I am copying this - not just linking it - from Ars Theologica because it is so to the point.
At a recent ministers' luncheon, a fellow clergyman read us a passage from an old booklet, it was falling apart but of great value. It was about Samuel Zwemer, pioneer RCA missionary to Arabia, entitled The Flaming Prophet, by J. Christy Wilson. In 1911, a conference on missions to Islam was held in Lucknow, India. Here is the quote:A Lutheran missionary who attended the conference said of the opening session, "Sunday evening we were privileged to hear Dr. S.M. Zwemer of Arabia preach on the duties of the church as elder brother to the Prodigal Son of Islam. The thought was new and startling to many of us, but we were soon convinced and condemned after hearing the preacher's heart and soul-piercing message...This Sunday evening service was the key to the conference, as during the solemn hours of the following week the thought came home to our hearts that Islam is our brother that can only be won by the love of the church, that needs to be like that of the Father in the touching parable of the Prodigal Son."It was new and startling in 1911, and seems so today. Instead of assuming a posture of theological/cultural superiority or triumphalism, Zwemer humbly believed Islam needed to be loved as a brother, and not condemned, if it were to be introduced to Christ. How much of the Islamic world today is lashing out in anger over the cultural and religious paternalism practiced by the West and the church? In an editorial in The Guardian, Karen Armstrong advocates paying close attention to the message of Islamic fundamentalism, especially its anxiety over modernism. In other words, we can take a position of enmity against Islam and endure the cost and losses, or we can engage it as a brother/sister and hear how it has come to feel ill-treated and threatened in a world dominated by secularism, depravity, and violence against women and children. Do we have the ears to hear? Do we have the commitment to αγαπη to make Zwemer's dream a reality? O God, I hope so.
