Why the Morocco Declaration on Christianity is not as good as it sounds

The folks at Christianity Today are falling all over themselves explaining how great the recent Morocco Declaration on Christian rights is. This should give you an idea:

In particular, the declaration references the charter’s “principles of constitutional contractual citizenship” and “freedom of movement, property ownership, mutual solidarity and defense, as well as principles of justice and equality before the law,” in regards to Muslims and non-Muslims.

I'm just not convinced. The declaration needs to explicitly claim that Christians who at one time in the past were Muslims are also included and should be afforded the same legal rights as folks born in Christian families.

And plus, Morocco doesn't even have an indigenous Christian population, aside from a couple hundred converts from Islam, and those have mostly been hounded and persecuted until they left the country.

I hope I'm worn to be so cynical about this, but we saw this back in the time of the Ottoman Empire with the hat-i humayun. At that time (1850's) Protestant missionaries were overjoyed because they thought these lofty statements about rights meant that Muslims could legally convert to Christianity. But nope. 

So...very nice words. But in the end, dust in the wind. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see that this is much more than a pretty piece of PR fluff which will enable the sheeple of Europe and North America to keep repeating to themselves 'religion of peace, religion of peace...' while their neighbors continue to be killed and their daughters raped.

New research on contextual theology and Christian converts from Islam

Hi All,

Well, it's not light reading, but here is a new doctoral dissertation about Christian converts from Islam. The focus is on field studies of some Arab believers in the Middle East, and some Iranian congregations in the West.

The title is Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-making and ex-Muslim Christians, from the University of Edinburgh by Dr. D A Miller.

Download the PDF from his academia website, HERE.

A Baptismal Liturgy for Converts from Islam

Greetings, 

Here is part IV of my series on sacraments and mission, which I started many years ago for St Francis Magazine. This one contains an introduction summarizing why I think that liturgy is valuable for those engaged in mission to and among Muslims, and then contains a liturgy for baptism (of an adult) based on the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (USA), which yes is very liberal, but the liturgy in the Prayer Book  is very good.

So check it out, try it out if you are doing any work among Muslims, and let me know what you think.

'Mission and Sacrament, Part IV: A Liturgy for the Baptism of Muslims, to be Conducted on the Feast of Pentecost' in St Francis Magazine Vol 10:2, June 2014.

The first three articles can be found (in order) here, here, and here.

Peace,

Abu Daoud

Orthodox Christian Network: Converts from Islam to Christianity

Interesting interview at the Orthodox Christian Network on conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Check it out HERE.

Christians in UK offer safe-houses for converts from Islam

Here is some great news:

A CHRISTIAN campaign group is launching a national network of safe houses for Muslim converts who face ostracism or violent reprisals for leaving their religion.

It says it knows of up to 1,100 former Muslims at risk in Britain but the true number could be 3,000.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, which is organising the network, said: “We are motivated by a deep sense of love and compassion for those that feel trapped in a situation from which they cannot escape.

“The penalty for them at best is to be cut off from their family; at worst they face death. This is happening not just in Sudan and Nigeria but in east London. The government has failed to deal with the rise in anti-Christian sentiment.”

News of the support network for converts comes in the wake of international outrage at Sudan for imposing a death sentence on Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a pregnant Christian woman, for refusing to renounce her faith. Her estranged father was Muslim.

Michael Nazir-Ali, a former bishop of Rochester, said a “mistaken respect for culture” meant that British converts were not being protected.

From Nicholas Hellen at The Sunday Times and HT to David Virtue. God willing we will see similar moves in France and Italy and Germany, where they are much needed.

Discipleship and believers of a Muslim background: St Francis Magazine Vol 10:1

As a contributing editor for St Francis Magazine I am proud to share with everyone our first issue for 2014. The focus of this issue is discipleship for believers who have come from a Muslim background.

I believe this is one of the most strategic topics that the Church must address in relation to our mission to Islam. Let me explain: over the last few decades hundreds of thousands of Muslims and ex-Muslims have made a confession of faith in Jesus Christ. That is the good news. The bad news is that a good number of these people have a faith that peters out, gets tired, becomes silent and defeated, or even revert to Islam.

"Well," someone might say, "That means they never had a true faith at all." That might indeed be the case, but that is not our call to make. I am certain that in many cases the problem was the lack of a firm foundation of discipleship and training.

The April 2014 issue of St Francis Magazine takes up this important issue. Here is one sample (and more to come):

"Discipleship and Leadership among BMB's" by Daniel Edwards. Here is a sample:

As missions, we must begin to think seriously of how to shift our focus to include evangelism and discipleship, and then to progress from discipleship to leadership preparation.The time has come to identify and to build up future leaders for the church among BMBs.The emerging church is in great need for many Timothys to carry on the heavy responsibility of leadership. A friend of mine interviewed Mr. A. Khidri, the director of the Bible society in Algeria. One of the questions asked was: “What is the church’s greatest need in your homeland today?” Mr. Khidri responded to this vital question by saying: “Our greatest need is to develop servant leaders with Biblical qualifications and deep theological understanding.”

Former Muslims United (USA)

I was aware that various councils or groups for ex-Muslims existed in Belgium and the UK and some other countries in Europe, but behold, there is one in the USA as well. On their Mission Statement page they list, among other things, the following goals:

1. Develop a legal framework for and ensure the civil rights of American individuals and organizations to provide sanctuary for former Muslims without being subject to legal penalties or threats.

5. Educate the American public, especially politicians and those in the U.S. legal system, of Islamic law’s encouragement of extra-judicial enforcement or vigilante street justice against apostates who are subjected to serious death threats in America and from abroad.  Denial is a common reaction by many Muslim leaders to those who warn about clear-cut laws in all Islamic legal schools of Sharia.  As a matter of fact, Islamic law states that it is permissible to lie to non-Muslims to accomplish a Sharia-sanctioned objective.  Thus, since killing apostates is a Sharia-sanctioned objective, misleading Western publics is permissible and practiced regularly.  This point must be clear to the public in order to understand the extent of the threat and the disingenuousness of the public response by Muslim advocates of Sharia.

God bless them in their efforts! Learn more about them HERE.