Conference promotes evangelism etiquette

promotes

evangelism

etiquette The Back Pew See LOWE, 3 LOWE: Sensitivity is key; don't generalize FROM PAGE 1

If you ask people about their pet peeves, probably somewhere between telemarketers and obnoxious cellphone users would fall religious proselytizers.

That strikes me as a little curious, in that we live in a country where religious expression is commonplace and because so many religions consider it a sacred duty to spread their own version of good news to others.

Nearly all of us have had a negative experience with that, however. A co-worker who just won't shut up about his religion. A neighbor who reminds you every other day that you're not "saved."

Those who insist on sharing their religious beliefs are not always insensitive or repellent, however. In fact, I'd guess most of us have had far more perfectly pleasant conversations about religion with our friends and neighbors than unpleasant ones.

Teaching Christians to share their faith effectively with people of other faith groups was the object of an evangelism conference recently sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Baptist Association at North Roanoke Baptist Church.

The workshop included sessions focused specifically on four groups: Muslims, Mormons, Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Clear up

misconceptions

Along with perhaps a dozen others, I sat in on the session on reaching Muslims. Joe Dib, who heads a Northern Virginia outreach to Islamic people, led the hour-long session.

A primary focus of his presentation - condensed into an hour from what obviously could have been a much longer session - was teaching Christians how to approach Muslims in ways that would minimize potential offensiveness.

Dib, a native of Lebanon, noted that because many of the Muslims these Baptists are likely to approach are immigrants from predominantly Islamic countries, they may have a limited understanding of Christianity and the West.

"Don't get caught up in semantics," such as whether the "Allah" of Islam is the same as the "God" of Christianity, Dib said. "I speak Arabic, and the word for 'God' is 'Allah.'"

And don't generalize based on events such as 9/11, he warned. "Muslims are people like you and me. ... They are not our enemies."

Many Muslim immigrants from Eastern and Third World countries, however, have highly distorted views of Christianity, he said.

They may believe pop stars such as Madonna represent mainstream Christian practice, Dib said, or that a TV program showing two gay men sleeping together with a cross hanging over their bed represents the predominant Christian view of homosexual behavior.

Such experiences tend to reinforce the view of many Muslims that "everything is allowed for Christians - sex, drugs and alcohol," all considered anathema in Islamic tradition.

Keep it meek

American Christians can easily forget that cultural differences must guide even the selection of Scripture they might use in approaching a Muslim, Dib said.

For instance, many Christians can rattle off without hesitation John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

For Muslims - who believe Jesus was a virgin-born prophet who was not crucified on the cross - that passage raises several red flags. From their perspective, "If Jesus was God's son, that means God had sex," Dib said, which is blasphemy. References to the crucifixion brings up "images of blood, which are disgusting and evil" for Muslims, he said.

Logically following that passage with talk about the sinfulness of all human beings can also be trouble, Dib said. "If you want to start a fight, say that Mohammed was a sinner and that Jesus is sinless."

Much of Dib's advice was particularly telling when one considers the sometimes offensive stereotype - largely a thing of the past, fortunately - of a Christian missionary or evangelist attempting to browbeat a nonbeliever.

While some of us will be insulted by any attempt to convert us to another religion, Dib offered some sound advice for helping to mitigate the potential for an outraged response.

"We're not in the business of counting converts, but of making disciples," Dib said. "The 'rate of return' with Muslims historically is very low ... because they come from a totally different mind-set."

A missionary encounter with a Muslim is successful he said, based "not on whether they accept Christ or not, but on whether you presented the Gospel through your personal experience of Christ.