Embedded Files
( - previous issue - )
Apologia Report 17:13 (1,105)
April 11, 2012
Subject: Christian persecution becoming the norm in Muslim lands
In this issue:
ARCHAEOLOGY - "the most important biblical finds made during the last 25 years"
+ Craig Evans names the top five books on archaeology
ISLAM - even Newsweek notices that "anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem" worldwide
RELIGIOUS STUDIES - a secular analysis of evangelical Bible study written for sociologists and anthropologists
----
ARCHAEOLOGY
"Archaeology and the Authority of the Bible" by Michael G. Hasel, director of the Institute of Archaeology, Southern Adventist University (Collegedale, Tennessee) -- a review of "the most important finds made during the last 25 years by archaeologists working in the Middle East who have contributed greatly to the understanding of the Bible. ...
"As Gary A. Rendsburg [Rutgers University] has observed, 'Taken together, the Tel Zayit abecedary, the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription, and the Gezer calendar [all briefly described in the article] demonstrate that writing was well-established in tenth-century Israel - certainly sufficiently so for many of the works later incorporated into the Hebrew Bible to have been composed at this time.' The existence of writing at such an early stage of the Iron Age is significant because it implies that historical data could have been documented and passed on from the early tenth century B.C. until the biblical narrative was finally formulated. This also indicates that the paucity of evidence of writing is less secure than previously thought." Ministry, Mar '12, pp18-20.
"My Top 5 Books on Archaeology" by Craig A. Evans, author of Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence [1] -- includes valuable annotations on the following titles:
1 - Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: Volumes I and II, by Amihai Mazar and Ephraim Stern (Anchor Bible, 1992, paperback, 608 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/75m622e>
2 - The HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament: What Archaeology Reveals about the First Christians, by Jonathan L. Reed (HarperOne, 2007, paperback, 176 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/cgngvf9>
3 - Jesus and Archaeology, James H. Charlesworth, editor (Eerdmans, 2006, paperback, 766 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7cdgz4k>
4 - The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence, by Shimon Gibson (HarperOne, 2010, paperback, 272 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/bpdctxw>
5 - Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums, by Clyde E. Fant and Mitchell G. Reddish (Eerdmans, 2008, paperback, 471 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7jgn3tp>
Christianity Today, Mar '12, p48, <www.bit.ly/HiFgHE>.
---
ISLAM
"The Rise of Christophobia" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- when even Newsweek (Feb 13 '12, pp28-30, 34-35) leads with a cover story about how "anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem" worldwide, everyone should sit up and take notice.
The author was "born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. She served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is currently a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, Infidel [2], was a 2007 New York Times bestseller."
Hirsi Ali opens by reporting that "thousands [of] Christians are
being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a
rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm. ...
"In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. ...
"The media's reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [sic, should read "Conference"] - a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia - and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called "Islamophobia" - a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia." (There is also the fact that journalists don't want to lose access, e.g., sources and locations. Muslims and Muslim countries do not tolerate negative press, even if it's true. In fact, a diligent journalist may be expelled from such countries. This is also a problem for academics, which is why so much contemporary research by Middle-East scholars is unreliable. And of course, journalists may also be afraid of provoking violence against themselves, which would be a very real possibility. - Mark Hartwig for AR)
"But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. ...
"Terrorist attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East, and
Asia increased 309% from 2003 to 2010. ...
"The violence isn't centrally planned. It is a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus that transcends regions and ethnicities." She concludes: "Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let's take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone - except the intolerant." <www.bit.ly/yF3iap>
POSTSCRIPT (Nov 23 '12): In her book Nomad: From Islam to America [4], Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes: "The West tends to respond to the social faliures of Muslim immigrants with what can be called the racism of low expectations. ... But most Muslims, like all other immigrants, migrate to the West not to be locked up in a minority, but to search for a better life, one that is safe and predictable and that holds the prospect of a better income and the opportunity of a good quality education for their children. To achieve this, I believe, they must learn to give up some of their habits, dogmas, and practices and acquire new ones.
"There are many good men and women in the West who try to resttle refugees.... To be blunt, their efforts to assist Muslims and other minorities are futile because, by postponing or at best prolonging the process of their transition to modernity - by creating the illusion that one can hold on to tribal norms and at the same time become a successful citizen - the proponents of multiculturalism lock subsequent generations born in the West into a no-man's-land of moral values. ...
"I believe there are three institutions in Western society that could ease the transition into Western citizenship of these miillions of nomads from the tribal cultures they are leaving. They are institutions that can compete with the agents of jihad for the hearts and minds of Muslims.
"The fist is public education. ...
"The second institution that can and must do more is the feminist movement. ...
"The third and final institution I call on to rise to this challenge is the community of Christian churches. I myself have become an atheist, but I have encountered many Muslims who say they need a spiritual anchor in their lives. I have had the pleasure of meeting Christians whose comcept of God is a far cry from Allah. Theirs is a reformed and partly secularized Christianity that could be a very useful ally in the battle against Islamic fanaticism. This modern Christian God is synonymous with love. His agents do not preach hatred, intolerance, and discord; this God is merciful, does not seek state power, and seess no competition with science. His followers view the Bible as a book full of parables, not direct commands to be obeyed. Right now, there are two extremes in Christianity, both of which are a liability to Western civilization. The first consistes of those who damnthe existience of other groups. They take the Bible literally and reject scientific explanations for the existence of man and nature in the name of 'intelligent design.' Such fundamentialist Christian grpus invest a lot of time and energy in converting people. But much of what they preach is at odds with the core principles of the Enlightenment. At the other extreme are those who would appease Islam - like the spiritual head of the Chruch of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who holds that the emplementation of Shari'a in the UK is inevitable. Those who adhere to a moderate, peaceful, reformed Christianity are not as active as the first group nor as vocal as the second. They should be. The Christianity of love and tolerance remains one of the West's most powerful antidotes to the Islam of hate and intolerance. Ex-Muslims find Jesus Christ to be a more attractive and humane figure than Muhammad, the founder of Islam." (From her introduction, pp xviii - xx.)
---
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Bible Study, by James S. Bielo [3] -- given the author's "target audience [of] sociologists and anthropologists of religion," this study provides some unique insights on the secular perspective of evangelical culture. The book is "an in-depth view of Bible study as it is occurring and thus an analysis of evangelical 'culture in action,' as the author puts it." For example, Bielo finds that "the Bible is not the stand-alone text conservatives may make it out to be; 'Bible study' groups spend as much, if not more, time reading other books and apply scripture reading methods widely beyond the Word itself."
Reviewer Cynthia Woolever makes the interesting, but unexplained comment that "Where Bielo is weakest is in his attempt to explain why Bible study has proliferated recently. ...
"Bielo concludes by pointing out that 'no other institution in Evangelical life is as crucial for sustaining and reflecting on the Evangelical imagination as is group Bible study.'" Review of Religious Research, #54 - 2012, pp131-132.
-------
SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence, by Craig A. Evans (Westminster JK, 2012, hardcover, 208 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7qqs4wn>
2 - Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Prs, 2008, paperback, 384 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7zj2uvf>
3 - Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Bible Study, by James S. Bielo (NYU Prs, 2009, paperback, 208 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/8yrt988>
4 - Nomad: From Islam to America, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Prs, 2010, hardcover, 304 pages) <www.ow.ly/fx4Mz>
--------
( - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse