16AR21-20

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AR 21:20 - Islam: Facts or dreams?

In this issue:

ISLAM - five starting points for dialog with Muslims

+ former Assistant U.S. Attorney attacks "political correctness on steroids, and its dangerous policy implications"

Apologia Report 21:20 (1,293)

June 3, 2016

ISLAM

"The Universal Questions Muslims Ask" by David W. Shenk, global consultant for Eastern Mennonite Missions -- "How does the average Christian relate to the average Muslim? How could the Christian begin to converse in a respectful manner with a Muslim about matters of faith?

"It is from this perspective that the following article is written. Most Muslims have never spoken with a Christian about the gospel. Most Christians do not know what they will encounter even if they begin. This article provides five starting points for conversation. It is not intended to be a substantive theological exploration."

Shenk describes an opportunity he received to represent his faith before a madrassa (Muslim training center). "The faculty was not hostile and the questions were not accusatory questions. Rather they were questions rooted in curiosity and perplexity. They were the honest questions that Muslims ask Christians around the world wherever Muslims and Christians meet one another at the belief or theological level of interchange. ...

"First, have you changed or corrupted the Bible?

"Second, what do you mean by saying that Jesus is the Son of God?

"Third, what do you mean by Trinity?

"Fourth, how could Jesus the Messiah be crucified?

"Fifth, what do you think of Muhammad?

"It is most unlikely that a Muslim will consider the Christian faith unless Christians take these questions seriously and respond in ways that a Muslim finds to be persuasive." These questions are discussed within the context of their positive encounter which includes related dialog.

Shenk is co-author of A Muslim and A Christian in Dialogue [1]. "This book is a dialogue between a Muslim, Badru Kateregga, and myself. We wrote the book in East Africa when Kateregga and I were teachers at the Kenyatta campus of the University of Nairobi." Journal of Global Christianity, 2:1 - 2016. <www.goo.gl/yvmYfc>

Also consider: "Two Ways Christians Distort Islam (and Two Ways Muslims Distort Christianity)" - an excerpt from Christian. Muslim. Friend: Twelve Paths to Real Relationship, by David W. Shenk [2]. Christianity Today, Jan 26 '16. <www.goo.gl/q9795f> Winner of the 2016 Christianity Today Book Award in the Missions/The Global Church category.

"Islam: Facts or Dreams?" by Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. "From 1993-95 he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing."

McCarthy begins: "I had no trouble believing what our government was saying: that we should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims; that their actions were not representative of any religion or belief system; and that to the extent they were explaining their atrocities by citing Islamic scripture, they were twisting and perverting one of the world's great religions, a religion that encourages peace.

"Unlike commentators and government press secretaries, I had to examine these claims. Prosecutors don't get to base their cases on assertions. They have to prove things to commonsense Americans who must be satisfied about not only what happened but why it happened before they will convict people of serious crimes. And in examining the claims, I found them false.

"One of the first things I learned concerned the leader of the terror cell, Omar Abdel Rahman, infamously known as the Blind Sheikh. ...

"I immediately began to wonder why American officials from President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno on down, officials who had no background in Muslim doctrine and culture, believed they knew more about Islam than the Blind Sheikh. Then something else dawned on me: the Blind Sheikh was not only blind; he was beset by several other medical handicaps. ...

"Yet he was the unquestioned leader of the terror cell. ...

"I was not foolish enough to believe I could win an argument over Muslim theology with a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence." However, McCarthy took note when the Blind Sheikh said: "the scriptures command that Muslims strike terror into the hearts of Islam's enemies," "Allah enjoined all Muslims to wage jihad until Islamic law was established throughout the world," "Islam directed Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as their friends," the Koran "backed him up" on these points.

"The fact that there are multiple ways of construing Islam hardly makes the Blind Sheikh's literal construction wrong. The blunt fact of the matter is that, in this contest of competing interpretations, it is the jihadists who seem to be making sense because they have the words of scripture on their side - it is the others who seem to be dancing on the head of a pin. ...

"There are ways of interpreting Islam that could make it something other than a call to war. But even these benign constructions do not make it a call to peace."

In the Blind Sheikh's trial, the character witnesses who testified for the defense used an eerie dodge "when questions about Islamic doctrine would come up - 'What does jihad mean?' 'What is sharia?' 'How might sharia apply to a certain situation?' - these moderate, peaceful Muslims explained that they were not competent to say. In other words, for the answers, you'd have to turn to Islamic scholars like the Blind Sheikh." He would qualify as a resource even though "there was no doubt what the Blind Sheikh was on trial for. And there was no doubt that he was a terrorist - after all, he bragged about it. But that did not disqualify him, in the minds of these moderate, peaceful Muslims, from rendering authoritative opinions on the meaning of the core tenets of their religion. ...

"[W]hen I began working on national security cases, the Muslims I first encountered were not terrorists. To the contrary, they were pro-American patriots who helped us infiltrate terror cells, disrupt mass-murder plots, and gather the evidence needed to convict jihadists." Referring to how Winston Churchill addressed this, McCarthy explains: "The problem [not to confound our Islamist enemies with our Muslim allies and fellow citizens] was not the people, [Churchill] concluded. It was the doctrine."

McCarthy finds that "Unlike today's government officials, Justice Jackson [Robert Jackson, 'a giant figure in American law and politics'] thought sharia was a subject worthy of close study." And Jackson concluded that "In its source, its scope and its sanctions, the law of the Middle East is the antithesis of Western law."

McCarthy also calls attention to "the constitution that the U.S. government helped write for post-Taliban Afghanistan, which showed no awareness of the opposition of Islamic and Western law ... yet it makes Islam the state religion and sharia a principal source of law - and under it, Muslim converts to Christianity have been subjected to capital trials for apostasy.

"Sharia rejects freedom of speech as much as freedom of religion. It rejects the idea of equal rights between men and women as much as between Muslim and non-Muslim. It brooks no separation between spiritual life and civil society. ... Sharia aims to rule both believers and non-believers, and it affirmatively sanctions jihad in order to do so.

"Even if this is not the only construction of Islam, it is absurd to claim - as President Obama did during his recent visit to a mosque in Baltimore - that it is not a mainstream interpretation. In fact, it is the mainstream interpretation in many parts of the world. Last year, Americans were horrified by the beheadings of three Western journalists by ISIS. American and European politicians could not get to microphones fast enough to insist that these decapitations had nothing to do with Islam. Yet within the same time frame, the government of Saudi Arabia beheaded eight people for various violations of sharia - the law that governs Saudi Arabia. ...

"[W]e are supposed to wonder why young Muslims spontaneously become violent radicals - as if there is no belief system involved. This is political correctness on steroids, and it has dangerous policy implications. ...

"The dangerous flipside to our government's insistence on making up its own version of Islam is that anyone who is publicly associated with Islam must be deemed peaceful. ... The federal government, particularly under the Obama administration, acknowledges the [Muslim] Brotherhood as an Islamic organization ... giving it a clean bill of health. This despite the fact that Hamas is the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch, that the Brotherhood has a long history of terrorist violence, and that major Brotherhood figures have gone on to play leading roles in terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda. ...

"[W]e can only defeat [Islamic supremacism] if we resolve to see [its jihadist legions] for what they are." Imprimis, 45:2 - 2016, <www.goo.gl/CjDtJ4>

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