsibility for faithful translation and worldwide gospel proclamation rests finally in the church of Jesus Christ.

Sacrificing the clearly inspired Son of God references to Jesus is giving up far too much. It begs the question, how do we win someone to Jesus, if the Jesus we win them too is not the Jesus revealed in God's Word? Further, if the idea that Jesus is God's Son offends Muslims (and it surely will) just wait until you tell them about the cross and Jesus' substitutionary death.

When you get a chance, check out Colin Hansen's interview with John Piper on the insider movement.

HT: Justin Taylor

Ravi Zacharias reponds to a Muslim's question...

Will the Insiders keep the outsiders outside? 2

Apparently, the Insider Movement is a loose coalition of some who are involved in Christian outreach to Muslims. Those within the Insider Movement claim that since Muslims are offended by language that proclaims God as Father and Jesus as the Son, efforts to reach them ought to eliminate that familial language.

In response to the Insider Movement the Reverend Scott Seaton of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Arlington, VA has introduced "Overture 9." Overture 9 calls for PCA presbyteries to pull funding from any missionaries or missions agencies which alter the familial language found within the Scriptures.

You can read Overture 9 HERE.

Will the Insiders keep the outsiders outside?

Just recently I have become aware of a particular movement to make evangelism to Muslims more effective. Now, who in their right mind or heart would oppose good efforts to reach Muslims with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? But the movement to which I refer is proving to be controversial, and that, for good reason.

This group (?) is known as the Insider Movement. The reason they are causing so much heart burn is that they believe that in order to best reach Muslims, all references to Jesus Christ as God's Son must be removed from any Bible or Gospel presentation offered to them. The rationale behind such a move is that Muslims do not have a category in which God could have a Son apart from sexual intercourse with a woman.

This raises issues about the nature and importance of Christ's sonship. It also begs the question, "How far do we go to accomodate the false ideas of unbelievers?" When does evangelistic zeal become Gospel-distorting accomodation? Just how flexible is our message?

I am going to take some time with this issue. So, over the next few days and weeks I'll be addressing in on my little 'ol blog.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is this a legitimate approach to evangelism? How central is the sonship of Jesus to the Gospel? How central is the sonship of Jesus to His very identity?

Christ and the Qur'an

Helpful post over at Desiring God:

Christian faith must go on being translated, must continuously enter into vernacular culture and interact with it, or it withers and fades.

Islamic absolutes are fixed in a particular language, and in the conditions of a particular period of human history. The divine Word is the Qur’an, fixed in heaven forever in Arabic, the language of original revelation.

For Christians, however, the divine Word is translatable, infinitely translatable. The very words of Christ himself were transmitted in translated form in the earliest documents we have, a fact surely inseparable from the conviction that in Christ, God’s own self was translated into human form.

Much misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims has arisen from the assumption that the Qur’an is for Muslims what the Bible is for Christians. It would be truer to say that the Qur’an is for Muslims what Christ is for Christians. (The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, 29)

Read the entire post HERE.

Do Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship the same God?

Check out the latest edition of the White Horse Inn.

What is the relationship between Christianity and other “Abrahamic faith traditions”? Is Abraham really the father of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and if so, does this mean that each of these religions are legitimate ways to God? What are we to do with Abraham himself and with the other Old Testament patriarchs? Since they didn’t have explicit faith in Christ, how can Jesus be the only way of salvation? White Horse Inn: know what you believe and why you believe it!

Son of Hamas

From Justin Taylor:

Tonight on the Albert Mohler Radio program (5-6 PM ET—streamed online for free) his guest will be Mosab Hasson Yousef, son of a founder of Hamas turned double-agent for Israel turned Christian. His new book, Son of Hamas, has become a NYT bestseller.

For more info on the book, see this recent review by Tim Challies.

See also this interview with him in GQ Magazine.

See also this WSJ interview.

Peaceful Coexistence?

From Paul McCain over at Evangel:

Muslims and non-Muslims who live in nations where Islam is not the law of the land talk a lot about how Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Christians who live in Islamic nations tell a different story. I picked this up from Ron Dreher’s blog, who writes: “If you want to know what it’s really like to live under persecution for your Christian faith and culture, listen to this presentation by Bishop Thomas, a Copt who serves in Assiut, an area of intense Islamic persecution of Christians. I met him once, and the man is so luminous, and peaceful. It’s almost humiliating to be an American Christian, with such an easy life despite it all, and to hear what life is like for Christians in Egypt and elsewhere. If you don’t have time to watch the whole nine minute video, start at about 2:45:

"Christianity Confronts Islam"

This week's edition of The White Horse Inn deals with the conflict between Christianity and Islam.

What is the meaning of Jihad? Is Islam really a religion of peace? What does the Koran say about terrorism? On this edition of the White Horse Inn, Michael Horton discusses these questions and more with Muslim scholar and former professor of Shari'ah law, Sam Solomon, who after his conversion to the Christian faith was forced to leave his country of origin.

Check it out HERE.

How Common is the ground between Muslims and Christians?

I posted on "A Common Word" last year. "A Common Word" is a statement designed to bring about dialogue, trust, and peace between Muslims and Christians. All worthy goals for which we ought to strive. However, the devil, as they say, is in the details.

There was an interesting discussion on "A Common Word" at this year's ETS meeting in New Orleans. Check it out.

Islamic Violence and the Deadly Foolishness of Political Correctness

It is remarkable to see all the handwringing in the press over what could possibly have been the motive behind the murders at Fort Hood perpetrated by a fundamentalist Muslim. Do we truly have to wonder at the motive? Truly? Have we learned nothing? Apparently not. Our political leaders were quick to warn Americans against anti-Muslim backlash. Has this been the threat? Is it anti-Muslim backlash that has been the true threat to tranquility in the world? Even the bumbling Dr. Phil insists that the victim in this is Hasan the murderer.

David Brooks, no right-winger he, has written in the New York Times:

Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.

There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.

Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

Read the entire article HERE.

Also, see the piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal. Rabinowitz writes:

It can by now come as no surprise that the Fort Hood massacre yielded an instant flow of exculpatory media meditations on the stresses that must have weighed on the killer who mowed down 13 Americans and wounded 29 others. Still, the intense drive to wrap this clear case in a fog of mystery is eminently worthy of notice.

The tide of pronouncements and ruminations pointing to every cause for this event other than the one obvious to everyone in the rational world continues apace. Commentators, reporters, psychologists and, indeed, army spokesmen continue to warn portentously, "We don't yet know the motive for the shootings."

What a puzzle this piece of vacuity must be to audiences hearing it, some, no doubt, with outrage. To those not terrorized by fear of offending Muslim sensitivities, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's motive was instantly clear: It was an act of terrorism by a man with a record of expressing virulent, anti-American, pro-jihadist sentiments. All were conspicuous signs of danger his Army superiors chose to ignore.

What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic.

Read the entire article HERE.

Pray for Muslims During Ramadan

A good way for Christians to be engaged during Ramadan is to pray for Muslims. Check out this helpful guide.

HT: Justin Taylor

More on McLaren and Ramadan

From Denny Burk:

Commenting on McLaren's post...

This explanation is so filled with dangerous and damning error, it’s difficult to know where to begin. For starters, one cannot observe Ramadan as a “deeply committed” Christian. Fasting in the Christian tradition is irreducibly Christocentric. It involves praying to the Father of Christ (Mt 6:18) and longing for the return of Christ (Mt 9:15). The meaning and aim of the Muslim fast has nothing to do with Jesus. How can one observe Ramadan in any meaningful sense and do a Christian fast? The answer is that you can’t. If you try, you will end up distorting the Christian fast with syncretistic gobbledy-goop that is no longer recognizably Christian.

I would warn that McLaren is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he has dropped the ruse. The wolf is prowling about openly.

Read the entire post HERE.

From Doug Wilson:

It is not as though McLaren just announced this, leaving us to figure out why. He 'splains it himself.

"Ramadan is the Muslim holy month of fasting for spiritual renewal and purification. It commemorates the month during which Muslims believe Mohammed received the Quran through divine revelation, and it calls Muslims to self-control, sacrificial generosity and solidarity with the poor, diligent reading of the Quran, and intensified prayer."

And all God's people say ohhhh, their voices trailing off at the end. Then their faces bunch up that funny way that faces have. And then a cluster of hands go up, and the looks on some faces indicate that this might turn into a town hall meeting or something.

"This year, I, along with a few Christian friends . . . will be joining Muslim friends in the fast which begins August 21. We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians. But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them."

That is, deeply committed Christians who believe that what matters is the deeply committed part, and not the object of the commitment. For, as we have just learned, being deeply committed to a diligent reading of false Scriptures, and intensified prayer to a false god, and sacrificial generosity as a means of ginning up some works righteousness around here, is something that deeply committed Christians can "come close" in order to "share." Sharing, that is, in the experience of getting all the fundamentals wrong. It is as though deeply committed adherents of the notion that the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides decided to "come close" to those who thought that it wasn't even close to the sum of the square of the other two sides. But what the heck. What matters is being deeply committed to drawing what you think are triangles on a piece of paper. Is that not what really matters? We have pencils and papers in common. Come on, people. Don't you want to end wars?

"Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today."

In other words, we learn from a woman who came to Jesus the lesson of why coming to Jesus is totally not necessary.

"Muslims observe Ramadan in the same basic way world-wide: they fast from food, water, sex, etc., from dawn to dusk. We Christians who are joining in the fast will share these four common commitments . . ."

The dot dot dot at the end of the quote means that it gets even riper.

"We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness. Each of us will have at least one Muslim friend who will serve as our partner in the fast. These friends welcome us in the same spirit of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness."

In exchange, each one of these Muslim friends will come over to our houses this Easter for our traditional Easter ham, the kind with the brown sugar glaze . . . oh, they won't come? Curious. Why not? Something about believing their religion . . .

Read the entire post HERE.

Brian McLaren Celebrates Ramadan

From Brian McLaren's blog:

We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness. Each of us will have at least one Muslim friend who will serve as our partner in the fast. These friends welcome us in the same spirit of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.

We will seek to avoid being disrespectful or unfaithful to our own faith tradition in our desire to be respectful to the faith tradition of our friends. For example, since the Bible teaches us the importance of fasting and being generous to the poor, we can participate as Christians in fidelity to the Bible as our Muslim friends do so in fidelity to the Quran.

Among the core values of Ramadan are self control, expressing kindness, and resolving conflicts. For this reason, if we are criticized or misunderstood by Christians, Muslims, or others for this endeavor, we will avoid defending ourselves or engaging in arguments. Instead, we will seek to explain ourselves humbly, simply, and briefly when necessary, connecting with empathy to the needs and feelings of others as we express our own.

Our main purpose for participating will be our own spiritual growth, health, learning, and maturity, but we also hope that our experience will inspire others to pray and work for peace and the common good, together with people of other faith traditions.

May God bless all people, and teach us to love God and love one another, and so fulfill our calling as human beings.

So what do you think? Is this syncretism, nice-ness, or just silly?

The U.S. a Muslim Nation?

First we were told that America is not a Christian nation.

Now, there is a sense in which I agree. Certainly we are a majority Christian nation and our laws and national identity were shaped through the lens of a basically Christian worldview. But in a strict sense the U.S. is not a Christian nation (nor is any nation for that matter). Under the Old Covenant Israel was God's nation, God's people in anticipation of a people who would be formed by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God's people are citizens of another country, a better city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. That said, the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian. So I suppose that while demographically, the U.S. is a Christian nation, theologically this is not the case.

Now Muslim nations are being told that America is one of the world's largest Muslim nations.

I must admit that language begins to fail me. Indeed, coherant thought begins to fail me at this point. First of all it's patently false from a numeric point of view. The U.S. has fewer than 1% of the world's Muslims. Secondly, the culture of the U.S. is far from Islamic. So I am left wondering why go to Saudi Arabia and make such comments? This is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know. If anyone can provide an answer without tooth or claw then I would love to hear it.

The Religious Roots of Modern Piracy

Al Mohler has an interesting post on the modern rise of piracy off the coast of Africa.

Peter Berger is one of the most authoritative voices in modern sociology. He understands better than most that the prophets of secularization were too hasty in writing religion off as a major force in the world. Looking back at the very figures who helped shape the modern world, he comments, "Not to put too fine a point on it, they were mistaken."

In his own way, Stephen Prothero makes the same point. In a recent column in The Wall Street Journal, Prothero argues that one cannot understand the current crisis of piracy off the coast of Somalia without understanding the religious roots of this resurgence.

Prothero serves as chairman of the Department of Religion at Boston University (where Professor Berger also taught for many years). He is also author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't. When it comes to religious literacy, a bit of knowledge would serve the foreign policy elites, the military, and the media when it comes to the revival of piracy.

As Prothero explains in "Muhammad of the High Seas:"The late spate of piracy off the coast of Somalia has been analyzed so far almost entirely in political and economic terms: Somalia is lawless and impoverished, so Somali men are taking world trade for a ride. Religion comes up in this analysis only in terms of fears about potential ties between Somali pirates and Islamist groups such as al Qaeda and al Shabab.

But according to Boston University's World Religion Database, the Somali population is 99% Muslim, and the last time the U.S. was menaced by piracy, in the late 18th century, the so-called Barbary pirates of north Africa also operated out of Muslim havens. For those who know something about Muhammad and the origins of Islam, more than coincidence is at work: Religion, it turns out, should be factored into the piracy problem.

Read the entire post HERE.

Islam's Trojan Horse

In an article for World Magazine Cal Thomas comments on the continued naive attempts by American politicians to offer olive branches to radical islamists.

He writes:

"In an exquisite example of self-delusion, nine “alumni” of a Saudi rehabilitation program that is supposed to change the minds of “ex-jihadists” have been arrested for rejoining terrorist groups. The idea of Saudi re-education camps for “ex-jihadists” is something like expecting the Ku Klux Klan to change the minds of white supremacists. Saudi Arabia fuels jihadism by exporting the most radical brand of Islam, Wahabism. Why would Westerners believe that a country responsible for radicalizing increasing numbers of Muslims could suddenly reverse itself and start teaching the opposite? A Saudi kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.

"Instead of listening to the sound of our own voices, we should be listening more to the sound of their voices, like that of deputy emir of al-Qaida and former Guantanamo prisoner Abu Sufyan Al-Azdi Sa’id Al-Shihri, who can be seen in a video (http://www.memri.org/) promising to continue jihad until “we set up an Islamic state and establish a caliphate.” In another video, the emir of al-Qaida, Abu Basir Nasir al-Wahishi, says, “We must cut off the aid to the Zionist crusader military campaign and kill every crusader in our lands"...

"In the forthcoming book Al-Hijra: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration: Accepting Freedom or Imposing Islam? (Pilcrow Press), written by two former Muslims, Sam Solomon and Elias Al Maqdisi, “The Hijra was enshrined by Muhammad from the outset within Islam as the ‘Doctrine of Immigration,’ or the ‘peaceful’ means of extending the Islamic political state garbed and girded in religious terminology. Hijra and military conquest are two components of Islamic expansion.” The cover art is of a Trojan horse."

Read the entire article HERE.

More Insanity from Rowan Williams

Here is an article from "The Telegraph" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/07/nwilliams107.xml) concerning controversial statements by Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury (the leader of the Church of England). Has Williams truly lost his mind? Does he honestly believe that any country can "accomodate" some portions of sharia law? Does he believe that Muslims are pluralists as he is? That they have a live-and-let-live approach to life and religion? I am wondering if we have more to fear from Muslims or the liberal, dim-witted "Christian" leaders who believe that radical Islam can be peacefully accomodated in Western civilization.

Common Ground Between Christians and Muslims?

Al Mohler responded to a letter that appeared in the New York Times in December. The letter, endorsed by some 300 Christian leaders called for understanding between Muslims and Christians based upon their sharing common ground. Baptist Press reported on Mohler's response (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=27176).