A Prophet Speaks: "The fall of Europe is close at hand."

The Cardinal of the Czech Republic, Miloslav Vick, is concerned about the fate of Christianity in Europe. He argues that Europe must return to its roots, if not the fate of the continent will be to become Islamic.

"Medieval Muslims tried to conquer Europe but Christians expelled them,” he said. “Today there is a similar war but with spiritual weapons. However, Europe lacks the tools and ability for a spiritual struggle while Muslims are well equipped," he says, adding that "the fall of Europe is close at hand.”

From HERE.

The day is coming when finding a practicing Christian in France will be as interesting and exotic as finding an Assyrian Christian in Iraq.

More than just translation, but what to call it?

I have lately been thinking about how to speak of the Christian approach to communication/language. It is translation, but broader than that. I can't quite figure out a name for it though. I am talking about something that would include storying, picture books for illiterate people, the use of different sorts of media, and so on. Also, it does not seem uniquely evangelical, in many ways the icons and statues of other churches are trying to do something similar--speak something broader and deeper than any one spoken language or strata of society can comprehend.

-AD

Family Missions Company: Lay Missions for the Roman Catholics

Catholic Lay Missions and Muslim Evangelism
by Abu Daoud (4 Jan. 2010)

I have often complained about the lack of a culture of lay missions in the Catholic Church. And then you find something like FMC. In one way, this is very encouraging. But the main problem that I see with this is that the missionaries are sent out with the permission of the local bishop. Now how many Catholic bishops in the Middle East are going to tell some lay missionaries they can come over and evangelize Muslims? The answer is close to zero. The Catholic Church has physical resources scattered throughout the region, from hospitals to schools to monasteries to historical sites. In all honesty, and I'm not saying this to be a jerk, the upkeep and well-being of those physical resources will almost always trump Muslim evangelism. And the bishops, in a way, are right. When you get into the business of Muslim evangelism you really are putting everything on the line. Calling Muslims to embrace Christianity stirs up Islamic anger like few other things. Might there be a bishop here or there who is willing to do this? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

But that doesn't mean groups like FMC and Kerygma Teams (both Catholic) can't have a successful ministry to Muslims. I am thinking that bishops in places like southern Spain and some of the French ports would be happy to have lay missionaries explicitly (if quietly) working to evangelize Muslims. Ah but then you run into the funding problem. Catholic parishes do not have a tradition of supporting lay missions like Protestant churches do. Depending on where you are in the Middle East I would say a family can get by on between $70,000 to $100,000 a year in donations. That might seem like a lot, but from the top of that take of 10-15% which goes to administration of the missionary agency, then account for travel, communications, health insurance, and so on, and you're left with a man making about $40,000 gross in self-employment income. Work out the taxes and SEI and you end up with a man who has a net income of $15k to $30k.

But Europe is a different story. I would say Europe is about twice as expensive as the Middle East. So unless your independently wealthy (and I don't really know any missionaries who are) you have to raise funds from local churches. Figure in the fact that Catholics rarely tithe to their churches, and when they do it is at about 50% the rate of Protestants.

In sum, while I applaud this groups like FMC, I don't see how they can make a substantial contribution to the Church's mission to Islam.

[Note: the director of FMC has been invited to respond to this article.--AD]

Cragg, Islam, and Prison

It is assumed that Islam is a faith that no Muslim would conceivably wish to question. consequently the option to do so is neither valid nor feasible. It is nonexistent. Looked at from this side Islam is a faith that no adherent is free to leave. And that which one is not free to leave becomes a prison, if one wishes to do so.

Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, 3rd Ed. 1956 (2000). Oxford: One World. p 307.

UK Mosque burned down

From HERE.

Look for more of these to happen in the future, and then more retributive terror attacks on civilians a la July 7.

AD

Sharon's Christmas Prayer by John Shea

Sharon's Christmas Prayer by John Shea She was five, sure of the facts, and recited them with slow solemnity convinced every word was revelation. She said they were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady. They had to stay in a stable with an ox and an ass (hee-hee) but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lited the roof Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them. Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was? Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars, The baby was God. And she jumped in the air whirled round, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.

The Cultivation of Christmas Trees by TS Eliot

The Cultivation of Christmas Trees (1954)

TS Eliot

1 There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
2 Some of which we may disregard:
3 The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
4 The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
5 And the childish---which is not that of the child
6 For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
7 Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
8 Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
9 The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
10 Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
11 At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
12 So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
13 Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
14 So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
15 (Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
16 The expectation of the goose or turkey
17 And the expected awe on its appearance,
18 So that the reverence and the gaiety
19 May not be forgotten in later experience,
20 In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
21 The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
22 Or in the piety of the convert
23 Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
24 Displeasing to God and disrespectful to the children
25 (And here I remember also with gratitude
26 St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):
27 So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
28 (By "eightieth" meaning whichever is the last)
29 The accumulated memories of annual emotion
30 May be concentrated into a great joy
31 Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
32 When fear came upon every soul:
33 Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
34 And the first coining of the second coming.

US at war against Islam?

When radical Muslims claim the US has declared war on Islam, it smacks of mirror imaging. It is Muslims, not secular Americans, who view wars in a religious context and fight in the name of Allah, wrongly assuming the rest of the world is trapped in a similar mind-set.

From the CSM.

Short Term Missions: do they help at all?

This guy says no, not really:

Part of this response is also driven by the hollow hope, expectation, and rhetoric about the impact of short-term missions activity on long-term missions commitment. The myth says that growth in short-term missions and mission trips leads to growth in long-term missions. The facts, however, say that growth in the one has not led to growth in the other. The Mission Handbook statistics regarding the overall U.S. and Canadian trends are clear: the short-term boom has not produced a long-term echo. (p 36)

Jaffarian, Michael. ‘The Statistical State of the North American Missions Movement, from the Mission Handbook, 20^th Edition’ in IBMR Vol 32:1, Jan 2008, pp 35-38.

Charles Amjad-Ali on Islam and the modern nation state

Charles Amjad-Ali suggests that much of the difficulty faced by Muslim thinking today is because “Islamic political theory developed during the heyday of such an Islamic state with multi-cultural, social, national, and tribal affiliations, they have had difficulties with the ‘modern’ concept of nation-state for their emphasis has always been on state-nations­, i.e. a single Muslim state encompassing the entire umma with many nations in it. […] So one of the greatest difficulties Islamic theorists face is how to deal among the Muslim states themselves as this falls outside the pale of their doctrinal structures” (Amjad-Ali 9).

Amjad-Ali, Charles. 1996. ‘Setting the Agenda: Contemporary Challenges to the Development of Theology in the Context of Islam’ in Developing Christian Theology in the Context of Islam, Christine Amjad-Ali ed. Rawalpindi: Christian Study Centre, pp 1-20.

Dec 20: Feast Day of Saint Ammon

Ok, I like this for two reasons: it took place in Egypt, and conversion related to persecution is kind of a running theme in Dar al Islam:

St. Ammon

Feastday: December 20
250

One of the Theban Martyrs who were converted by Egyptian Christians. Ammon, along with Ingenes, Ptolemy, Theophilus, and Zeno, were guards during the persecution of Christians in the reign of Emperor Decius. During the torture and trial of these prisoners, Ammon and his fellow guards were converted to Christ. They cheered the faithfulness of the Christians under torture and urged them to endure in their courage. As a result, Ammon and the others became prisoners. They were beheaded displaying the same Christian constancy.

HT to Catholic Online.

Orthodox worship in the Middle East

Took this not too long ago.

Have you prayed for Tajikistan lately?

Have you thought about Tajikistan lately? Have you considered the possibility that God designed you and formed you in your mother's womb to be a light and witness to the peoples of this nation? If not, please discuss the topic carefully with God.

Here is the Joshua Project profile on the almost entirely unreached and Islamic nation of Tajikistan: Here. Note that the two largest population groups have no witness among them to the Gospel.

In other news, here is a nice article from IHT on the trade between this nation and Afghanistan. Splendid. Thanks to the author Andy Isaacson. And also check out the photos here.