My Response to Madany’s, “The Church Facing the Global Challenge of Islam”

In his article, “The Church Facing the Global Challenge of Islam“, published in St. Francis Magazine (btw: a great e-zine!), Bassam Madany calls the church to “re-examination of our mission strategies”: he argues that the church should awaken to the presence of missional Muslims in the West who believe that they have the remedies to cure western culture of its filth, secularism, and materialism.

Main Critique: Missions-As-Defense
The main thesis of Madany’s article is that western Christians should realize that if they do not seek the restructuring of their society, away from secularism, materialism, and pure filth, then they are in fact aiding and abetting Islamic evangelism within America. Muslims, Madany says, are engaged in a “counter offensive, endeavoring to convince Europeans and Americans that Islam can bring order to the chaotic moral and spiritual conditions of Western society” (p. 2). In other words, the “global challenge of Islam” as Madany sees it is two fold: first, they offer another solution to our social ills; second, they are actively working to spread the Islamic faith. He cites Lamin Sanneh’s comments on the threat of the Islamic campaign to acquire religious territoriality:

“It would be wrong for Westerners to think that they can preserve religious toleration by conceding the extreme Muslim case for territoriality, because a house constructed on that foundation would have no room in it for the very pluralistic principle that has made the West hospitable to Muslims and others in the first place. The fact that these religious groups have grown and thrived in the West at a time when religious minorities established in Islamic societies have continued to suffer civil disabilities shows how uneven are the two traditions.

We risk perpetuating such a split-level structure in our relationship, including the risk to the survival of our great public institutions, unless we take moral responsibility for the heritage of the West, including tolerance for religion. Such tolerance for religion cannot rest on the arguments of public utility but rather on the firm religious rock of the absolute moral law with which our Creator and Judge has fashioned us.

In view of growing signs of Muslim pressure for religious territoriality [READ: the desire to openly sound the call to prayer, such as in Oxford], often expressed in terms of shari’ah and political power, and in view of the utter inadequacy of the sterile utilitarian ethic of the secular national sate, Westerners must recover responsibility for the Gospel as public truth and must reconstitute by it the original foundations on which the modern West has built its ample view of the world.”

In addition to the “mission-as-defense” approach to mobilization, Madany argues that modern day mission to Muslims mandates that Christian should seek both individual and societal holiness. First, is there is the problem of social depravity. Madany quotes the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg:

If Western freedom in fact means no more than individual license, others do well to try to defend their communities and spiritual values against the encroachment of Western secularism. Beyond the defensive mode, Islamic missions in Western societies express a strong sense of missionary vocation aimed at liberating Western nations from the materialism and immorality associated with secularism. These Muslims view Christians as having failed in the task of the moral transformation and reconstruction of society. Such criticism is a serious challenge to traditional Christianity and to Western culture. A culture devoid of spiritual and moral values is not equipped to meet that challenge, and is bound for disintegration and decay.

Madany argument builds on Pannenberg’s logic: “The credibility of the Christians’ missionary endeavors, at home within a pluralistic society, and overseas, depends on their distancing themselves from the norms and the lifestyles of the secular societies that surround them. Unless Christians lead lives that are concretely different from the lifestyles of the secularized citizenry, no Muslim will consider seriously what Christianity has to offer” (p. 4). In other words, if Christians are indistinguishable from their secular culture, then their missional endeavors will have no legitimacy in the eyes of the Muslim world!

There are two problems with this argument: first, if Madany’s argument is correct, then we would assume that Christian missions to Muslim would have been most effective in the days when Madany argues that Christianity had a more prominent place in Western culture – days from the time of William Carey (1761-1834) to Samuel Zwemer (1867-1952) (p. 4). In fact, the empirical truth is that more Muslims have become Christians in the last three decades than in all of history combined.

The second problem is methodological: a desire to advance mission among Muslims should not be the driver of holiness. The pursuit of individual and society holiness should be based on a love for God and desire to obey Him fully. Nowhere in the Scripture do we see God calling his people to holiness for the sake of the advance of His Kingdom.

Now, I am not going to take on Sanneh’s argument here that Islam has an inherit penchant for territoriality. That is another article altogether. What I will take on is their argument that Christians should seek to reconstitute society on “Christian values” (on which, Sanneh says, the West was built) “in view” of the Islamic territorialism.

The actions of Christians and initiatives to advance the Kingdom should not be primarily motivated by a perceived threat to the Kingdom’s existence; rather, the church is a forward looking, offensively engaged movement. Christian labor for Gospel advance should not be fueled by fear of a potential rival, in this case, Islam. The church never advances while playing defense. The church is an unstoppable movement fueled not by fear of an “other”, but by faith in God’s promises and His power.

Madany essentially argues that if we don’t restructure society on the basic of the Gospel – a Gospel that cuts materialism and secularism at the root – then we are putting ourselves in danger of Islamic advance. What is fascinating here is the popular appeal of this argument: advance the Kingdom of God or Islam will advance on you! This framing of Islam and Christianity as cosmic rivals in a zero sum game has incredible mobilizing potential.

Further Critiques
Like so many others, Madany’s analysis of a traditional Muslim worldview sets the Muslim as totally different – as strange and dangerous – than the Western, Christian worldview. He fails to realize that his explanation of Muslims’ worldview is almost entirely congruent with a Christian worldview:

“With regard to the evangelization of Muslims, we must realize that they come from a position of utter certainty about the rightness of their faith. They consider themselves as the custodians of God’s final and complete revelation. Thus, they have hardly any reason to seriously consider the claims of a previous and inferior faith. Furthermore, an average Muslim is convinced that he has nothing to gain by converting to Christianity.” (p. 2)

How is this different than the view of most evangelical Christians? Why does Madany present these Muslims as if they exist in some enigma — an enigma such that he must reveal the Muslim “position” to western Christians?

Also, generalizations and oversimplifications plague Madany’s article. For instance, he argues that Muslims who live outside of Islam dominated lands “still carry with them their own habits of thought”. What does that mean? Here he implies that Muslims who immigrate have an unchangeable, immobile worldview. I am quite surprised by Madany’s over generalization.