انا سعودي، انا مسيحي

Praise for 'Sharing Jesus with Muslims in America'

What a pleasure to read the recent review of Sharing Jesus with Muslims in America over at the blog Fresh Start Stories by Beverly Nault.

Here is a portion of the review:

Abu Daoud has written a stunningly well organized, well researched and cited book that walks a Christian through how to befriend and answer their Muslim friend’s questions about Jesus. It comes from experience, which is important because the Qu’ran teaches about Jesus so before we go off spouting what may be either silly or offensive, knowing how a Muslim thinks about Him will help immensely. 

And this book lays it all out there. 

I read it in a couple of days, and feel like I have a good foundation, and yet I also was inspired to learn more.

Thank you Beverly for your great review!

Read the whole review HERE and consider buying the book!

Worry about conversions to Christianity spreading

This article is about a member of the royal Kuwaiti family who recently converted to Christianity. There are some questions as to his identity, but the story has spread.

What caught my attention though was at the end of the article:

After Heidar Moslehi, the Iranian intelligence minister, asked Muslim seminaries to become proactive in stopping the spread of Christianity, a high-ranking cleric declared that Evangelical Christianity is the most horrifying intelligence and security organisation in the world. This statement seems to have appeared on press agencies close to the Revolutionary Guard. In a conference on “New Age cults” held in Varamin, a district south of Teheran, Akhond Mohsen Alizadeh declared: “We should not allow these cults to question Islamic jurisprudence under the cover of mysticism.” He went on to add: “They tell the youth that God is wrathful and horrible in Islam but is love in Christianity. Also, Christian preachers answer the questions and doubts of youth in their own interest and try to attract them.” Nevertheless a whole series of signs seem to indicate that non-traditional Christianity – there are Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Iran as well as a large Armenian community – is spreading. The regime’s press recently spoke of them with concern and the number of cases of repression and condemnation following conversions is growing.

I think these two paragraphs communicate to us two things: 1) the authorities don't understand evangelicalism at all, and 2) they are worried.

In any case, let's pray that we would continue to see these conversions. And let's also pray for the traditional churches that they would be more active in welcoming in converts from Islam.

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.

Pope Francis in Middle East: People mus be free to choose their own religion

Good news from the pope's recent visit to the Middle East:

During his first official visit to the Middle East, Pope Francis repeatedly told Muslim audiences that religious freedom is “a fundamental human right” and that governments must allow people to choose their own faith.

From HERE. Pray that freedom to convert from Islam to Christianity will triumph in the Middle East, and that people will disobey the Prophet of Islam who said that, 'whosoever changes his religion, slay him.'

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.

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.

Did the Apostles espouse insider movements?

I answer that the Biblical witness clearly leads to the answer no:

Further, the mixed churches in cities like Rome and [the region of] Galatia were likewise errors. These believers, both Jews and non-Jews, had mistakenly supposed that they in some way had come into a new oikos and a new identity, and Paul, lacking wisdom as usual, taught them these things. Indeed, a triumph of IM hermeneutics and practice would have meant that Peter should have been victorious when Paul confronted him. Indeed, Paul, in violating kashrut was stepping needlessly outside of his oikos, while Peter himself was honoring his God-given identity as a Galilean Jew. 

In the end though, it was the faith—the apostolic faith—that was victorious. A faith which understood that in Jesus a new community had come into being demanded allegiance above and beyond one’s own community of birth. Or as one African pastor put it in those early centuries: you cannot have God for your Father without having the Church for your mother.

From my recent article on insider movements.

"Rebecca Lewis and Kevin Higgins against the Ropes": a new article by Abu Daoud

As a contributing editor of St Francis Magazine I have the privilege (and duty) to write at least one substantial article per year. All my previous SFM articles can be found in the menu to the right of the main blog text. My recent article started as a mere book review of Jeff Morton's recent book Insider Movements: Biblically Incredible or Incredibly Brilliant?

The material in this book unfolded itself into an article-length article (which is also a review) concerned with 'insider movements'. In his book, Morton particularly takes on two of the main proponents of IM: Rebecca Lewis and Kevin Higgins--hence the full title (and biblio):

Abu Daoud. 2013. "Rebecca Lewis and Kevin Higgins against the Ropes: sounding the death nell of the insider movements and the victory of Apostolic faith" in St Francis Magazine 9(4), August, pp 52-58.

(Yes, that is "Abu Daoud" and not "Daoud, Abu.")

The article also takes on Dave Bogs, who is the gatekeeper of the 'Insider Movement' entry at Wikipedia, which is well-curated and totally inaccurate. It is a good reminder as to why Wikipedia is not allowed to be used in academic papers!

Here is an excerpt:

If you journey over to Wikipedia and check out the Insider Movement entry, you will enter the personal fiefdom of one Dave Bogs. If you click on the ‘view history’ tab you will find that anything he does not like is deleted (by him). His justification for this is invariably that a significant number of people have said that the article is balanced. If you click on the ‘Talk’ tab (next to the ‘Article’ tab) you will find that a bunch of people went to Wikipedia between March13th and 17th of 2012 and left positive comments on the article. Is it possible that Dave or someone else was teaching a class on IM, and that the students were told to log in to Wikipedia and endorse the article as ‘excellent, concise’ and so on? (p. 55)

Dear Dave Bogs, please leave a remark here and clarify the situation. I won't delete your material like you do with the poor souls who try to fix the IM article at Wikipedia. As Christians, dialogue is a fine way to work this out, but your control of the Wikipedia site makes this impossible.

Anyway, check out the entire article here, and let me know what you think. If Kevin Higgins or Rebecca Lewis or Dave Bogs would like to leave any comments, they are most welcome.

Find it a Scribd or download the PDF from St Francis Magazine.

(You can also download the entire issue, if you like.)

Jesus was a good Muslim, and stuff on being a dhimmi

Here is a review by Bat Ye'or of a recent book.

Bat Ye'or is one of my great historians. Her name means Daughter of the Nile, and she was born in Egypt to Jewish parents. She is not a citizen of France where she does most of her writing.

She is the world's foremost scholar on dhimmitude, that is, the continued existence of Christian and Jewish communities in the Muslims world. Unfortunately the Western press has often mutilated the term and spoken of rights of "religious minorities". This is utterly absurd and shows their absolute ignorance regarding Islam. Dhimmitude only requires a Muslim ruler. Indeed, if a European country were taken over by a Muslim government then all the non-Muslims would be dhimmis--even if that is 80 or 90% or the population. This was in fact the case in much of Turkey, at times there were entire regions that were over 80% Christian, yet they were still under the dhimmi.

In any case, a fine review from a brilliant scholar:

Do we Worship the Same God?

An excerpt:

"In the first section, the author provides information about and reflections upon the Muslim Jesus (Isa). He stresses as fundamental the Koran’s teaching that Islam is the first, primordial religion, preceding Judaism and Christianity, which are dismissed as invalid traditions, being falsified versions of Islam. Because Christianity and Judaism are thought to be a corruption of the pure message of Islam, anything true in these religions comes from their Islamic roots. Consequently, to obey their true religion, Jews and Christians should “revert” to Islam and accept the prophethood of Muhammad."