DAWN Fridayfax 1996 #3

DAWN News from the Islamic world (Special edition)

A new phase for Moslems?

"I saw the Middle East as though from a plane. Some countries were recognisable, others not. I saw huge desert areas, and suddenly saw the beginnings of a storm, a Desert Storm. It became stronger and stronger and the people became afraid, withdrawing to their villages and towns. The storm followed them, though, so the region's Moslems fled into their mosques and barricaded the doors to hide from the strengthening storm in the safest place they knew. But when the mosques were full to bursting point, Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst and they all fell down before him." (One of the many prophecies about Moslems in the last few years. Author's Name and address withheld.)

On Sunday 21 January, 1.166 billion Moslems began their month of Ramadan. For all healthy adult Moslems, this means a lunar month of fasting from sunrise to sunset. Before Mohammed's birth in 570 AD, the Arabs observed a four-month-long fast, which meant above all a four month ceasefire between the tribes. Mohammed reduced this time of fasting to one month and changed its meaning. Moslems believe that Mohammed received the Koran in this month, so try to read a thirtieth of it each day, preferably in a mosque. Mohammed saw that the Christians and Jews fasted, which inspired him to the idea that through fasting, Moslems also come closer to Allah, become more righteous and holy, and gain merits for the Day of Judgement.

Christians pray for Moslems during Ramadan

Millions of Christians will pray, and some fast, for Moslems from 21 January to 19 February 1996. Initially the idea of a few Christian leaders who met in the Middle East to pray for the kingdom of God in that area of the 10/40 Window, the practice is increasingly being adopted by other Christian churches and movements.

More information is available from your national Evangelical Alliance UK or from a nearby Youth With A Mission centre or other mission agency.

The Reconciliation Walk in the footsteps of the crusaders

Many Moslems' image of Christianity consists of the crusades and the degenerate tourists and television reports from the supposedly Christian West. The following report describes some initiatives and facts which accompany and will in part initiate a new phase in contacts between Christians and Moslems.

27 November 1995 was the 900th anniversary of Pope Urban II's awful call to Western Christianity to march to free the Holy Land from the 'unbelievers'. An initially eager troop, believing that they would prepare the way for the Messiah by liberating Jerusalem, set off from Cologne. The crusading armies soon became a pack of brutal plunderers destroying everything in their path. When they took Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, they viciously murdered all the Jews and Moslems, carrying a cross in one hand and a sword in the other - and Satan celebrated one of his greatest triumphs: he had made the church sin in God's name.

That is history for the Western world - but not for the Middle East's Moslems. For them, the crusades are still an open wound. For that reason, the Reconciliation Walk was founded. The idea is to invite as many Christians as possible to follow in the footsteps of the crusaders from Cologne to Jerusalem, to ask and pray for reconciliation and forgiveness, and clean the historically bad image of Christianity in a spirit of repentance.

Info: Reconciliation Walk, P.O.Box 61, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 4JJ, England

National initiatives and new models

Most Christians are convinced that it is impossible to win Moslems for the gospel. The question of evangelising Moslems can be addressed from two sides: that of a) the Western church's unfortunate failure to effectively communicate the gospel to Moslems throughout history, and b) the fact that encouraging new national missionary strategies have been developed in the last 5 years in various countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, which will change the face of evangelisation among Moslems.

Perhaps it isn't impossible

A few years ago, it was accepted that theological and missionary know-how was to be found in the West. Now, however, most of the best ideas and fruitful models come from missionaries and theologians in the two-thirds world. It is increasingly true that churches and evangelistic movements from the traditionally Islamic countries have useful experience to share with their Western counterparts. As we turn away from trying to win single unmarried Moslem men, who often end up in a permanent crisis after their conversion, and recognise that traditional literature and radio evangelism has only a limited effect, other things are coming more into play: evangelisation of whole families, clans and villages; multiplication of house churches and models of how they can be planted; the interaction of prayer, supernatural experiences such as dreams and visions, and God's word; the formation of a new wave of Arabic-speaking missionaries with their effect on the missionary scene; classical communication media such as TV and radio with new content, such as radio church planting; and encouraging missionary partnerships between Western churches and national missionary vision and strategy instead of continuing exclusively with our own missionary fantasies.

Blooming in the dark

Many of these encouraging national models are currently under God's protection, so that they do not come under pressure from the state or get sucked into Western mission agencies. For that reason, they are hardly known. But they will define the future.

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