A Bigger Table, Not a Smaller Net: Contemporary Missiology vs Movements Missiology

Through the years I have known and conversed with many well-known mission scholars who focus on social justice and political theology. I share their passion for exposing oppression, especially when sleazy politicians manipulate Christian supporters. We need to unmask the “powers” at work in the Church!

Where we part ways is how quickly some of them write off a movement of ordinary people who simply open a Bible in their own language, invite neighbors to study, and watch new house churches emerge in the process.

Look at how Jesus starts in Mark. After announcing the arrival of the gospel of the Kingdom, he walks up to fishermen and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people” (Mk 1:17). That’s it. A little later Jesus sends the Twelve out two by two, long before they fully understand what they are doing, and tells them to rely on God for the basics (Mk 6:7-13). By Mark 9 and 10 they are still tripping up over his true Messianic identity, yet Jesus never stops the movement. If Christ trusted new, immature disciples to learn and grow as they went, why do contemporary critics imply that new believers demonstrate racial reconciliation and economic justice before sharing the good news?

The irony hits even harder when you consider the cost these new believers already pay, especially in Muslim contexts. Some are functionally illiterate. Many live under suspicious neighbors or hostile authorities. A few have been beaten or killed for nothing more than saying, “I follow Jesus, and I want to read God’s Word with my family.” Declaring their theology “too thin” behind the safety of a Christian institution is, at best, tone-deaf.

Cross-cultural witness is not colonial by default. In many regions today, semi-trained missionaries are themselves from the Majority World, crossing borders that other Majority World mission scholars barely notice. Criticizing them because their approach feels “simplistic” risks another sort of colonialism - the kind that polices missiology from afar and never takes the same risks on the ground.

Do these young movements need to grow into a deep concern for justice, reconciliation, and public theology? Absolutely. That growth comes after birth, not before. It is unrealistic to expect a young church planting movement to show the theological depth and social engagement of one that has matured and institutionalized over decades.

We do not need to shrink the disciple-making net. We need to widen the table so that justice advocates, missiologists, movement catalysts, theologians, and brand-new disciples of Jesus in least-reached peoples all find space to contribute. Each group exposes a blind spot the others cannot see. When a scholar unmasks oppressive systems, vulnerable churches benefit. When relatively young believers share Christ across a language barrier in a nearby town (e.g. Acts 11:20), scholars gain a living case study for fresh insights into mission.

So to my political theology friends: keep naming the powers, but do not dismiss ordinary believers who risk everything for a faith in Jesus they are still learning to articulate. And to those catalyzing movements in new places: keep crossing cultures with bold humility, but keep listening to prophetic voices that remind us the Kingdom is for the whole person and the whole community.

The motus Dei is a large enough puzzle for us all. Let us stop measuring whose piece matters more and start fitting our pieces together.

Trying to Make Sense of Gaza, by Colin Chapman

A short but informative article: Trying to make sense of Gaza

Among Chapman’s many books is Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam.

Related Post: Both Pro Israeli AND Pro Palestinian

Middle East Experience

Just wanted to make you aware of an excellent new resource - the only one of its kind - Middle East Experience:

Middle East Experience is dedicated to providing an open-source forum for all the varied voices from today’s Middle East. Whether the voice is Sunni Muslim or Shia Muslim, Christian or Jewish, religious or non-religious, all these distinct voices can be found in one place. From war, oil, economics, the environment, to religious extremism; what happens in the Middle East today affects everyone.

The contributing editors read like a who's who among prominent voices "in the know" on a wide range of issues in the contemporary Middle East.  Continuously updated with numerous videos, book reviews, blogs, and articles, it is a one-stop source for those of you who want an unbiased and open discussion about the region and its many fascinating peoples and places. 

“It’s time for Islamophobic evangelicals to choose”

This is worth reposting in full.  Somebody has to say it!  From Brian McLaren on CNN:

I was raised as an evangelical Christian in America, and any discussion of Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations around the world must include the phenomenon of American Islamophobia, for which large sectors of evangelical Christianity in America serve as a greenhouse.

At a time when U.S. embassies are being attacked and when people are getting killed over an offensive, adolescent and puerile film targeting Islam - beyond pathetic in its tawdriness – we must begin to own up to the reality of evangelical Islamaphobia.

Many of my own relatives receive and forward pious-sounding and alarm-bell-ringing e-mails that trumpet (IN LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS!) the evils of Islam, that call their fellow evangelicals and charismatics to prayer and “spiritual warfare” against those alleged evils, and that often - truth be told - contain lots of downright lies.

For example, one recent e-mail claimed “Egyptian Christians in Grave Danger as Muslim Brotherhood Crucifies Opponents." Of course, that claim has been thoroughly debunked, but the sender’s website still (as of Friday) claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has “crucified those opposing" Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy "naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

Many sincere and good-hearted evangelicals have never yet had a real Muslim friend, and now they probably never will because their minds have been so prejudiced by Islamophobic broadcasts on so-called Christian television and radio.

Janet Parshall, for example, a popular talk show host on the Moody Radio Network, frequently hosts Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-evangelical convert whose anti-Muslim claims, along with claims about his own biography, are frequently questioned. John Hagee, a popular televangelist, also hosts Shoebat as an expert on Islam, as does the 700 Club.

Many Christian bookstores that (used to) sell my books, still sell books such as Paul Sperry’s "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Thomas Nelson, 2008). In so doing, they fuel conspiracy theories such as the ones U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, promoted earlier this year.

In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians - and all Americans - in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.

Meanwhile, many who are pastors and leaders in evangelicalism hide their heads in the current issue of Christianity Today or World Magazine, acting as if the kinds of people who host Islamophobic sentiments swim in a tiny sidestream, not in the mainstream, of our common heritage. I wish that were true.

The events of this past week, if we let them, could mark a turning point - a hitting bottom, if you will - in the complicity of evangelicalism in Islamophobia. If enough evangelicals watch or try to watch the film trailer that has sparked such outrage in the Middle East, they may move beyond the tipping point.

I tried to watch it, but I couldn’t make it halfway to the 13-minute mark. Everything about it was tawdry, pathetic, even pornographic. All but the most fundamentalist believers from my evangelical Christian tribe who watch that video will be appalled and ashamed to be associated with it.

It is hate speech. It is no different from the anti-Semitic garbage that has been all too common in Western Christian history. It is sub-Christian - beneath the dignity of anyone with a functioning moral compass.

Islamophobic evangelical Christians - and the neo-conservative Catholics and even some Jewish folks who are their unlikely political bedfellows of late - must choose.

Will they press on in their current path, letting Islamophobia spread even further amongst them? Or will they stop, rethink and seek to a more charitable approach to our Muslim neighbors? Will they realize that evangelical religious identity is under assault, not by Shariah law, not by the liberal media, not by secular humanism from the outside, but by forces within the evangelical community that infect that religious identity with hostility?

If I could get one message through to my evangelical friends, it would be this: The greatest threat to evangelicalism is evangelicals who tolerate hate and who promote hate camouflaged as piety.

No one can serve two masters. You can’t serve God and greed, nor can you serve God and fear, nor God and hate.

The broad highway of us-them thinking and the offense-outrage-revenge reaction cycle leads to self-destruction. There is a better way, the way of Christ who, when reviled, did not revile in return, who when insulted, did not insult in return, and who taught his followers to love even those who define themselves as enemies.

Yes, “they” – the tiny minority of Muslims who turn piety into violence – have big problems of their own. But the way of Christ requires all who claim to be Christians to examine our own eyes for planks before trying to perform first aid on the eyes of others. We must admit that we have our own tiny minority whose message and methods we have not firmly, unitedly and publicly repudiated and rejected.

To choose the way of Christ is not appeasement. It is not being a “sympathizer.”

The way of Christ is a gentle strength that transcends the vicious cycles of offense-outrage-revenge.

Love Your Enemies

Here's Carl Medearis speaking at the Veritas Forum at Tufts University in Boston last month.  Carl is one of the best at examining this issue in real life. 

The War on Christians and the Arab Spring

Along with other followers of Christ, I am among the first to stand up for Muslims whose human rights are violated (just read some of my earlier posts).  However, why the silence from others when Christians' rights are violated?  Once again, Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets it right regarding the true nature of what is going on around the world in the Feb. 13th issue of Newsweek.  If you live in the Middle East as I do, you are accustomed to regular, first-hand accounts of Christians being massacred by Muslims.  These stories are real.  And they happen every single day.  It's time for the media to take note.  Thank you Newsweek.  Thank you Ms. Ali.  I'd love to see some Islamic voices come out and condemn this violence as well, but I won't hold my breath.

Incidentally, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, expect this persecution to increase dramatically.  Democracy is not on the horizon for the Muslim World - increasing religious fanaticism is.  Trust me.  Or at least trust John Bradley.  The Islamists are better organized, and more importantly, better armed.  The student initiators of the revolutions don't stand a chance against them.  We must pray that as people in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and beyond are brought face to face with Islam in its purest form (i.e. the Wahabi and Salafi brand), they will see that neither democracy nor Muhammad is the answer to their hearts' desires - Jesus is.  In the mean time, let us plead for strength for our brethren in these lands who already follow Jesus.  And keep praying for Ayaan Hirsi Ali to become a follower of Jesus herself. The peace and decency she seeks as a former Muslim is not to be found in America, democracy, or agnosticism, but in Christ!

Christians, Jews, Muslims, and... Lowes?

It's good to see Christians and Jews standing with their Muslim neighbors to support them in this issue.

HT: EP

Both Pro Israeli AND Pro Palestinian

Talking about Israel and the Arabs is a minefield among evangelicals.
There is probably no quicker way to be labeled anti this or pro that.

– Mike Kuhn, pg. 109

For anyone working with Muslims the issue of Israel is bound to come up eventually.  So what is the way forward?

For starters, here is a short article: How Evangelicals Are Learning to Be Pro-Palestine, Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace, Pro-Justice and Always Pro-Jesus (HT: JC).

One great secular resource is the very unique book called The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East.  It’s a narrative non-fiction that displays the humanity on both sides of this complex issue.  I have heard that both Palestinians and Jews claim the book is fair.  But more than fair, it’s also an enjoyable, fascinating read!

See also chapter 7 in Fresh Vision for the Muslim World by Mike Kuhn.

For a solid and balanced biblical-theological perspective, see John Piper’s Israel, Palestine and the Middle East.  Piper also has some shorter resources:

• Israel, Arabs, and the Family of God
• Prophecy and the Invasion of Lebanon
• Do Jews Have a Divine Right in the Promised Land?

It’s nice to know we don’t have to take sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The important thing is to use this issue to point our Muslim friends to Jesus, the hope of all and our only lasting peace.

Related Post: Christ at the Checkpoint

Christ at the Checkpoint

This is exactly the type of conversation that evangelicals need to start having if there is any hope to see a meaningful dialogue and witness for Jesus in the Middle East.  We've got to end the love affair with Zionism!  Check out Christ at the Checkpoint.

Shane Claiborne on Christ at the Checkpoint 2012 from Christ at the Checkpoint on Vimeo.

Musalaha - مصالحة - מוסאלחה

If you haven't heard about Musalaha  (Arabic for 'reconciliation') yet, you need to.  I got a chance to meet some of their folks at Lausanne this year, and I was very impressed!  Who else but followers of Jesus from both sides can bridge the Israeli-Palestinian divide with love instead of guns?

Promoting Love and Understanding Instead of Hatred and Fear

As militant Islam increasingly rears its head all over the world, there seems to be a corresponding increase in negative talk, promotion of fearful ideology, and even hatred toward Muslims - certainly in the media, but also in the Church.  If you are a reader here, you'll know that this disturbs me.  I am not suggesting that we should instead gloss over important issues and pretend that everything about Islam is just perfect.  No, let's deal straightforwardly with the militant side of Islam, especially as it is starkly contrasted to the grace of God found only in Christ!  However, I am suggesting that we need to start seeing Muslims as individual human beings and not as terror statistics.

I continually remind Christians that we have far more in common with any average Muslim from Afghanistan to Mali than we do with any of our atheist neighbors from Arizona to Maine!  Now I don't have much hope for the media on this one, as this hilarious and fear-filled video from ABC news today demonstrates.  However, I do have hope for the Church.  Wasn't it Jesus who said in Matthew 5:44 to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," anyways?  Besides, Muslims are not our enemies, Satan is our collective enemy!  But even if they were our enemies (like the small portion who follow a militant ideology), we are still commanded by our Lord to love them.  So let's start promoting more love and understanding instead of hatred and fear.  Along these lines, I want to promote two new websites.

My Fellow American 

My Best Friend is Muslim

I think they are both great, and represent the kind of shift in thinking that I pray happens in the West, and especially in the Church.  The only unfortunate part is that some of the testimonies of Americans who have converted to Islam sadden me for the lack of understanding about Islam that the people demonstrate.  I fear that lots of Westerners often convert to Islam because it's the "in" thing to do in certain circles, and/or they've got a totally deficient understanding of Christianity (but that's for another post).  In any case, I recommend you have a look at these sites.  I for one can say that my two best friends are both Muslims.  They would do anything for me, even die for me or my family.  I love those two brothers as if they were my own flesh and blood.  So I can certainly relate there!

HT: Elizabeth, Unity Productions Foundation

From the Eyes of Hope

A documentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict from college students Joe Miller and Anna Medearis, From the Eyes of Hope won best documentary at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth this month in Seattle.  It's well worth the $5 download or $12 DVD.

Thanks, Joe and Anna, for showing the world that there are college students who care about real issues for the sake of the Gospel of Peace. 

Christians and Muslims in Egypt

You may have heard about how Muslims protected Christians in Egypt last month by forming a human chain during Orthodox Christmas services.  Now this image is coming out of Cairo this week - Christians returning the favor... Man, I bet the Devil hates to see this!  May Jesus bring the truest Salaam in its fullness!