Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Missiological Implication with Folk Islam
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Missiological implications with Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the different contextualization strategies and examples of the felt needs of Folk Muslims and how the Gospel can answer their needs.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Missiological Implication with Folk Islam
27 has to do with, missiological stuff, missiological application, and it’s just before in other words, it’s it’s getting close to the end of unit 2. You might wonder why in the world the missiological application doesn’t come at the very end because we have one lecture after this on unit 1. But I think, I would argue that we’ve tried to do missiological application all the way through the course. So, it is structured this way and this is going to include some stuff on contextualization. Some of it I will go through rather quickly because contextualization is a never ending topic.
But we will, talk about missiological stuff here and hope it’s helpful to you. And and specifically, we’re going to be mentioning some of the, well, I guess, the felt needs of folk Muslims, and, most of the attention is on Pakistan. Listen to this. It comes out of the BBC. Pakistan’s holy men under fire.
Wasim Rana, the real village headman from the Punjab in East Pakistan, proud of his community, but he’s not really happy or proud of what happened just recently. What was that? He said we came to his village after hearing that a baby girl has been buried alive. Her name was Ikra, and she has been buried was buried on the advice of the peer, this saint, who I don’t know what in the world he was thinking, but, you know, all kinds of strange things these peers do. Peers are intermediators between Allah and the community.
There are thousands of them. They’re descendants of Sufis. In other words, there’s a connection with them, believed to have spiritual powers and, peers, especially fake ones, routinely abuse the power for, the corruption, extortion, and, unfortunately, even rape. You read about these things in the newspapers in Pakistan. So, then in that light in that light of of the kind of peers, saints, that you often run across, what can we say about the, missiological implications?
But I wanted to, to just note here that it’s not just, for folk, but it’s formal or folk. And and just for general principles here of contextualization, we need to understand what people think is the problem. And so I I guess if you went into an area where focus on was rampant, which is most of the time, and and, you know, as you come in there with Christians and church and all that, you’re trying to figure out how best to handle this. So, first, you would wanna understand what the people think is the problem, what do they think, these people who are struggling with their peers, what do they think is the problem, and then create some kind of a bridge, using scripture and evaluating the problem, but also evaluating customs using the Bible in a consultative manner manner, rather. In other words, you don’t come in like, the lone ranger.
Practice then missiological contextualized ethics. Well, what about contextualizing the message? I think these passages are very helpful for folk Muslims. Matter of fact, they’re helpful for all of us. But think of the passages, like Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
In other words, God can give guidance and he does give guidance as we look to him. I may have mentioned this before. Let me just mention Matthew’s passage first before the Romans one and, I will open up my Bible to Romans 8. But Matthew 1128-thirty was the the most favorite verse among our Muslim students taking bible correspondence courses, that is come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls.
So many times in our Bible correspondence work with Muslims taking courses all over the country, they would come across this verse and they would say, Oh, we love that verse. It speaks to our heart and I can understand why because they are not used to seeing that, in anyone really, certainly not in their own religious leaders, their peers, haven’t seen too much of it either in their own prophet, in the records that they have of him, although those are certainly, he they’ve as we’ve noted, they’re totally blown out of proportion today. But the other portion is, Romans 8, and and this is precious to you, I know, but think of it for Muslim, folk Muslims. You know, it says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them are called according to his purpose, Romans 828. But then it goes on, You know, who those he called, those he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.
That he might be the firstborn among any. Those he predestined, he also called, those he called, he also justified, those he justified, he glorified, And then verse 31, what shall we say then? If God be for us, who can be against us? He spared not his only son, how shall he but deliver him up for his all? How will he not with him give us graciously give us all things?
Wow. You know, this is just great stuff for, for, people who are worried and concerned and lack peace, lack hope. Another verse that is very precious to me is Romans 15. May the God of hope, who you know, the the God who gives hope, may he fill you with hope, with peace and and, joy, I guess it is. Let me look at that.
It just miss I’m just missing it for the moment, the the the verse, but it’s it’s Romans 15. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him through the power of the Holy Spirit? See, this is a great this is a God of hope. You don’t really have that in, in, Islam because you cannot, lay your your your you can’t be certain that that God is really gonna be with you, that he’s gonna help you, and so that’s why those verses are so precious. Now there’s a couple of other incidents, situations good for missiological
Sobe Irani in Lahore, a 13 year old, is pregnant because she was abducted and raped by a peer. Somehow she had managed to escape. The peer had agreed to treat Sobia’s brother at home. One day when her parents were out, told Sobia to run to the local shrine to pray. The peer with 2 other men raped her, and the police were of no help at all.
Now we know that, child abuse is rampant. The only thing is is that in our context, here in in the United States and in some other countries, most other countries, in the West, there is swift and severe punishment for those who take advantage. At least we strive for that. But, these peers often get away with murder. And in the book Blasphemy by Tahemina Drane, she’s that’s based on a true story of a sadistic peer told by a battered, humiliated wife.
And you can Google, this title here, Blasphemy by Hamid Durrani, and you can find that material for yourself. Now let’s go on to contextualizing the messenger. We’ve seen and talked about that peers are often unscrupulous, charlatans, immoral, and they fleece people. Now, this here, on exorcism might seem a little bit out of context, a little bit out of place here, but, present it in light of previous lessons. In other words, we’re talking about, dealing with, you know, the troubles, the, demonic troubles that that, Muslims have, also the trouble with peers.
But, and I think we’ve talked about this before. We pray in Jesus’ name. We, praise through singing, prayer in each room for blessings, sending demons demons to the appointed place. I, I don’t think I shared a story, of of Pakistan where we did this. I may have.
I I just don’t remember. But, one of our friends, a Muslim, and his wife were being troubled in their home by spirits, who were troubling them at night and, laying on them and even the children could feel the pressure. And so eventually, they moved out, but they came to us, and so some of us went over there. We sang songs, the pastor and a couple of Muslim converts, my wife and I, and we went from room to room in this mud house. And we sprinkled water, we sang hymns, we prayed, and, and, this Muslim and her husband came back, and they said that they had no more trouble at all in that house.
So that’s what we need to do, really, in in in where we think that there is a problem. In fact, I think it’s a good, a good thing to do. Wherever you are, even in this country, when you go into a new place, we don’t know what has been happening there before. So I think it’s a good place to cleanse the rooms and to pray, And we’re getting about to move ourselves in a few weeks up to Vancouver. And so when we get our own place up there, we are gonna try to do the same. missiological
Now the question is, is still on contextualization missiologically. Should a messenger of God trying to be? Here are a couple of lists, and this is not just folk stuff. It’s basically Islam. And I’d say again that you really often can’t separate folk and formal, so, we’ll just live with that tension.
But here are some comparisons between a Muslim leader and a Christian missionary, and I believe this comes out of Bill Musk missiology. It’s adapted. But, you know, the Muslim leader is often somewhat passive disposition whereas the missionaries tend to be drivers and doers, at least any of the missionaries I saw. We are active, so this is how perception. Muslim leader may be subjective, outlook Here, objective life orientation.
Here, people oriented, task oriented, poor, except certain peers, as we suggested, who do a pretty good job of fleecing people. Here, the missionary is undoubtedly, has more stuff, usually a car, a camera, a recorder, a fridge, and are regarded as wealthy. Here, Muslim leader would not watch a drama, watch TV, or movies. Here, a missionary would probably do all 3. The Muslim leader would not eat in expensive restaurants.
The Christian missionary would very likely do so. The Muslim leader would not eat pork. Christian missionary well might eat pork. Here, the Muslim leader may be recognized by his religious dress. Here, Christian missionaries may be recognized by their secular dress.
This one missiological implication here, Muslim leader wears a beard, there’s a misspelling there. Here, Christian missionary often does not wear a beard, and here the wife of the Muslim leader would either wear a veil or culturally approved clothes. Here in, Christian Missionary, they have not always the wives have not always dressed in clothes that are regarded by Muslims as modest and thus identified, them with the sinful actresses. But, you know, they might do that anyway. They might, identify the western woman with those kind of western movies anyway.
But the least we can do is try the best we can to to identify culturally, with the area we’re we’re living in in in these areas, in other words, to the extent possible. Now let’s go on to contextualizing the church. Here are some case studies. 1 of our former students wrote about the Fulani. She said the Fulani rejoice that spirits are subject to them.
They wear amulets from the Koran, drink water from verses, a verse is for power, and a child is sent to the mallam or mullah. In Africa, they call them mallams. A 3 year process to memorize 26 chapters in Arabic and to know the alphabet. Now generally, it wouldn’t take 3 years but, it might for some students. But they have no idea what they’re saying, and, and this former student said that women stopped by to dip their finger in the water off the slate, and a student, a young boy, who doesn’t want to learn, in other words, has trouble, maybe even chained as he learns the Quran coming out of the Central Asian Republic.
Now, this is one of the forms, and it has to do with Luke 10:20, so I’m not going to talk about it here, but you can discuss it on the forms. We did talk about it in class, as I remember, this summer, But now here’s a question about the church. Here is a pastor, I believe the context here is Africa, who says that he wants to cast demons out of the blood bank before using it. What would you do as a missionary? Now you might think, well, you know, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s just go along with it. But I, I can remember talking about this in class, that you don’t really want to, to become a Christian animist. In other words, for one thing, I don’t think that a blood bank can be infested with demons, but it would take quite a bit of of, diplomacy, wouldn’t it, and prayer and love to, you know, not to go along with this. It would be difficult, but I I think that I think it would be extreme, in other words, to start casting out demons out of everything and and anything, pretty well you’re casting them out of a pen, if you suspect it. But, see, the blood will be used for other patients, and so, but but, obviously, to do this.
Here’s another one, I think, just as tricky, perhaps even more dangerous, because of the potential problem here, a drought hit northeast Ghana. By mid July, there was still no rain. And the king of Deban calls for special prayer by the imam to avert drought. But the Christians there in that country, a tiny minority, feel that to partake in that prayer, in other words, in that prayer, special prayer by the Muslims, would be a compromise because they know that witchcraft, sorcery, is in it. So they send a message back to the king saying, sorry.
We’re Christians. We cannot partake of this. Well, there’s a reaction, and some churches are burned, people are beaten. 2 weeks later, the same thing comes up. Again, the Christians refuse and are in trouble.
Now, if we were face to face, we would be talking about this missiology and it would be interesting to break up in groups and so on. We don’t have that option, but I think we can think about this. And, one thing we talked about in class and and whenever we’ve brought this case study up, we’ve talked about this, that it would it would be better to send a message to the, king, to the effect that, you know, we believe in prayer as Christians and we are going to pray, but we are against any type of demonic activity, so we are going to pray at our own time and, would you kindly set a special time apart for the Christians? We are going to pray in Jesus’ name, for something to happen. Now it does it is risky because what if it doesn’t rain?
But I think what you’re trying to do missiologically is trying to set it up so that Christ gets the glory and that, you’re not compromising your beliefs. And when you think of that particular story, I think, the only thing really that, is against the gospel or the sorcery and witchcraft, prayer is certainly, of God and so you want to pray, you want people, Muslims, the king, and everybody to realize that you’re you’re prayerful people and you pray you’re concerned about the country, you’re concerned about rain, but you want to pray in a way that God gets the glory through Christ and, you don’t want there to be any confusion, so you want to set it up, I think, in that way. Those are some of the some of the thoughts that we had and, it certainly isn’t easy, you know, to if you were a missionary by any chance working in that scene, how would you handle it? How would you advise people? I mean, how would you, encourage the church to, to be involved, but to, to not compromise the gospel?
These are some of the questions that we think about as on this topic.