How to Reach Out to Muslims

(Baptist Press)  RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--It isn't that Muslims aren't responsive to the Gospel, International Mission Board strategist Sam McAlister* says. The issue, he says, is that most Muslims have never heard it or seen a committed Christian live it out.
Islam claims nearly one-fourth of the world's population — 1.57 billion Muslims. But fear -- felt by both Muslims and Christians -- ranks among the most significant barriers separating the Muslim world from the Gospel today.
After Sept. 11, 2001, Western culture collectively branded Muslims as suicidal jihadists bent on the Islamization of the globe politically as much as religiously by the fear-producing act of terrorism. Though these stereotypes are softening as Americans' understanding of Islam grows, strong anti-Muslim sentiment endures as war with terrorist groups continues in Afghanistan and Iraq.  MORE

How Do We Respond to the Global War on Christians in the Muslim World (Michael Horton)

(White Horse Inn Blog) Newsweek‘s current cover-story is “The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World,” by Ayann Hirsi Ali, who fled her native Somalia and served in the Dutch Parliament before taking a position at the American Enterprise Institute. As the article points out, widespread anti-Christian violence is exploding even in countries with Muslim minorities. How do we respond wisely as Christians to this growing threat?

1. Prayer

First, the crisis calls for concerted prayer on behalf of our brothers and sisters under the cross. More Christians have been martyred in the last several decades than in all of the centuries combined—including the early Roman persecutions. We are directed by Christ to pray first and foremost for the coming of his kingdom, come what may. But we also are called to pray for the “daily bread” and protection from temptation that become especially critical needs under persecution. Corporate and private prayers for all the saints, especially those under the cross, should be high on our list.     MORE

Letters to Luke (III)

(Tim Challies) As you know, I’ve been participating in a short exchange of letters with Luke Muehlhauser who blogs at Common Sense Atheism. Here is where we’ve been so far:

Luke’s First Letter to Me  
My Reply to Luke

Luke’s Second Letter to Me
My Second Reply 

Luke’s Third Letter to Me

And here is my third and final letter.....
MORE

Challenging the New Atheists

(Probe - Written by Patrick Zukeran) Nearly thirty years ago John Lennon sang the song, “Imagine.” The words went like this:


“Imagine there’s no heaven  It’s easy if you try  No hell below us   Above us only sky   Imagine all the people Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do  Nothing to kill or die for  And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace

Imagine there’s no heaven. . .You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one  I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one

In other words, the source of much evil in the world is religion: belief in God, life after death, and a universal moral code. Would the world be a better place if faith in God was eliminated? Many atheists now think so. Richard Dawkins states, “Imagine with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine, no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing one inch of it.”{1} The goal of the new atheists is to rid the world of belief in God or religion and replace it with reason and science. The new atheists believe that religions that embrace a belief in God, particularly Christianity, are not just irrational but dangerous and therefore must be extinguished.
MORE

Answering the New Atheists

(CMI) Bestseller lists have recently included a sequence of books written by a small cadre of articulate atheist writers. The youngest of these ‘new atheists’ is Sam Harris, a 40-year-old graduate student who exploded onto the scene with two bestsellers in quick succession.

One articulate Christian apologist who has been keeping tabs on the ‘new atheists’—and providing answers—is Doug Wilson (pictured left), a pastor and Fellow in Theology at New St Andrews College. He first saw Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation sitting on a colleague’s desk when it was fresh off the presses.1 ‘The title caught my attention, and I ordered a copy.’ Harris’s slim, unobtrusive Letter distilled the essence of the atheists’ case into an easy-to-read format which caught the attention of the general public in the US particularly. In a matter of months, Doug Wilson’s rebuttal—just a little longer than Harris’s—was rolling off the presses. MORE