Can one be a Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim believer of Jesus? And can they do this without persecution?
A growing number of Christians and church leaders are stopping to consider that this idea may actually be possible, thanks to “Insider Movement” groups that have been pushing this idea forward for the past decade, especially in the Muslim mission field. Now those ideas are gaining ground in the West, as Christians embrace these controversial methods.
The most recent issue of Christianity Today is giving a whole lot of print space to Insider Movement (IM) proponents, who believe that it is not necessary for believers to convert to Christianity, a term often associated with baggage and most certainly persecution if outed as “Christian.”
This should immediately send you running for your Bible and asking some key questions about what Scripture has to say about the blending of two very different and opposing faiths vs. a full conversion to Christianity.
“Therefore go out from (among unbelievers), and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.” (2 Cor 6:17)
The January issue of CT contains the headlines Why Evangelicals Should Be Thankful for Muslim Insiders, arguing that “Insider followers of Jesus may not have changed religions, but their lives have been changed by Christ,” and the provocative headline Worshiping Jesus in the Mosque, in which a reporter interviews a “Muslim follower of Isa.”
But instead of comparing what IM-ers teach to what the Bible says and asking questions, Christians are saying, “cool!”
“Where is the outcry of pastors in America because of this? Nobody is challenging these methods, and it boggles my mind that churches subscribe to this,” says Elijah Abraham, a born-again Christian who was raised a Muslim believer in Iraq, and today is the founder and executive director of Living Oasis Ministries, reaching Muslims with the Gospel.
Abraham is part of Biblical Missiology, the think-tank group that recently petitioned Wycliffe and its partners for removing familial terms like Son and Father to describe God and Jesus from Arabic Bible translations used to reach Muslim communities.
Abraham points out that John Travis (the writer of Why Evangelicals Should Be Thankful for Muslim Insiders), is one of godfathers of the Insider Movement. Abraham encourages readers to examine the IM leaders through the lens of a video he highly recommends titled Half Devil Half Child, in which even the Muslim Imams say these teachings are not Christianity.
We know that Christians in Islamic nations are being brutally slaughtered simply because their identity is in Christ. Persecution is on the rise, and that’s risky for Muslims who embrace Christ yet want to stay within their Islamic community. Yet the core doctrines of belief, repentance, and preaching Jesus Christ and HIM crucified (not the Muslim “Isa”) for the forgiveness of sins is not the focus of IM methodology.
CT conducted an interview with one insider named “Abu Jaz,” a key leader in a movement that describes itself as the People of the Gospel. CT reports that this group represents several thousand Muslims in eastern Africa who have converted to faith in Christ during the past decade, but who have remained in their Muslim communities.
Abu Jaz describes his conversion after dining with a guest in his home, and their sparse meal of macaroni began to multiply in the bowl.
Afterward I lay down on the bed, and as I slept, Isa came to me and asked me, “Do you know who multiplied the macaroni?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I am Isa al Masih. If you follow me, not only the macaroni but your life will be multiplied.”
He didn’t tell me that he was God; he didn’t tell me that he died on behalf of me; he didn’t say, “I am the Son of God.” He didn’t talk to me about any complicated theological issues. He only told me that if I followed him, he would multiply my life. Isa al Masih came to my home with the kingdom of God. He didn’t completely explain theological issues, he only said, “If you will follow.”
Abraham, who has interviewed hundreds of converts in many nations, doesn’t doubt Abu’s story of dreams and visions. In fact, he says true converts do have dreams and visions; and they’ve paid a heavy price. But the Jesus they encounter is never confusing or vague about who He is. And the fact that Abu maintains a Muslim rather than an African identity troubles him. “You would think after Bible school, Abu would reject Islam,” Abraham says. “Abu never contradicts the Qur’anic version of Isa, and the interviewer didn’t even challenge the convert to ask if the Allah he was talking about was the triune God of the Bible or Allah of the Qur’an.”
He points out that the title, Worshiping Jesus in the Mosque is very misleading, since the reporter does not mention anyone actually worshiping Christ in a mosque. “The Christianity Today title is only intended to persuade the readership that it is possible to worship Jesus in the mosque. Three problems: Any mosque will be offended if Jesus is worshiped inside its walls. Second, any Christian from a Muslim Background will tell you that the mosque is not the place to go to worship Jesus. Finally, if you go to a mosque, you have already denied Him.”
But, a church isn’t a building; it is people. Abraham contends that the so-called Muslim-culture church is an oxymoron.
“Muslim-culture church? What in the world does that mean? If their identity is Islam, and not Christianity, are they really set apart?
Abraham says insiders who say they are converts are the most confused individuals he has ever found. “They are confused in their theology and identity, and they’re still loyal to Mohammad, so you’ve got problems there.”
As for Christian churches embracing these methods, he says there are many missionaries and leaders who will try to cover up their IM connections from their congregants so as to diffuse critics. He says church members who do question the Insider Movement methods in their churches are often met with a guilt trip for criticizing them for not actually traveling overseas and meeting Muslims.
“To that I would say, ‘you know, you are right. But I read your article and compared your methods to Scripture, and it does not line up.’”
Photo credit: biblevector (Creative Commons)
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It is impossible for a good Muslim to be a good American. It is impossible for a good American to be a good Muslim.
It is impossible to be in your right mind and be a Christian believer of fairy tales as reality.
I am glad that what you believe in is Good for you, I believe the 4 Gospels of the eye Witnesses and their recorded Version. But like I said each to his own god. The one True GOD and the little god of this world Satan so every person is serving a god just which one.
I never read such jumbled misinformation in my life. A person either believes in God and follows His word or not. It is not possible to mix the two, God is the only true living God, He is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth and all that is in them and He leaves no room for confusion. A church is the house of God, not a mosque and His scripture will never line up with anything else. Our Bible is the Holy Word of God, there is no other to compare to it.
I agree, I tried to read this Mumble, Jumble Junk, I have never read this in the Bible.
I will just keep Believing what the Bible (GOD’S Word) teaches with the help of the Holy Spirit.
One small point I would like to point out about this is that if anyone knows the story of David and his son Soloman, they would know that Soloman, while Wise, was Stupid, and he was brought down by what he allowed. He had over a Thousand wives from all around the world, and All of many different Religions. The Bible talks about each one of them with their own gods, as though that was a key point in the Fall of Soloman.
The Jesus religion takes the pressure off of people by claiming that through Jesus you are God protected. This takes the pressure off of a person to believe in a fairy tale God. But then there is no definitive proof that Jesus even existed and a man god is so remotely unlikely it is not to be considered by most rational thinking people. But if self delusion is your goal…this is a great place to start.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Islam forbids the worship of anyone but Allah. To “believe” in Jesus means…what…to a Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim? I believe in electricity but it doesn’t make me an electrician.
Jesus said, “I and the Father are One”. “When you see Me, you see the Father”, Before Abraham came to be, I AM”.
I have a Christian brother, he is a converted Muslim. Stephen has a doctorate in comparative religion. He is a very good and faithful Christian who loves Jesus with all his heart, all his mind, and with all his strength. He has a ministry that he named Jesus to Muslims. The website address is JesusToMuslims.org. Stephen also writes bi-monthly newsletters, he wrote one on “Chrislam” for February 2012 titled “Islamicized gospel: Contextualization gone mad”. It is very good material, and if you go to his website, you may be able to request it. Please, if you do request the newsletter, make a donation.
Stephen is also a published author, his books are geared toward the inquisitive Muslim that is curious about Christianity and is written from a Muslim perspective.
Good article and all truth. Unfortunately someone left out a key word from the original article in the last line.
This should read: “To that I would say, ‘you know, you are right. But I read your article and compared your methods to Scripture, and it does (NOT) line up.’”
Hear O Israel, The LORD thy God is one God.
Thou shalt love the LORD thy God With all your strength and might.
Thou shall no other gods before me.
Just my opinion: 41 reasons why I believe Obama is not Christian.
1. Obama’s father and step-father were Muslims.
2. “Arabic forenames based on the H-S-N trilateral root … (Husayn or Hussein, Hasan, Hassân, Hassanein, Ahsan, and others) are exclusively bestowed on Muslim babies. … Obama’s middle name, Hussein, explicitly proclaims him a born Muslim.
3. Four years of Indonesian school enrollment records reveal his religion is Islam. 4. Michelle Obama revealed don’t exchange Christmas gifts -01/4/2013 – Muslim tradition. 5. He wears no jewelry during Ramadan – Muslim tradition.
6. Obama employed several Nation of Islam members in high positions on his Illinois
and U.S. Senate campaign and office staffs.
7. Senator Obama stated that Israel is the cause of all Mideast problems and that Israel is an apartheid state.
8. Senator Barack & Michelle Obama have attended several Arab Fundraisers and have had meetings with Palestinian Activist, PLO/Arafat Advisor Edward Said.
9. Senator Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign staff disclosed details of Obama’s Muslim past and concluded he concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.
10. Candidate Obama, while running for president, made it clear that he did not support a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees. But now that he’s president, he has reneged on that promise.
11. President Obama says there is nothing more beautiful than the Muslim Call to prayer in the evening and has quoted it in fluent Arabic with perfect accent.
12. As President he bows to the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia. The most powerful man in the world bows to no one. But the subservient Muslims bows.
13. As President he does not bow to the Christian Queen of England.
14. Obama keeps saying things about Muslim history that is not true. Obama has said we are one of the largest Muslim countries. We are down at number 41 on the list of most Muslims in a country. Obama has said there are 7 million Muslims in America. The most liberal numbers indicate 4 million and conservative estimates are at 2 million.
15. Obama, not only refused to have a White House celebration of the National Day of Prayer, but instead feasted the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
16. Obama, while celebrating the holy month of Ramadan at a White House dinner, stated that he is in favor of building the mosque near Ground Zero.
17. He says that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation.
18. Obama orders the Christian monogram “IHS” (Greek symbols for Jesus) to be covered up at the Christian school Georgetown University Gaston Hall, before giving his speech.
19. In answering the question on whether he believed in a literal heaven or not, Obama retorted: “What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die.” This is the Islamic Muslim view, not Christian.
20. Barack Obama’s response when asked pointedly, “Who’s Jesus to you?” “Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he’s also a bridge between God and man in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching
something higher. And he’s also a wonderful teacher.” This again is the Muslim view, not Christian.
21. President Obama gave a 2009 Cairo speech emphatically stating to the Middle Eastern world that it was “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against
negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
22. When it comes to Christianity, he has actually done just the opposite. Two years after his interview with Chicago Sun Times religion reporter Cathleen Falsani, on June 28, 2006, then Sen. Obama publicly perpetuated negative stereotypes of Christianity and defamed the religion and the words of its founder. From the pulpit of a church, speaking to a live
audience about religious diversity, Obama sarcastically belittled America’s Judeo-Christian
heritage and degraded its adherents with trite remarks typical of any atheistic antagonist, saying things like: “Whatever we were, we are no longer a Christian nation,” “The Sermon on the Mount is a passage that is so radical that our own defense department wouldn’t survive its application” and “To base our policy making upon such commitments as moral absolutes
would be a dangerous thing.”
23. If a self-proclaimed non-Muslim president would fight repeatedly for Muslims’ religious rights to the degree that our president has, don’t you think “a committed Christian” president would at least fight once for any antagonistic oppression of Christian faith and practice, too? Yet, on no occasion since taking office has President Obama stood up publicly for a single Christian individual, group, church, act or event, whom or which was being opposed or oppressed by others.
24. Why didn’t the president stand up for the rights of the North Carolina pastor who was fired from his duties as an honorary chaplain of the state house of representatives after he closed a prayer “in the name of Jesus”?
25. Why didn’t the president stand up for the children from the Christian private school who were “abruptly” ordered by a court police officer to stop praying outside the U.S. Supreme Court building?
26. Why didn’t the president himself stand up for the human rights of the Christian missionaries and medical team in Afghanistan, including six Americans, to practice medicine and their faith, even after they were murdered by Islamic extremists?
27. Why didn’t the president stand up for the rights of the Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who was disinvited from a Pentagon prayer service on the National Day of Prayer because of his Christian views and values?
28. Why didn’t the president stand up for the rights of the Greek Orthodox Church, the only church that was actually destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks, as church leaders have been frustrated and fouled by New York officials who have virtually turned their backs on the reconstruction of the church near Ground Zero?
29. Why didn’t the president stand up for the rights of over 70% of Americans opposed to a Ground Zero mosque, but takes the side of Muslims who are attempting to build the Ground Zero mosque?
30. Obama’s church (Trinity United Church of Christ) does not teach Christianity. The church guiding principles are called the “Black Value System”. Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a former Muslim and friend of Louis Farrakhan, Muslim founder and President of The Nation of Islam. Farrakhan has spoken frequently at Trinity.
31. Reverend Wright’s “hate” sermons against America and white people are virtually identical as Farrakhan’s-who followed Malcolm X. Wright’s “hate” speeches are a blend of The Nation of Islam and Black Nationalist Liberation Theology into a subversive Christianity, not recognized by most black Christians.
32. Obama embraced “Christianity” at this church. For 20 years he was a member and good friend to Rev. Wright. Wright married the Obamas. Rev. Wright was his mentor and gave advice until it became public knowledge during the campaign.
33. During the week of 14-18th of January 2010, on the Nile TV broadcast “Round Table Show”, the Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit said while meeting with Obama, he swore to him that he was a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father and step-son of Muslim step-father, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Muslims, and that he was loyal to the Muslim agenda. He asked that the Muslim world show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic American problems, that he would show the Muslim world what he would do with Israel.
34. Obama’s wedding ring is actually the ring that he has been wearing since his college years and its Arabic inscription praises Allah.
35. “Muslim clothing: Zulfin Adi, among Obama’s closest childhood friends, recalls about Obama, ‘I remember him wearing a sarong.’ Likewise, [the Washington Post’s] Maraniss found not only that ‘His classmates recalled that Barry wore a sarong’ but had written exchanges indicating that he continued to wear this garment in the United States. This fact has religious implications because, in Indonesian culture, only Muslims wear sarongs.
36. Several of those who knew him contradict this recollection. Rony Amir describes Obama as ‘previously quite religious in Islam.’ A former teacher, Tine Hahiyary, quoted in the Kaltim Post, says the future president took part in advanced Islamic religious lessons: ‘I remember that he had studied mengaji.’ In the context of Southeast Asian Islam, mengaji Quran means to recite the Koran in Arabic, a difficult task denoting advanced study.”
37. In Islam, the father passes his faith to the children; and when a Muslim male has children
with a non-Muslim female, Islam considers the children Muslim. Obama’s grandfather and father having been Muslims – the extent of their piety matters not at all – means that, in Muslim eyes, Barack was born a Muslim.
38. Obama was registered at a Catholic school in Jakarta as ‘Barry Soetoro.’ A surviving
document lists him as born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961; in addition, it lists him having Indonesian nationality and Muslim religion.
39. He was also registered as Muslim at SD Besuki: Although Besuki is a public school. Obama curiously refers to it in ‘The Audacity of Hope’ (p. 154) as ‘the Muslim school’ he attended in Jakarta. Its records have not survived, but several journalists (Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star, Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times, David Maraniss of the
Washington Post) have all confirmed that there too, he was registered as a Muslim.
40. The record points to Obama having been born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and having lived for four years in a fully Muslim milieu under the auspices of his Muslim Indonesian stepfather. For these reasons, those who knew Obama in Indonesia
considered him a Muslim.
41. Even as president when addressing Muslim audiences, Obama uses specifically Muslim
phrases that recall his Muslim identity. He addressed audiences both in Cairo (in June 2009) and Jakarta (in November 2010) with ‘as-salaamu alaykum,’ a greeting that he, who went to Koran class, knows is reserved for one Muslim addressing another. In Cairo, he also deployed several other pious terms that signal to Muslims he is one of them:
“The Holy Koran” (a term mentioned five times): an exact translation from the standard Arabic reference to the Islamic scripture, al-Qur’an al-Karim.
“The right path”: a translation of the Arabic as-sirat al-mustaqim,
which Muslims ask God to guide them along each time they pray.
“I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region
where it was first revealed”: Non-Muslims do not refer to Islam as “revealed.”
“The story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed … joined in prayer”:
This Koranic tale of a night journey establishes the leadership of Muhammad
over all other holy figures, including Jesus.
“Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them”: a translation of the Arabic ‘alayhim as-salam, which pious Muslims say after mentioning the names of dead prophets other than Muhammad. (A different salutation, sall Allahu alayhi wa-sallam, “May God honor him and grant him peace,” properly follows Muhammad’s name, but this phrase is almost never said in English.)
Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated, Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.
To Believers we know there is “One LORD, One Faith, One Baptism” not 2 or more.