"Trinity 101" and "Christology 101" - A Witness to Islam from Church History

Question: What do repudiating heresies and the formulation of historical orthodoxy in church history have to do with Islam?
Answer: A whole lot!

After reading the comments to a post I made on April 5 about the way that Islam is helping us to sharpen our own theology, I have decided to do a short series of posts that will take a look at some ancient heresies and how the church responded to them.  As we have noted, many of the theological challenges that Islam poses have already been dealt with before Islam ever came into existence.  Therefore, in the interest of helping us to contend for the faith with our Muslim friends, I want to explore a bit of church history and the formulation of what we know as historical orthodoxy.  The two areas I will focus on are the two areas where Islam is most at odds with Biblical faith - the Trinity and the Person of Christ.  In the interest of clarity for future reference, I will entitle all posts as part of either “Trinity 101” or “Christology 101” in the categories of Theology, Church History, Trinity, and Christology.

My hope is that these posts will help our readers to be better communicators of the Gospel among Muslims.  I certainly know that writing them will be very helpful for sharpening my own witness!

I hope to roll out one or two each week, so be on the lookout!

Hello from Abdul Asad

I want to thank Warrick for the chance to team up on this blog. I am of the opinion that two heads are better than one. So in this case, I hope and pray that together we can succeed in keeping the glorious Messiah continually visible before Muslims - directly, in our own lives, and indirectly, through the lives of those who we seek to resource on this blog.

Circumpolar Welcomes Abdul Asad

Circumpolar is now a team blog with a new contributor.  Abdul Asad (a pen name) is originally from New York, and studied at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  He is involved with ministry among Muslims in several different nations, with a home base in the Arabian Peninsula.  His passion is to see Jesus Christ become
incarnate in the darkest corners of the world by living the Gospel in word and deed, and empowering followers of Jesus from the global Church to do the same.

Abdul Asad is cool guy and he is passionate about Jesus.  I am looking forward to learning a lot from him.

In August 2009 St. Francis Magazine published an article written by Abdul Asad, “RETHINKING THE INSIDER MOVEMENT DEBATE: GLOBAL HISTORICAL INSIGHTS TOWARD AN APPROPRIATE TRANSITIONAL MODEL OF C5.”  I highly recommend the article, especially the table/chart at the end showing the difference between what he calls “appropriate” and “syncretistic” C5.  (Maybe Abdul Asad can repost that table/chart so we can read it all on one page?)

I also want to take this chance to remind you about the purpose of Circumpolar.  A “circumpolar” star is one that is continually visible above the horizon.  So Circumpolar exists so that the glorious Messiah would be continually visible before Muslims.  Through postings on this blog we aim to equip and resource followers of Jesus to advance the gospel among Muslims.

Welcome

Welcome to Circumpolar - a series of short readings related to muslim ministry intended to equip and resource followers of Jesus to advance the gospel among Muslims.

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The future content of this blog...

Church Planting - Unreached - Contextualization
Evangelism - Jesus Fellowship Movements - Spirituality
Leadership - Teams - Partnerships
Loving - Balanced - Biblical