Word: islamically
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...evangelical tactics can put all religious charities at risk, as when the Taliban, angered by missionary activities two years ago, shut down every Christian aid group in Kabul. Muslim critics accuse missionaries of lying about their identities and their faith to achieve their goals. And as the tensions between Islam and the West continue to boil, some familiar with the Middle East have begun asking whether the missionaries, who love Muslims but despise Islam, are the sort of nonappointed goodwill ambassadors the U.S. really needs in a region dense with the rhetoric of holy war. Says Charles Kimball, a Baptist...
...says. "The image of an overwhelming military power coming in already provokes major questions about deeper U.S. intentions. If you add an aggressive missionary presence, it will be easy to see this as a kind of American Christian triumphalism." Says Azzam Tamimi, director of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought: "Wherever I go, people say, 'Haven't you heard about American missionaries in Jordan waiting to go into Iraq?' These are educated people; under normal circumstances, the missionaries would not be a big deal, but now people find it very difficult to believe this is not a crusade...
Evangelicals assert again and again that their message is based in love. They are far better informed and more actively concerned than the average American citizen about the Islamic world's material needs, and their desire to share Christ springs in the main from a similarly generous impulse. Claims that Christian aid groups engage in charity as a "cover" for proselytizing do a disservice to the sometimes heroic humanitarian efforts by workers who believe that Christians should heed not just Jesus' message of salvation but also his example as a feeder and a healer. Yet there should be no question...
...century has the idea of evangelizing Islam awakened such fervor in conservative Christians. Touched by Muslims' material and (supposed) spiritual needs, convinced that they are one of the great "unreached megapeoples" who must hear the Gospel before Christ's eventual return, Evangelicals have been rushing to what has become the latest hot missions field. Figures from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, suggest that the number of missionaries to Islamic countries nearly doubled between 1982 and 2001--from more than 15,000 to somewhere in excess...
...would not necessarily raise eyebrows on the average American street corner: handing out cassettes or tracts, inviting passersby to a movie about Jesus' life (see box), talking about Christ to children while distributing toys. But in societies in which state and mosque are closely intertwined, in which defamation of Islam is a crime and conversion out of it can invite vigilante violence, the more audacious missionaries are engaged, intentionally or not, in provocation, and their actions are debated even within the evangelical community. Some experts see their clumsiness as the product of nondenominational churches lacking the resources for proper training...