“Be sure to be seen for who you are!” How tragic if a Christian worker is erroneously perceived to be immoral, immodest, or lacking in piety. You’ll gain a great deal of practical advice to avoid such problems in the next two sessions.
“Be sure to be seen for who you are!” How tragic if a Christian worker is erroneously perceived to be immoral, immodest, or lacking in piety. You’ll gain a great deal of practical advice to avoid such problems in the next two sessions.
Several times recently I have been asked by concerned Christians questions along the lines of “will Muslims take over in the UK/the West?” or “how should we respond to the violence of Jihadists/ Islamic State etc?”. My precise answer depends upon the circumstances but is usually along the lines of “keep calm and think biblically”!
What do I mean? There is a danger that we allow our thinking to be manipulated by the secular media or the agenda of people who want to scare us into supporting their particular cause. So here are five suggestions for a calm and biblical approach to Islam and current world events:
It seems that many in the West still haven’t caught on. Eastern thinking people will defend their honor. One of the worst things you can do to them is to bring dishonor or ridicule on them. In the case of Muslims, they uphold the belief that “with blood I can wash my shame away” (Abu Tammam). As such, when they are ridiculed in the western press, especially through cartoons that stereotype and ridicule them, they feel justified in their violent reaction. No amount of clamoring about freedom of speech will change this. It only makes Muslims more determined to bring Islam to Europe, so that the ridiculing and bullying will stop.
If I published a cartoon that criticizes a well-known person, perhaps making him out to be a pedophile, without any truth behind it, I should expect to be sued for liable. So if a Muslim feels his honor, and the honor of his religion, and the honor of his prophet have been robbed of him by someone’s libelous actions, how does he get the shame removed and honor restored? We do not think of this in our western society. Winning a court case may make some feel somewhat justified, but their reputation will have been forever damaged. Islam’s answer is: this is so important, that it is worthy of a death sentence. So when the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published their cartoons, they committed an error worthy of the death penalty in some parts of the world. Unfortunately for them, people of that persuasion lived in their own country, and in their own city. Many Muslims just shrug and say: “They brought it on themselves.”
The rise of secularism is leading many Muslims away from the Islamic faith. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey of American Muslims reveals that about 24% of those raised in Islam have left the faith. This trend is not just a Western phenomenon, as The Telegraph explains: “Islam is facing a wave of desertion by young Muslims suffering from a crisis of faith … Even deeply conservative countries with strict anti-apostasy regimes like Pakistan, Iran, and Sudan have faced desertions.” It concludes, “The trend has been described as a ‘ticking bomb’ with a new generation of educated Muslims starting to question the fundamentals of their faith.” This includes Arabs, many of whom (according to Facebook), are atheists. Incredibly, Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, is the most…