CHRISTIAN MISSIONS: THE NEW CRUSADE
The Islamic Times, Manchester
"Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with you unless you follow their form of religion. Say: The guidance of Allah Ta’ala, that is the only guidance, ‘were you to follow their desires after the knowledge which had reached you. Then would you find neither protector nor helper against Allah Ta’ala." (Al-Quran 2:120)
Numerous Christian missionary organisations such as the Samuel Zwemer Institute, frontiers International, the Arab world team and operation Mobilization, spend millions of dollars each year in attempting to convert Muslims throughout the world to Christianity.
Despite all their concentrated efforts, Christian missionary organisations have never experienced any significant success in converting Muslims. The almost complete failure to attract Muslims is mainly the result of previous requirements which dictates that converts conform to the Western-imbued concept of Christianity that was entirely alien to any potential converts from Islam.
In the early 1970’s the missionary groups began to develop an alternative strategy based on the concept of contextualization. This is primarily an attempt to indoctrinate non-Christians into Christianity while allowing converts to keep those aspects of their former culture and religion that do not clearly contradict Christian teachings. At its essence, it is the preaching of Christianity within the context of prevalent cultural and environmental factors. To make the transition from Islam to Christianity as simple and as painless as possible, Christian missionaries have begun to implement some of the following strategies,