Evangelists focus efforts on converting Muslims - Christian Aggression
By STEVEN G. VEGH
The Virginian-Pilot
March 16, 2005
VIRGINIA BEACH
There are few books Kevin Greeson likes better than the Quran, Islam’s holiest scripture.
Greeson, a Christian missionary in South Asia, said the Quran’s mention of Jesus is a perfect starting point for engaging Muslims in dialogue that eventually can lead to their conversion to Christianity.
Click here “It is the most effective evangelistic tool I’ve seen,” said Greeson, who works for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Conference. “I don’t mean to say Muslims are our enemy, but using the Quran as a bridge has allowed us to go deep, deep, deep into enemy territory.”
The world’s approximately 1.2 billion Muslims are the top target of evangelical efforts to spread Christianity, and Greeson is among mission professionals who discussed strategies Tuesday at a four-day conference, “Breakthrough Among Muslims,” held at Regent University. The Alliance for Missions Advancement sponsored the event.
Open to debate is whether such evangelization builds or burns bridges, especially when the United States is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In its March 7 report , the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies found that an overwhelming number of Arab leaders think the United States is “engaged in a war with the Arab world or Islam itself.”
The situation is so grave that on Monday , President Bush gave his adviser Karen Hughes the job of improving America’s image globally and among Muslim nations in particular.
Mohammad Amir , an Old Dominion University engineering student who is Muslim, said that back home in India, many have reservations about the United States’ intentions in the Middle East.
The appearance of American missionaries promoting Christianity, Amir said, might add to the “negative image people have about the policies of this country.”
“If someone would come and try to approach Muslims and understand them and seek common ground, that would be accepted,” said Abdulla Bazaraa, director of the Egyptian Cultural and Education Bureau in Washington, D.C. “To convert them, I would say, is not welcome.”
As recently as the 1970s, only 2 percent of Christian mission groups had staff working among Muslims, according to a training manual written by Greeson.
But that number has shot up in recent years, with more than 27,000 missionaries placed amid Muslims by 2001, according to Greeson’s book.
Many of those workers are indigenous to the culture and community where they are evangelizing and establishing churches.
Some evangelicals say there’s never been a better time to target Muslims.
Phillip List Sr. , a conference participant, said that in East Africa, where he is a missionary, Christian evangelization is needed to counter local Muslim evangelists who are trying to spread Islam.
Chris Grady , a Regent student studying to become a missionary, said December’s Indian Ocean tsunamis created an opening for Christian-based relief groups to deliver aid and demonstrate Christ-like compassion. Greeson said one of the most compelling arguments for evangelization is an outbreak among Muslims of dreams featuring Jesus Christ. Those dreams have left Muslims in various countries yearning to read the Bible and primed to hear about Christianity, he said.
Pat Robertson , the Christian broadcaster who founded Regent, cited Muslims’ dreams of Christ when he predicted in January that God would “send a revival, a spiritual revival in the Muslim world” this year.
Robertson is also among evangelicals who see a broader, high-stakes spiritual conflict between Christianity and Islam.
“Make no mistake, the entire world is being convulsed by a religious struggle,” Robertson said last August in Norfolk. “The struggle is whether ... the moon god of Mecca known as Allah is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme.”
Portrayals such as Robertson’s have been deemed by some evangelicals and those advocating religious tolerance as either inaccurate or toxic to good interfaith relations.
“What many have been forced to recognize is that putting Jews and Christians on one side and Muslims on the other is not true historically,” said John L. Esposito of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “All three faiths are interconnected historically and theologically, and Muslims do recognize Jesus and Moses.”
One of the stronger advocates of religious tolerance is the Rev. Daniel Hanafi, an Indonesian native and executive with WorldHarvest, which organizes development projects and evangelization in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country. He told conference participants that Christian evangelists in Indonesia are most successful when they demonstrate public respect toward Muslim.
“When we started there, it was very, very Muslim and very intolerant,” he said of efforts in a particular village. “Now, we have a church next to the mosque.”
The Virginian-Pilot
March 16, 2005
VIRGINIA BEACH
There are few books Kevin Greeson likes better than the Quran, Islam’s holiest scripture.
Greeson, a Christian missionary in South Asia, said the Quran’s mention of Jesus is a perfect starting point for engaging Muslims in dialogue that eventually can lead to their conversion to Christianity.
Click here “It is the most effective evangelistic tool I’ve seen,” said Greeson, who works for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Conference. “I don’t mean to say Muslims are our enemy, but using the Quran as a bridge has allowed us to go deep, deep, deep into enemy territory.”
The world’s approximately 1.2 billion Muslims are the top target of evangelical efforts to spread Christianity, and Greeson is among mission professionals who discussed strategies Tuesday at a four-day conference, “Breakthrough Among Muslims,” held at Regent University. The Alliance for Missions Advancement sponsored the event.
Open to debate is whether such evangelization builds or burns bridges, especially when the United States is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In its March 7 report , the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies found that an overwhelming number of Arab leaders think the United States is “engaged in a war with the Arab world or Islam itself.”
The situation is so grave that on Monday , President Bush gave his adviser Karen Hughes the job of improving America’s image globally and among Muslim nations in particular.
Mohammad Amir , an Old Dominion University engineering student who is Muslim, said that back home in India, many have reservations about the United States’ intentions in the Middle East.
The appearance of American missionaries promoting Christianity, Amir said, might add to the “negative image people have about the policies of this country.”
“If someone would come and try to approach Muslims and understand them and seek common ground, that would be accepted,” said Abdulla Bazaraa, director of the Egyptian Cultural and Education Bureau in Washington, D.C. “To convert them, I would say, is not welcome.”
As recently as the 1970s, only 2 percent of Christian mission groups had staff working among Muslims, according to a training manual written by Greeson.
But that number has shot up in recent years, with more than 27,000 missionaries placed amid Muslims by 2001, according to Greeson’s book.
Many of those workers are indigenous to the culture and community where they are evangelizing and establishing churches.
Some evangelicals say there’s never been a better time to target Muslims.
Phillip List Sr. , a conference participant, said that in East Africa, where he is a missionary, Christian evangelization is needed to counter local Muslim evangelists who are trying to spread Islam.
Chris Grady , a Regent student studying to become a missionary, said December’s Indian Ocean tsunamis created an opening for Christian-based relief groups to deliver aid and demonstrate Christ-like compassion. Greeson said one of the most compelling arguments for evangelization is an outbreak among Muslims of dreams featuring Jesus Christ. Those dreams have left Muslims in various countries yearning to read the Bible and primed to hear about Christianity, he said.
Pat Robertson , the Christian broadcaster who founded Regent, cited Muslims’ dreams of Christ when he predicted in January that God would “send a revival, a spiritual revival in the Muslim world” this year.
Robertson is also among evangelicals who see a broader, high-stakes spiritual conflict between Christianity and Islam.
“Make no mistake, the entire world is being convulsed by a religious struggle,” Robertson said last August in Norfolk. “The struggle is whether ... the moon god of Mecca known as Allah is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme.”
Portrayals such as Robertson’s have been deemed by some evangelicals and those advocating religious tolerance as either inaccurate or toxic to good interfaith relations.
“What many have been forced to recognize is that putting Jews and Christians on one side and Muslims on the other is not true historically,” said John L. Esposito of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “All three faiths are interconnected historically and theologically, and Muslims do recognize Jesus and Moses.”
One of the stronger advocates of religious tolerance is the Rev. Daniel Hanafi, an Indonesian native and executive with WorldHarvest, which organizes development projects and evangelization in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country. He told conference participants that Christian evangelists in Indonesia are most successful when they demonstrate public respect toward Muslim.
“When we started there, it was very, very Muslim and very intolerant,” he said of efforts in a particular village. “Now, we have a church next to the mosque.”
Evangelists focus efforts on converting Muslims - Christian Aggression
2 Comments:
To David Frawley and other leftist cultist "western" hypocrites.
Yeah..to losers like you who could'nt hack it with mainstream western culture which is evidently far more progressive and advanced as compared to the mega primitive and futile Hindu India, if a X'ian missionary uses peaceful and non violent methods to preach the true word of God and help uplift the backward and oppressed castes ( as opposed to 5000 years of selfish Hindu Brahmin tyranny)- it is an ideological warfare ! Yet when the unconvincing "Hare Krishna-Ischikon" and other Hindu mission fruitcakes dance on the streets with their thin saffron towels and tonsured heads like a bunch of retards...chanting hare rama hare Krishna and distributing papmplets prohibiting beef as a food and the beauty of Hinduism- it is considered OK ! Right ?
You know what the very futile "search for God/discovering boring and lengthy process of God hunt" which is the core prinicple of Hinduism as well as bowing to their thousands myths of funny animal "Gods" as compared to a more historical and evidence based Judeo-X'ianity which denotes the existence of one true God and creator without beating around the bush ( like the hindus) is what simply draws more people into the Judeo X'ian fold. Hinduism only wastes time asking too many questions without any sensible answers ! Christians declare the final result. Simple.
Christ said "I am the way to the father...the truth and life", simple. People comprehend and it adds up. Hinduism on the other hand, hours and years of mindless Yoga meditation, lets keep searching for some creator ( doesn't matter if we'd never find one in our chronological lifespan) and the belief that a cow, snake, monkey, moon, a man ( Shiva's) phallus is sacred and "Godlike" is downright RIDICULOUS AND SICK IN A TWISTED KINDA WAY !
I come from a family of EX-Christians who are now all PROUD HINDUS (thanks to the noble truths found in the Bhagvad Gita).
Beware people -- Evangelical thugs are great at spreading lies -- lies, fraud, deceit, aggression, violence, destruction of cultures in the name of "Jesus". They have all excelled at exacting the worst form of cultural imperialism in the name of their "God"!BTW, it's the the Brits (Christians) who promulgated the "Aryan Invasion" MYTH/FRAUD!
Cunning Christian Missionaries have NO place in Hindustan. They should be thrown out at the earliest.
Christianity preys on the weak and the innocent. Misguided people who subscribe to narrow Christian dogma are IGNORANT about their own faith. The Vedas are eternal and these eternal truths are echoed in the stupendous Bhagvad Gita by Lord Krishna ((I know for a fact that the cunning missionaries TWIST and DISTORT the Vedas in an attempt to promote their own ideology. What a crying shame!).
Reading the Gita opened our eyes and my parents, siblings and I are all proud Hindus today. All glories to Shree Krishna.
The noble truths found in the Bhagvad Gita are incomparable. It offers complete, logical, rational answers to all conceivable questions! No doubt - these are the words spoken by God Himself.
Shree Krishna has clearly proclaimed the following in the Gita, "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I will deliver you from all sins. Do not fear." (18.66) Krishna has also said in the Gita that actions/deeds/karma determine what a person is, NOT one's birth. ALL HINDUS ARE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Do NOT ALLOW ANTI-HINDU ELEMENTS TO DIVIDE THE HINDUS ALONG CASTE LINES. MY FAMILY CONVERTED FROM CHRISTIANITY TO HINDUISM AND WE ARE PROUD HINDUS (JUST HINDUS, THAT'S ALL).
And one more thing, Hinduism is NOT a proselytizing religion. Hinduism does NOT encourage any type of proselytization.
One point to note: 99.99% of the "Hare Krishnas" have converted from Christianity and they have brought the "proselytizing" practice from their EARLIER RELIGION. What are the bloody Christian missionary thugs complaining about?
My family and I are proud to return to the glorious religion practiced by our ancestors. I strongly oppose Christian (and muslim) proselytization in India. Missionaries are wolves in sheep's clothing, they exact the worst form of cultural imperialism and they should be BANNED in Hindustan. Missionary rogues have absolutely no clue what Hinduism means - the blasphemous missionary thugs are great at deriding other people's beliefs (out of ignorance)!Such a pity that they have reduced their faith to a bloody numbers game! Please watch "Oppose Christian missionaries" on youtube - a real eye opening video.
It's time for ALL the Hindus to unite and fight for Dharma. Oppose the vile, deceitful tactics of the missionaries (conversions done in the guise of charity - shameful)! HINDUS, WAKE UP AND UNITE! ALL HINDUS ARE ONE! Fight the anti-Hindu elements who are destroying HINDU culture and heritage (pseudo-secular UPA/Congress govt, anti-Hindu media (many of them controlled by foreign Churches), Chrislamist Communist thugs, missionary pests, Islamic fundamentalists/jihadis to name a few).
Victory to noble Hinduism!
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