Didn’t accomplish as much this week as I would have liked, but let me make a beginning on key issues at this year’s General Assembly, which ended last Friday, June 21. As you may know, Presbyterian government involves three main levels of accountability: the sessions of individual churches (the elders) are accountable to presbyteries (we file our meeting minutes with the presbytery each year); presbyteries, composed of ministers and elders within specified regions (ours is the entire Northwest and gathers thrice yearly) are accountable to the General Assembly; the General Assembly has final jurisdiction, through debate and voting, over the denomination.
» A hot-button issue this year was something called “insider movements” in the Muslim world. Very briefly, it’s the question of how much missions to Muslims can be “contextualized” — can Muslims continue to “ look like” Muslims after they convert to Christianity (i.e., continue going to Mosque [but quietly worshipping Jesus], avoid the term “ son of God” which offends Muslims, continue praying to Allah [the only Arabic word for God]) and so on. The answers may seem simple, but consider two things: first, the consequences of conversion are often so dire that converts simply leave Muslim culture, thereby removing a gospel presence; second, few of us are fully aware of how highly contextualized we ourselves are. In other words, our own expressions of the faith are often so privatized that people who know us fairly well, co-workers for example, have no idea what we actually believe in or the depth of our faith.
» On the other hand, John Piper makes the point that acquaintances of his, former Muslims who now minister in the Muslim world, vigorously oppose contextualization because it undermines years or decades of work they have done to establish inroads and biblical culture in Muslim lands.
» Too much to tackle in a note, so I’ve taken just one slice: can a former Muslim pray to “Allah” or must he/she incorporate a new word for God into Arabic? So, think with me for a moment.
» Language is not ultimate. It is a technology that people use to describe or capture ultimate (and temporal) things. So at Babel (Gen. 11), for example, God “confuses” or multiplies the languages of the people of earth, but the ultimate things (and beings) to which those languages refer are unchanged. So the question becomes, Does the English word “ God” refer to the same ultimate being as the Arabic word “Allah”? If we take a straightforward view of the teachings of each religion, Islam and Christianity, the answer to this is “no.”
» “Allah” is the Arabic/Islamic term for the god who reveals himself to his messenger Muhammad in the collected writings we call the Quran. Those writings reveal Allah’s character, ethics, jurisprudence and so on. “God” (or Dios or Gott…) is the Christian term for the One who reveals himself in the Old and New Testaments, along with his character, ethics and so on. We rightly ascribe different names to each because they are different Gods and their self-disclosure differs significantly — the Incarnation being the most crucial difference.
» If we reject all this and say, “Arabic uses only the word ‘Allah’ to indicate God, therefore Arabic-speaking converts to Christianity must use the word ‘Allah’ to speak of the Christian God,” our discourse is being governed more by the tool of language than the reality of God. We want just the opposite. The fact is, “Allah” already has a definition, and it is not the trinitarian God who sent his Son and now indwells his people by his Spirit.
» Enough for now — you can begin to see how complex this debate is. For this reason, the report of the commission assembled for this issue was voted on and sent back for “perfecting” — meaning, further work. More next week.