NOTE: Sorry to have to turn moderation on folks, but this thread is too risky.
UPDATE: Ed Stetzer sends this along: Todd Johnson of the World Christian Database provided the following response: “This video seems to be making its rounds. It is full of misinformation and misinterpretation of data. We provide more reasonable current figures and projections of Europe’s Muslims in both the World Christian Database and World Religion Database. Jenkin’s book God’s Continent critiques the position that Europe is becoming Muslim. That book is probably the best single counter to this video.”
A few comments on two somewhat related posts about the state of things evangelical as we ponder the Coming Evangelical Collapse.
Someone sent me this Youtube video about the likelihood of Christians becoming minorities in countries dominated by a growing Muslim population.
The implications for Christians: evangelize Muslims and have babies.
Christians- and Jews- have been minorities for much of their history. The New Testament would be a completely different book if it were written to a majority Christian culture.
I can’t think of a single word that Jesus ever said that hinted at a goal of “cultural domination.†With all due respect to some of my Reformed, post-millennial, paedo-Baptist brethren, I don’t see that we’re called to fight a cultural battle by having children.
I’ll get some criticism for saying this, but there’s a racist tinge to this video that I don’t like. I know a lot of Muslims and it breaks my heart to see this kind of material tossed out there smearing them as a threat to “our†culture.
Further, the unstated, but blatantly assumed premise that Muslims will revoke constitutions and destroy the rights of non-Muslims in countries where they dominate is less than certain.
That’s not to discount the influence of Christians, their children and their impact on culture as worthless. It’s not, but it’s simply not the emphasis of Jesus or the early Christians as they functioned in their cultures. Jesus never sounded like the ominous narrator of this video.
The extent to which we influence or “dominate†culture seems irrelevant in scripture, since the salvation of the world is the coming Kingdom of God. “Christian culture†points to and participates in that approaching new heaven and new earth, but our hope is completely in Jesus. Why does the video assume that we’re invested in a particular racial or religious cultural expression?
When the culture warriors begin giving Christians directions on what is important, this is what it is going to sound like. Not the Great Commission or the Jesus movement, but a fearful, exclusionary response to losing cultural influence and experiencing possible persecution. “Immigration†is a word that couldn’t be spoken more ominously in this film.
The response of the church to whatever cultural situation it finds itself in is to proclaim and live the Gospel with integrity. At the heart of that calling is worship, but the outcome of that calling is missions, evangelism and church planting. Our response to the growth of Islam or secularism is to live faithfully, proclaim and teach consistently, evangelize boldly and church plant sacrificially.
So now that we are on the subject of evangelism, what are we to make of Ed Stetzer’s recent announcement that Baptists have heard all the recent emphases on evangelism and declining baptisms….and done less of both? We’re a denomination still in decline, reaching the point where applying the brakes won’t stop the free fall.
I know Southern Baptists have some evangelistic people and churches, but on the whole, we are becoming one of those denominations that fires preachers for not being evangelistic and fires preachers for trying to make us evangelistic. We’re going to apparently pay good people like Stetzer, etc to tell us what we have no real plan to pay any attention to.
A friend recently (within the last two months) took a church of nearly a hundred members, and he reports they apparently haven’t had a new member in 6 years. Good people, he says. They are educated above average, love the church, love the Lord. In Southern Baptist terms, I’d imagine they are all “good witnesses.â€
But it- evangelism- is not happening. I’m really wondering where it does happen. The growing churches I know are either sweeping up Christians with church backgrounds, rebaptizing the church or baptizing lots of children. Few are experiencing any kind of adult evangelistic/conversion growth, and almost none from the efforts of laypersons.
A lot of ink is pouring forth in SBC land in regard to what we aren’t doing. I’d suggest that we are at a place where talking to pastors at conferences and on blogs about what we aren’t doing is going to bring about a lot of the same results we’ve seen: more decline. The vast majority of Southern Baptists- and most other evangelicals– aren’t really touched by that conversation, because they believe evangelism and church growth happen when you have the right pastor and that’s the whole game.
Of course, the theological wing of evangelicals clearly believes that if everyone will line up behind the right understanding of the Gospel, then things will change. Verse by verse preaching, complementarianism and plenty of theology- that will do it. I’m lukewarm on that prospect as far as it applies to evangelicalism as a whole. I’m all for making the Gospel clear and central, but I don’t have any illusions about how that’s going to be received by millions of people in my denomination or anywhere else.
No, the problem is who we have become. I think most of us know this. We knew it when we watched Penn Gillette’s video about the Christian who was willing to confront and proselytize him. We aren’t that guy and we aren’t those people. Oh, we want somebody to be like that, or we want someone to think of a way to evangelize people that we can participate in with a generous financial contribution. But most of us aren’t people who actually try to influence other people toward faith.
Are we universalists? Relativists? Postmodernists? Emergers who have abandoned a belief in hell? Your guess is as good as mine, but I don’t think we are missing information or even motivation. We’re missing the key component of reality. We (a lot of us) REALLY aren’t evangelistic people in the SBC anymore. Study it all you want, but something just isn’t there.
This is where I’m surprised that the pundits commenting on this situation aren’t willing to connect the dots. A big reason that the average evangelical isn’t evangelistic is the focus on the issues and tactics of the culture war. According to the culture war advocates, “those unbelievers†are the enemies of Christians and the kind of Christian culture we believe we are supposed to fight for. Are atheists, gays, Democrats, progressives and non-evangelicals in America actually people evangelicals are looking at as potential Christians? Give me a break.
The people in my friend’s church who haven’t seen a new member in 6 years? I’ll guarantee you that the discussion in those Sunday School classes are about how hard it is to be a good Christian witness in these terrible times with the liberals running the country. Being a witness = opposing the agenda of the anti-Christians trying to destroy the culture and corrupt our children.
The new “evangelism†is the culture war. We aren’t winning souls. We’re protecting out culture. If the other side wants to admit we’re right and come on over, great. (To see that mindset, read the Andrew Marin discussion thread.)
When I was a pastor, I got this great idea of starting a Bible study in a large, crowded trailer park near our church. There were a couple of hundred pre-fab homes, lots of families and I wanted to find someone willing to let our church host a Bible study one night a week. Simple outreach, right? No cost. No controversy. Local missions, etc.
So, I promoted this every way I knew how, and I’m pretty good at promotion after being a youth minister for all those years. My church- a church that had assured me they wanted nothing so much as to reach their community and grow- looked back at me with the deer in the headlights look you get when you’ve suggested we actually go knock on doors in the community.
Only one church member came out to help me. (One deacon, as I recall. God bless him.) It was amazing what would come up on a person’s schedule when you said the words “trailer park†in the context of the church’s mission. For most of a month, I covered that trailer park a couple of days a week, knocking on doors, finding no interest and getting no help. I stopped harping and made it my project.
Then I not only discovered a home willing to host the Bible study. I found a family- an entire family with kids- willing to visit our church.
They were, as we would have said, “trailer park people,†and our church was middle class, blue collar; all very proud to not be as low as those “trailer park people.†I should have noticed that no one from our church lived there, but back in those days, my optimism occasionally got out of hand and I missed the obvious. These people weren’t from our side of the tracks.
Do I have to tell you how this worked out? I didn’t think so.
One Sunday visit was all it took to make the indelible and correct impression that they were not “like us†and were not going to get a warm reception. Despite the stalwart attempts of a few good people, my “trailer park†people never came back.
This incident remains with me because my church had, previous to my coming, experienced quite a bit of growth under the previous pastor. Like most other Kentucky Baptist churches, that growth was along the lines of family, marriage and children; reaching “unchurched†members of the clans that dominated our church. Because this kind of growth was facilitated by the popularity of the previous pastor and it resulted in family pride, it was the kind of growth the church embraced. It gave them exactly what they wanted: their families next to them in the pews.
But when I asked our church to do baby steps of evangelism outside of those lines and into a different culture right out our back door, I got nothing, even though many of our people were mature Christians, trained in evangelism and genuinely wanted church growth. I would get a hundred for a gospel singing on any rainy Saturday night, but go do evangelistic work in a trailer park? See you Sunday pastor.
This is not a conversation about understanding the content of the Gospel. It’s not a conversation about methods. Even though it should be, it’s not a conversation about the role of the pastor. (It’s ridiculous that we’ve become so enamored of preachers that church members will openly say their church is growing because the pastor and his wife are “cute.â€)
This needs to be a conversation about who we are, and if the average Christian in our churches would be willing to do anything, personally, in the cause of evangelism?
We have become a denomination whose leaders talk about evangelism, but whose people actually want little to nothing to do with it.
Our decline is because of who we want to be and how we want things to operate. We want the culture to adjust to us. We want our families to be saved. We don’t want to cross any barriers and we don’t want to have do something we decided the pastor is paid to do.
Get ready for many, many years of this. I think most churches will die before they will change this pattern.
NOTW: When a great unifying and focused evangelistic call does come, be sure that it will prompt plenty of controversy from the status quo.
Amen to all,
but….
“Further, the unstated, but blatantly assumed premise that Muslims will revoke constitutions and destroy the rights of non-Muslims in countries where they dominate is less than certain”
1. History as far as I know shows very few if any examples of democratic muslim societies developing by themselves, i.e. Western democrocies, that have not been either colonies of Christian cultures heavily influenced by them
2. I’m not willing to take that risk with my children’s future
But the evangelism stuff more importantly is spot on. Very true but sad.
>I’m not willing to take that risk with my children’s future
The best man in my wedding took his family and has lived in an Arab state for 20 years. Did he put his children at risk?
The video is about as bigoted toward Muslims as its possible to be.
peace
ms
“Our decline is because of who we want to be and how we want things to operate. We want the culture to adjust to us. We want our families to be saved. We don’t want to cross any barriers and we don’t want to have do something we decided the pastor is paid to do.”
iMonk, this is such a heartbreaking post. And the above paragraph is such a damning summary of the church. We simply don’t know how to be IN the world anymore. Who can convince us that our calling is not just to GATHER, but also to SCATTER into relationships with our neighbors, in the context of real life, to share Christ’s love as their neighbors, their friends, their companions in this journey we call life?
I saw that video and had similar feelings to the ones you wrote about.
The funny thing is…the Muslims had Spain and Portugal for hundreds of years.
Ruling powers wax and wane.
We need to accept that.
It is far more likely that the Muslim populations in Western countries will enjoy democracy and the freedom they have in Europe and North America. It is quite possible that these “Muslims” will change and alter their beliefs as most cultures do when in prolonged contact with other cultures.
Hey Mike – you should have stayed with that family in the trailer park and planted the church there. Go where the people are instead of trying to get them in your box.
I have just had another small home group of good church folks fizzle out. Second one this year. I think I’ll grab one of the teens from the youth group and start having church down at the skate park next week. There seems to be more “good soil” down there.
“According to the culture war advocates, “those unbelievers†are the enemies of Christians and the kind of Christian culture we believe we are supposed to fight for. Are atheists, gays, Democrats, progressives and non-evangelicals in America actually people evangelicals are looking at as potential Christians? Give me a break.”
I think that is true to a great extent. I am multiple of those categories and I really do sometimes feel as though the Christians have declared war on me and my culture. The only thing that keeps me from returning the hate is that I remember the good Mennonites, Quakers, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics I have known in my own real life and remember that they didn’t hate me or consider me an enemy.
Some people watch that video and see a threat, and others see an opportunity. The world is coming to our shores. I say amen for the chance to embrace them with the love of Christ, and change some hearts and minds through our words and deeds.
No fear in that.
iMonk,
I’m part of a new church plant in Connecticut. I desperately want to see us grow through evangelism. I have a background in campus ministry, and for better or worse I’m often known as “the evangelism guy” (usually for worse). Though my heart is for the city, my church is in the suburbs and I’m racking my brain about how to do consistent, influential evangelism in the suburban context.
I want to fight against all the dangers you warn about in this post, but I’m struggling with how to go about it. (Maybe I could pick your brain at Advance ’09).
I wonder: how does the low personal cost of the Christian faith in America fit into this?
The early church (100-300AD) turned people away because they didn’t think they were serious enough, and taught people how to live a Christian life before baptizing them and teaching them doctrine. And the church was massively persecuted at the same time.
And yet that was when the church grew the fastest, because we actually trained people how to be Christians.
Somehow that fits into this. But I’m not sure how.
Excellent Post.
Could it be that lots of evangelicals aren’t evangelizing because they, deep down inside, admit that giving people their religion isn’t really going to help other people DO anything?
We like our religion – it suits us fine, as long as it take up our time and refuses to produce permanent changes in our lives; as long as we’re pretending to be on a “spiritual journey” with Jesus, all that sin-and-redemption can be kind of a fun game. But maybe we don’t share it because we know its a pet solipsism and its narcissistic and it would spoil the reverie if somebody else came to it on their own terms.
As long as we can theologize, pray, sing, rake over our consciences and bitterly defend the Jesus flag against the heathens and sodomites, we’re happy to be Christians. But the moment we actually have to put away our church-cant for the opportunity to address rational, honest people and explain what it’s really good for, we get shy and defensive and fill the awkward pause with culture-war rhetoric.
Innocent questions make pious people go evil.
We just had a 33 yr.old man come to church. it was his first time in a church, ever. It is not as rare as you might think. I wonder how many churches he would really have been welcome in.
Not all Arab countries are alike. Some Sharia Law is not friendly to Christians, to say the least.The Quaran Sura 4,89 They wish that you disbelieve as
they have disbelieved, then you
become equal. Do not consider
them friends, unless they mobilize
along with you in the cause of GOD.
If they turn against you, you shall
fight them, and you may kill them
when you encounter them in war.
You shall not accept them as
friends, or allies.*
There is nothing comparable in the bible. Edicts of violence were specific. There are many more examples just like this in the Quaran. This is not a faith group of peace, please read their book. There are peaceful Muslim, but not because of their Quaranic studies.
Jesus never spoke of cultural domination, in fact Revelations tells us we will be dominated, until He returns.
Excellent piece.
I’ve never understood the notion that church growth happens primarily from within (i.e., believers having believers). Perhaps I’m mistaken, but isn’t that the model of growth for Old Testament Israel? Isn’t the model for the growth of New Testament Israel (i.e., the Church) to bring in those from without (from the highways and byways, as it were)?
Romans 9:25 (ESV):
As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people’,
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved’.”
I remember Chuck Colson saying (at the end of his book, Against the Night) that, no matter what happens to the culture/society around us — whether it stands or falls — we’re still called to follow Christ.
…..why are we even having this “conversation”….the studies,polls and statistical analysis were corrupted when you assumed that church goers were Gods people..or that “christians” were for that matter…This explains why christiandom spends so much time and effort RESISTING/DELAYING the very things that must come to pass before the Son of God returns…
There is so much wrong with that video I wouldn’t know where to start.
When I was in college, the big cry was “The Muslim world is closed . . . unreachable . . . pray for an open door.” So I went (undercover) as a missionary to the Muslim world.
Now they are pouring into our country. Praise God! They are coming to us, we don’t have to leave our comfortable homes.
I’ve been praying for a Muslim to move here. I can’t find one and I really, really want to. Okay, I found one 40 miles away, and recently one 17 miles away. I just came in from working on our cabin (next to our house). I’ve been praying that we could host a Muslim family, from Iraq or Iran or anywhere.
Send them my way! I love Muslims! They are some of the best friends I’ve ever had.
At least the Catholics aren’t the enemies in this. Funny how alliances change.
This sounds very similar to the predictions of “the Population Bomb” back in the 70′s. I Remember what Jacques Cousteau said back in the early 80′s about the population problem: instead of blaming the pope or someone about birth control, remember that many of the countries with the lowest birth rate are traditionally Catholic. He made the point that the best form of birth control is to educate women. To empower women, with something other than fertility. Educate women and the birth rate automatically drops.
This will only happen if we make the effort to improve education for the poor and immigrants throughout the world. But of course, no body wants to treat them that well – that would be too… Christian?
Well, I just watched the video. All I can is: “Be afraid, be very afraid!!! Now please buy this product that will ensure your safety (and our profit). The sad thing is, I’m sure I’ll be getting this link through an email forward from very good friends who buy into the whole culture war mentality. The video betrays a Manichean worldview that posits an us/them mentality that sees “Muslims” (cue scary background music) as being unalterably the same as we think they currently are. In other words, the video presents an incredibly “static” picture. The irony of course is that the true Christian witness simply doesn’t allow for any static view. History itself agrees. As groups interact with other groups, they end up incorporating key characteristics of the group they engage with. It’s normal sociology. Islam, just like Christianity, will change as it interacts with modernity. Now, as a Christian, I do believe that the Christian is uniquely fitted to engage these tensions in a way that Islam and Judaism cannot. The combination of Christianity’s theology proper, trinitarianism, combined with the NT witness of the whole Caesar/God divide, gives Christianity a better tack to balance the always competing powers. We don’t need to traffic in fear. God, through Christ, has given us a better way.
What if our culture, as American Christians, is literally poisoning us?
My father in law, who is a nazarene pastor, said that when he went to haiti on a missions trip, and they were helping these folks living in metal shacks with dirt floors, that they actually got ministered to far more…the folks there in Haiti pity us, because we’re so trapped in our culture, and we don’t know how to let go.
I have become supremely impressed by the literary works of Shane Claiborne, who is held up as a champion of the Emerging movement, but who I suspect could care less about aging hippies in contemporary non denom churches who want to feel good about themselves, and more a part of how the church is not part of the suffering world, is not a source of goodness, or beauty, or charity in the world…
or as Brennan Manning said, they do not love the world as Jesus loved the world, because they do not truly Love Jesus. They just think that they do.
I almost forgot: On demographics, which the video so studiously focuses on, the short-term picture is quite bleak. But Meic Pearse, as I always aver, has the best word out there. In his “Why the Rest Hates the West” Pearse points out what the video does, but also makes clear that the emergence of traditional societies in rebellion to modernism’s onslaught, may actually present a positive outcome in terms of traditional morality. They do have more children. Modernists, and their not quite so legitimate children, the post-modernists, don’t. They want to have fun (and kids get in the way of that). They want to buy stuff. They (and by that I mean us) want to consume. If I really am a Christian, then I want that to die.
That video is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it does have cartoonish views of Muslims. But on the other hand, European and American society seem to be in a hurry to self-destruct through a narcissistic slackness of procreation. It’s not so much a matter of us needing to have children to boost our “team” versus the Muslim “team”, as that human society cannot function when everybody is limiting their number of children. Why are we dooming ourselves?
I think that you are bang on Mike. I have been having a conversation around this video this week with some friends in ministry and the rhetoric in this video scares me. If we follow this belief of culture christianity to its end we will soon be taking up arms against people because they are threatening our way of life as christians.
Sorry for this long comment but this video and a few others like it going around right now gets my goat. Europe is reaping what it sowed. For 500 years most of those nations brutally dominated and exploited the peoples that are now coming ‘home’. England is competely overrun by Pakistanis and Indians. Quite frankly they deserve it. They grew rich off the backs of the slave labor of the Raj and the utterly immoral East India Company. There is a law about reaping and sowing.
But what the video does not show is the whole story. Many Muslims are on Jihad- not just terrorist but the true Jihad of trying to propagate Islam everywhere by any means. Most Muslims are NOT. Most Muslims in Europe and the US are open in unprecedented ways. So, yes this should be a wake up call, but not to our own demise. It should be a wake up call to the greatest opportunity we have had to reach the Muslim world since it’s inception. Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus in numbers not thought possible just a few years ago. Yes, the Netherlands is full of Muslims but there are dozens of Churches there today made up entirely of former Muslims. There are 250,000 Iranians in the Los Angeles area. They are completely secular having fled Iran after the fall of the Shah. Who is doing what to reach them? They are not fanatics- they are fed up with Islam. Every time a suicide bomber blows up another 100 Muslims are ready to walk on out on their faith. Who is offering them an alternative? Yes, it is time to wake up to reality, but we should not fear Islam. We should fear God alone, and fear Him we should if we miss this huge opportunity that He is giving us today. You are right Monk, who are we is the question to ask. Children of the King? I pray it will be so.
I’m guessing the lack of true persecution, other than having our feelings hurt, has hindered the Church in America. We are nothing like the ever-growing Church in China, where the hunted underground house-church movement is massive and growing. Amazingly they survive without depending on youth groups or mall-like church buildings. It is doubtful there are disagreements on worship styles. Yet they grow. They grow despite the governmental opposition to their actions. It’s almost as if they actually believe Matthew 28:19.
If we really want to make a difference we should move small groups of Christians, living Christian society, into Muslim countries that are open. Just live there. I don’t think we’re willing to do that, though. I know I’m not.
How accurate do you feel are the eurostat figures?
Imonk,
yes he did,
is some risk worth taking, it depends on your work, if one feels the call to missionary service then yes, but I’m not willing to open the borders and surrender my heritage bequeth to me by my forefathers to Islam
If that makes me bigoted so be it. I think it just makes me wise.
Imonk,
I can’t get the video to load, so I can’t comment on that, but I take your word for it.
peace
That video gives the illusion that all Muslims are devout fanatics dedicated to spreading and espousing their religion endlessly…
In truth most Muslims are like most Christians; they just go to their mosque every Friday or so and hardly think about Allah anymore than the average “Christian” thinks of Jesus. I think the distinction needs to be made between Islam as a religion and Islam as a culture, kind of like the difference between Christianity and Christian culture.
I do not understand why you have “to bring” the trailer park people to your church. You were being the church to them and showing them how they can see and find Christ. That is awesome.
Instead of having the “building” to come to, why not take the followers of Christ to them. Have the gathering of believers be in the trailer park, and build relationships with them.
The Lord will use someone living in that trailer park to help facilitate the group and oversee the gathering. Another one with the gift of teaching can help lead discussion. As they gather there in the unity of Christ, His Church grows.
I left the institutional church about a year ago because after 10 years in the church, I know how the trailer park people felt, I do not blame them for leaving. Break down the walls…get out of the pews. Let us break the status quo, consumerism vision many churches have.
Yea, the video is bad. I would like to point out that had the CIA not supported assassinations, coup d’etats, etc. throughout the Muslim world (Iran, Egypt, Indonesia) these countries would perhaps be democracies. Our continued support of dictatorships in the Muslim world, (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and Saddam Hussein before the 1990′s) doesn’t give the democratic West much credibility on the supporting and spreading democracy front.
A lot of the reason these countries are so closed can be, at least partially, tided to the fact that it is in the West’s best oil interest to maintain a stable tyranny in these countries.
My question for Michael (for whom my reverence knows no bounds) is what about now resigned Bishop Michael Nazir Ali and other Europeans who see the influx of radicalized Islamic immigrants and a secular malaise as being very dangerous to a free society?
My second question is more of a comment. I get the feeling that Michael (and others of like mind) are creating an either/or proposition. Either we are faithful to Christ, or we wage the culture war. But why can we not do both? Is it not possible to say that we are Christians first and Americans (or Canadians or Italians or whatever) second, but that declining birth rates and an influx of immigrants with values hostile to democracy might – just might – be a potentially volatile situation? No, it’s not the Gospel, but if we are to use that rubric, then the fundamentalists of the 1940s had the better idea. If Christians can’t speak sense about these matters, then no one else can.
Instead of carrying about the generic culture war, let’s start naming names and institutions, because for every Michael Savage or Rod Parsley, there is a Richard Land or Richard John Neuhaus or Michael Nazir-Ali, and we do ourselves no favors when we lump them all in together.
“Further, the unstated, but blatantly assumed premise that Muslims will revoke constitutions and destroy the rights of non-Muslims in countries where they dominate is less than certainâ€
1. History as far as I know shows very few if any examples of democratic muslim societies developing by themselves, i.e. Western democrocies, that have not been either colonies of Christian cultures heavily influenced by them
2. I’m not willing to take that risk with my children’s future — Austin
My sister-in-law grew up Assyrian Christian in a Muslim country (Mosul, Nineveh Province, Iraq). She has nothing good to say about Islam; apparently when Muslims are on top, they throw their weight around — HARD. With the Utter Certainty that they are Doing God’s Will.
And Saudi oil money bankrolls the dominance of one of the most extreme forms of Islam — Wahabi, from the Empty Quarter, the Islamic version of can-you-top-this hyper-Calvinism. They’ve been whitewashing the mosques wherever they dominate like Calvin whitewashed the churches of Geneva, in every sense of the word.
It is far more likely that the Muslim populations in Western countries will enjoy democracy and the freedom they have in Europe and North America. It is quite possible that these “Muslims†will change and alter their beliefs as most cultures do when in prolonged contact with other cultures. — Terri
Multicultural Diversity (TM) lasts only until the most dynamic culture absorbs the others (“AMERICA! WHISKY! SEXY!”) or the most aggressive culture destroys the others (“AL’LAH’U AKBAR!”). And while the Jihadis infiltrate to conquer, our more dynamic culture is infiltrating them. If there is any hope for Islam (in what I am certain future historians will call The Islamic Wars), it’ll come from American Muslims, immersed in what until now has been one of history’s most dynamic cultures. If anybody can reconcile the history of Islam with the conditions of the 21st Century and beyond, it’ll be American Muslims.
Islam is suffering from future shock piled upon the curse of runaway early success. The Wahabi (and their extreme fringe of the Taliban and al-Qaeda) have reacted by trying to force the rest of reality into what they want it to be — the utopian dream of a Perpetual Year One of the Hegira. This can only work in isolation from other cultures (like ours); it’s no coincidence that this brand of Muslim goes all-out to withdraw into all-Muslim cultural enclaves with minimal contact with the Infidels outside. Europe has isolated their Muslims in ghettos which assists this process (and can be used as bases for Jihad); Americans don’t.
The early church (100-300AD) turned people away because they didn’t think they were serious enough, and taught people how to live a Christian life before baptizing them and teaching them doctrine. And the church was massively persecuted at the same time.
And yet that was when the church grew the fastest, because we actually trained people how to be Christians.
Somehow that fits into this. But I’m not sure how. — Jonathan Hunnicutt
I suspect the Gospel back then also had more to it than (1) Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles, (2) Pin-the-Tail-on-The-Antichrist, and (3) God Hates Fags. What sort of appeal would such a narrow, shrunken Gospel have to early-Imperial Romans or contemporary Americans?
I’ve never understood why we feel the need to have the rest of the world conform to our beliefs. I’m an Atheist, and we are just as guilty of this as anyone else.
I really couldn’t care less what the rest of the world believes as long as no one tries to force their beliefs on me, or anyone else. That is something I will fight very hard.
Strider-
An interesting note about the word “Jihad”. It basically means overcoming an evil, which is why, to an American, it provides justification for bombing people.
However, to a Muslim, it could be something like quitting smoking, or overcoming an obstacle in life. It’s considered a great honor to complete a Jihad.
Its things like this that make our cultures seem like they are at great odds with eachother. If we really gave some thought into understanding eachother I think things would be a lot better. But then again, we will always have nutbags on every side.
I have never bought into the so-called culture war mentality, but even if folks do, shouldn’t they be praying for those whom they see as off base or as enemies rather than going into an attack mode or circling the wagons? Why not pray for and seek opportunities to become friends with people, build relationships, and move toward conversing about following Jesus? That seems a lot more productive–why it even seems “evangelistic” to me.
Some of my best friends, Christians who send their children to a private Christian school, freak out a little bit when they hear that my child goes to school and is friends with other children who are openly Islamic.
Because it’s easy to say they’re going to Hell because they haven’t accepted Christ when “they” is abstract.
It’s a lot harder when “they” are 12 year old girls just like our 12 year old girls.
I am intensely interested to see if the large number of Muslims in the US becomes a group like the Christian religious right. That’s certainly the implication of the video.
I can see why people would be worried about that possibility. James Dobson and friends have led millions of voters to the polls for years, and these politicized Muslims could be their first significant organized opposition.
“I can’t think of a single word that Jesus ever said that hinted at a goal of “cultural domination.—
And yet that is the goal of so many Christians… I’m much more worried about any conflict caused by our Christian brothers and sisters who do aim for cultural dominance than the Muslim majority we may one day have.
I would rather see Muslims take over than Christians stir up trouble in the name of some cultural Christ.
“Our decline is because of who we want to be and how we want things to operate. We want the culture to adjust to us. We want our families to be saved. We don’t want to cross any barriers and we don’t want to have do something we decided the pastor is paid to do.â€
Yep. It is easier and safer to stay inside the bubble of, “be nice to people, do charity works on the one hand, and fight the culture war on the other” .
And let me add: Most of us do little to share Jesus because we are unsure of our own ability to share our faith in a natural engaging way. Many of us think evangelizing means we have to have all the answers and that we have to “save” people, and that we must always be shiny happy super-humans.
Rebecca Pippert is one of several very good authors/teachers helping folks get out of the bubble – err,
Salt Shaker- and into the world.
Thanks for a great post IM, and lotta great comments from all.
You’re right, I don’t see a mandate from the Bible or God to fight a ‘culture war’
History has shown that as religion gains power in government and culture, it is forced to marginalize.
Thanks, Michael, for this post. It is really thought-provoking. And I agree with you about the video. When the narrator said “immigration, ISLAMIC immigration”, the tone told the story. And I do wonder about how freedoms would fare. I guess we have no model to look at–all the nations who transitioned into Islamic republics (or whatever) weren’t free to start with (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc).
But the beauty of your post is the trailer park story. God, deliver me from this kind of prejudice and lack of love! May I first be willing to embrace all people myself, then attempt to lead my church to do the same. Amen.
One of the drawbacks of living in a pluralistic, but largely Christian culture (which is what we had in the USA for a long time) was we developed a common feeling that it was bad manners to suggest that someone else’s religion was wrong (to his face, I mean). In Wisconsin, where I live, there used to be little towns up north that had one Catholic church and one Lutheran Church, and neither group talked to the other. Each could talk about why the other was wrong among themselves, but the idea of going to someone on the other side and suggesting that they were wrong and should change? That would have been terribly rude. And this was so in large, more diverse communities as well. I think the idea was partly that we would all get to heaven in the end, so even though somebody HAD to be wrong on some doctrinal issues, it was better not to offend anybody in the here and now.
I think this attitude left the church at a disadvantage when dealing with non-Christians. I used to attend a church in a suburb with a large Jewish population. There was no outreach to Jews. None. I think the consensus was that 1) it wouldn’t do any good, and 2) it would only offend them. I mean, telling someone to return to the faith of our fathers was one thing, but trying to convert a total unbeliever? Plus, there is a big cultural attitude that criticizing a persons religion is basicly saying you hate them. Just look at the video. You are right about the racist tinge to it. But I have a Muslim working in my office. And one of the the first things I had to tell him about Christianity was that he was on the road to Hell (if only Christ can save us, it was pretty obvious). It was hard to find a way to do this politely. But I am sure that it is clear to him that I don’t just mean him. His parents, wife and children, uncles, cousins, everybody he cares about most, all going to Hell if they don’t rely on the fact that Christ died for their sins. And all his recently passed away relatives (grandparents, etc.)…well, they’re in Hell already. When you juxtipose this fundamental fact of our faith with the open hostility of the culture warriors, it isn’t easy to distinguish us (who love the unbeliever) from them (who hate the unbelievers and want them to go away).
I hope I have shown the love of Christ to my co-worker, but I’m sure there is always room for improvement. If anyone out there has any suggestions on how to share Christ with people who other “Christians” are treating as the enemy, I’m all ears.
I just re-read my earlier comment, and I don’t want to leave the impression that I just blurted out to this guy that he was going to Hell. But, when I explained the fundamentals of Christianity to Him. That we are all dead in our sins. No one can be save by doing good works. That people can only be saved because Christ died for our sins; we ourselves do nothing to be saved. But we cannot reject that great gift of God and expect to be saved. Well, he is an intelligent man. He figured it out. He said, “then I must be going to Hell”. I said, “that’s not up to me.”, but he got the idea. I told him that I wasn’t telling him this becase I don’t like him, but I was telling him this because I DO like him and I don’t want to see any harm come to him, and I don’t think he was offended. But it is comparitively easy to suggest that I deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus. But to suggest that to my Muslim friend is to require some pretty serious self-denying. Good thing I believe that it will be the Holy Spirit, and not I, who melts his heart.
Michael,
What a great piece, you put into words and perspective many things I have noticed in my little community. I am at work and the video is blocked, so can’t comment on it. But,yeah what you said about trailer park people and Churches wanting to grow by children and family association, that’s it exactly down in my neck of the woods.
I work in a poor state for a poor state agency in a poor region of the state. I see the lack of basic sanitation everyday (clean water, sewage disposal,etc.) I see people struggling to get to a menial job in a broken down clunker, wondering who will watch the children. What I don’t see is us; Churches, or just people; helping one another. We mourn in private, we celebrate in private, we struggle with every day concerns in private.
I have met two young Muslim black men over the past several years up the road from where I live. We have talked, while picking up trash, and doing some menial repairs in a broken-down neighborhood (my great aunt lived here many years ago, when it was still a “good white neighborhood”). I’m white late 40′s, a wanna be Jesus-follower; to say we had little in common makes me smile even now. But, you know as we sweated and talked and worked we recognized each us wanted to see this broken neighborhood heal, we found some common spark of brotherhood. I won’t ever become Muslim and I have doubts of them becoming Christians, but they are not so hostile to whites or Christians. Nor, am I so hostile to young black men, or Muslims.
Somewhere along the way in this country our Church people forgot how to live and interact in the world around them. You describe that well, thanks for letting me give a long-winded, “amen”.
What if AA told the drunks, “You’re a bit of a wreck right now. Come back once you get yourself sober.â€
If that is not how evangelicals feel, I think that is how it is often understood. “Become like us and then we will accept you.â€
I’m reading Andrew Martin’s book and one quote seems relevant: “Christians don’t create culture by critiquing culture, but by creating culture.â€
Very infrequently a new product comes on the market that is so useful that I can’t wait to tell everybody. There is never any difficulty telling people about something you love.
I have no trouble telling people what Christ has meant to my life. But then, the tough part. Why should I suggest they visit a church where they are likely to be ignored or find rejection? What do big chunks of Christian culture actually offer?
Jesus said to love one another as he loves us. I think the heart of the problem is that too many Christians don’t really understand the love of Jesus, so don’t really know how to love one another.
I think that Christianity needs to stop fixating on culture and look inward. It’s time for Christianity to fall in love with Jesus all over again. Get to know Jesus and you get to know his love for us. When we know this loving relationship, then we see how to love one another.
The “Trailer Park” part of your post parallels my experience in full-time missions. The biggest shock I have received is the amount of practicing evangelical Christians (mostly SBCers) that have a huge problem with me being a long-term missionary in Western Europe. I have had Christians seriously and repeatedly ask me when I’m going to “get this out of my system”, return to the States and become a “normal Christian”, serving somewhere in the U.S. My own Christian parents would rather I do anything else, preferably something that was socially popular and made me wealthy. All this after years in church, being told The Great Commission and listening to missionaries in church? Why were my non-Christian co-workers less shocked (and more supportive, sometimes even financially) at my decision?
On the Muslim issue, I’m glad I had Muslim neighbors in my hometown. They were some of the nicest, most hospitable people on my block. We can’t let fear get in the way of our interactions with everyone.
And to Todd Erickson’s comment, “What if our culture, as American Christians, is literally poisoning us?” the answer is “yes”. Try living outside of the US for a few years, and you’ll see it, crystal clear.
I evangelized during my college days, it was a totally terrifying experience, going up to strangers and trying to talk about Jesus; I’m the kind of person who won’t speak to a stranger unless I absolutely need to, like asking directions etc.
Nothing terrible happened, no one insulted me or screamed at me, but still. I was a student leader and it was expected of me to evangelize, so I did, but I was always relieved when it was done and over with.
Amen to this post. It was painful to read because I confess that I am guilty. Guilty guilty guilty guilty. I simply do not love my next door neighbor enough to really attempt to snatch him from the fires of hell.
I agree that we demonize our enemies instead of loving them into the kingdom. I believe the culture war is a big part behind all of that.
However, I have to agree with austin up above.
Imonk, when you said:
Further, the unstated, but blatantly assumed premise that Muslims will revoke constitutions and destroy the rights of non-Muslims in countries where they dominate is less than certain.
I must ask what reality this comes from. All over Europe Muslims are aggressively trying to legislate sharia law and they are succeeding. Even in Canada they have managed to legislate sharia anti-blasphemy laws: It is illegal to say anything negative about Islam in Canada.
Muslims are interested in theocracy. History proves that is dangerous in the hands of Christians even. Not all Muslims have that as their goal, but I have no idea how many. I am hopeful that some of the more liberal Muslim scholars will attain a more prominent voice in their faith, especially the wonderful Sufi Muslims in America. But simply from reading the book, it will take some pretty liberal hermeneutics to interpret peacefully large portions of their holy tomes.
Oh, I am so tired of this huffing and puffing about the coming Muslim demographic nightmare.
Firstly, will it ever happen? I doubt it, somehow.
Secondly, so (self-identified) Muslims may come to outnumber (self-identified) Christians on census returns – so what?
My point there is that if you’re comparing numbers, then compare meaningful numbers. What proportion of the total population of a given nation will be Muslim (not just how big is the Muslim population vis-a-vis the Christian population)? The recent Pew and other surveys on Christianity in America should be instructive for you here; there’s a growing number of “No affiliation listed” or “Nones”, and I have no reason to doubt that Europe will be different. If you’re flapping about sharia law will be the law of the land!, then the numbers would have to be something like over 50% of the population is (a) Muslim (b) committed enough to want sharia law (c) not corrupted by liberal Westernism like the Christians, shock horror! (d) that matters had come to the point of a referendum on such a sweeping change to the legal system. Come back to me when we’re talking about hundreds of millions of fundamentalist conservative Muslims streaming through the ports and across the borders of Europe on a daily basis and I’ll panic then.
Thirdly, I’ve heard all this before. Whipping up hysteria in Northern Ireland by claiming that Catholics were “breeding like rabbits” and were going to out-number Protestants and force a Roman Catholic theocracy in a re-united 32-county Gaelic Reublic upon the loyal subjects of the Crown. “A Protestant government for a Protestant people” is just as unpalatable when it’s turned against Muslims as against Papists.
The older I get and the more I reflect on the teaching of Christ the more I realize that evangelicals and even some “missional” churches have often put the redeeming culture cart before the horse of loving one’s neighbor. Loving your neighbor doesn’t require that you compromise your convictions as a Christian, but your convictions as a Christian should spur you to love your neighbor.
And the part I wonde about now is this, do the makers of this sort of video want evangelism and babies to happen out of love for neighbor? It comes off more like “we need to outbreed the bad guys”. Whatever happend to “we wrestle not against flesh and blood?” I am amazed at how often Christians neuter the real, scary implications of the parable of the good Samaritan– loving your neighbor also means you don’t get to choose who your neighbor is or isn’t. Loving your neighbor is what you’re commanded to do even if you don’t manage to convert your neighbor.
Perhaps even if evangelism were pursued it might come up empty because the culture war is so prominent a feature in evangelicalism people who aren’t Christians assume the real reason to convert someone is to get them to sign up for the cultural program.
Monk,
I know this was not the main point of your post, but thanks for the Jimmy Page pic. Love Zep.
Gotta swim upstream on this one, iMonk. I haven’t seen the video, but the commenters are seeing through a western lens and missing the reality re: Islam. There is NO majority-Muslim country where Christians are not persecuted. During the Balkan wars we were told how modern and “moderate” the Bosniaks and Kosovars are, and now their women are in hijab and their churches in flames. So much for moderation when confronted by modernity. Of course not every Muslim is practicing this, but the ones that aren’t are actually the worse Muslims. Fact, not “bigotry”. More and more Muslims are seeing this, thanks to the Internet and Father Botros, but Islam itself remains committed to domination, and is therefore qualitatively different from Judaism, Sikhism, etc.