What Christians Need to Know about Muslims
Janet Chismar
Senior
Editor for Faith
Put aside, for a
moment, any fears or suspicions you may have regarding national
security. The simple fact remains that our Muslim neighbors do not know
Christ. And that, says Emir Caner, should
break our hearts and compel us to reach out in love.
The youngest of three brothers, Caner was
raised by his Turkish father to be a devout Sunni Muslim. Upon arrival
in America, the Caner family settled in Columbus, Ohio, where Emir’s
father soon became one of the leaders of the Islamic Center. But, in
1982, young Emir took a different route and surrendered his life to
Christ after attending a revival at the Stelzer Road Baptist Church.
Caner is currently the Associate Dean
of Southeastern College at Wake Forest and associate professor of
church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Theological
Seminary.
Before beginning a dialogue about Christ,
it is helpful to know what Muslims believe. According to Caner, the
most common misconception about God stems from a faulty linguistic
argument that says Allah and Jehovah are the same God because they both
mean, in their languages, "deity." Instead, says Caner, it’s not a
linguistic argument, but a theological one.
“As a Muslim growing up in the Suni faith,
I understood Allah to be wholly transcendent. I understood that Allah
did not have any partners. When Peter said ‘You are the Christ, the son
of the Living God’ – that’s known in Islam as shirk – the equivalent of unforgiveable sin. Islam does not believe
that Jesus died on the cross; Islam does not believe in the Trinity –
it calls the Trinity most blasphemous in Chap 19, v 88 of the Koran.”
All people, says Caner, must come to the
understanding that there is only one God and He defines Himself. “You
can accept that definition or reject that definition – therefore it’s a
matter of revelation. Do we believe that revelation is the Scripture –
the Bible – or do we believe that the revelation came through what
Muslims call the final prophet of Mohammed in the Koran?”
Love and Persistence
When asked about his own conversion, Caner quickly points
to the sovereignty and providence of God. That, and a “persistent,
obnoxious youth who wouldn’t give up on sharing Jesus with us. He
invited us to every revival, rally, lock-in, you name it. He wanted us
to be there.”
And when Caner finally agreed to attend Stelzer
Road Baptist Church, he discovered the other ingredient
necessary to draw him to the cross: a bold preacher who unashamedly
preached the Word of God, word for word, verse by verse. “He told us
without any hesitation we needed Jesus – not as a prophet, but as the
Savior of mankind, the Redeemer of the world. He was kind, he was
compassionate, but he was confrontational and that’s what was
necessary.”
The other necessary element, Caner recalls, was an
unconditionally loving congregation. “The people just loved us to the
cross. Can you imagine three boys – my two older brothers and myself –
walking into a southern Baptist church in the north? It was quite an
awkward moment. We were all scrawny, little Muslim kids in our awkward
teenage years, who grew up not even speaking English as a first
language. Fairly poor, from the wrong side
of the tracks, and the church just lovingly welcomed us in, treated us
as family and drew us to the cross.”
Family Ties
While Caner’s mother and grandmother have since converted
to Christianity, his father disowned Emir when the teen accepted
Christ. The family factor, says Caner, should never be overlooked when
talking to a Muslim. “I’ve dealt with Afghans, Pakistanis and so forth
in sharing Christ, and family is the largest barrier, even more than
truth. We spoke to one young lady, an Afghan, and she said, ‘I know
what you say is true, but I cannot lose my brothers. I cannot lose my
family and therefore I have to reject your claim.’”
According to Caner, the best thing to tell Muslims is
that it will be difficult, which is even foretold in Scripture. In
Matthew 10, Jesus says, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword that
will separate daughter from mother, and son from father.” Even Chapter
3:85 of the Koran says that “if you accept another religion, it will
never be accepted of you.”
“Indeed, my father disowned me," Caner adds, “but he was
actually very kind to us. He only disowned us. Mohammed ventured to say
that ‘if a Muslim accepts another religion, kill him.’“
Those who are witnessing to a Muslim may notice this
incredible barrier, says Caner, and they’ll have to realize the
sacrifice the Muslim person will make if they become a Christian. If
they do make that decision – and as many as 20,000 Muslims come to
faith in Christ in America every year – “the church has got to be
prepared to take them in as family. Not even just as a second family,
but as a first family, because they’ll be ostracized. They’ll be
disowned like I was from my father, and the church has to be that
loving guardian that disciples them. They will lose everything in order
to have faith in Christ.”
Caner points out that most Americans do not realize there
is an underground church in this country, but there is, because many
Muslims “don’t want to be outted. What will happen in the most extreme
of situations – someone in their family or someone in the government
(of their country of origin) will call them and say, ‘We have a
relative, we have a brother, and if you do not revert back to Islam, we
will kill him.’ So they fear even coming out and that’s why many
Muslims, after they’re saved, hesitate coming to church because they’re
not sure if they’re going to be accepted. They’re not sure what the
ramifications will be, the consequences, the ostracization.”
What is particularly difficult about the need to stay
underground, says Caner, is that when Muslims do get saved, “most of
them are so sold out, they would witness to a tree stump if it had a
soul.”
A Different Type of War
One of the issues Caner often speaks about is
the cultural war being raged in the United States. “We see it
politically; I think it’s fairly clear in this Presidential campaign.
But it’s deeper than that. We just came out
of the Cold War – my wife’s from the Czech Republic – and she was
pulled in the office and told ‘You cannot be what you desire to be
because your father’s a pastor. Hence, we’re going to force you to work
in a factory.’ But when the wall fell down in the Czech Republic, the
Velvet Revolution occurred in 1989, she was free.”
Now we find a different type of war, says Caner. “It’s
not ideology; it’s theology. It’s not a
Cold War; it’s a confessional War. This war is one in which the battle
lines are not raged between a wall, but indeed we’re not sure where the
landscape is many times, it’s so fluid. This is one we can’t lose. “
Christians have to realize this is not merely or
primarily a political battle. According to Caner, it’s a spiritual one.
“It is one that will only be won as we send our missionaries out there
with faith in Christ. We have to realize that we are not called to be a
21st Century church. We’re
called to be a First Century church.”
That means sending our children, our loved ones,
to places they’ve never been and reaching people they’ve never met.
Caner adds, “It means risking their lives and I’m not sure if we in
America are really used to that. But we need to be. We see it in China
and in other places where Christians lose their lives everyday and are
imprisoned everyday. And Americans don’t need to be behind them, they
need to be beside them.”
Visit Emir Caner's
website for more resources on Islam.
To learn more about Out of the Crescent Shadows: Leading Muslim
Women into the Light of Christ, visit the CBD website.
Religion Today Feature, from Crosswalk.com, the world's largest
Christian website.
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