RESOURCES:
Following Jesus (Full Video)
Dudley Woodberry – Christianity Today Article: Muslim Missions – Then & Now
Joseph Cumming – Muslim Followers of Jesus? (Full Article)
John Travis (a pseudonym) – Response to Joseph Cumming Article – God is Doing Something New (Full Article)
Joshua Lingel –Chrislam: How Missionaries are Promoting an Islamized Gospel
Sadrach Radin Abas – Javanese Church Planter
Sutarman Soediman Partonadi – Sadrach’s Community and its Contextual Roots: A Nineteenth Century Javanese Expressions of Christianity. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988).
MUSIC:
Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail
Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean
Interlude Music by: Chris Zabriskie – I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor, Fugacity Coefficient – Summer Ambient 9, Jahzzar – Be Nice
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Can You Be a Muslim and a Follower of Jesus? – Part 2:
Alright. So this is part 2 of our episode, can you be a Muslim and a follower of Jesus? If you didn’t listen to the first one, you can go back and download that and listen to that, but, here you go. Actually, if you just listen to the second half and then go back and listen to the first half, it’d be like, what is it, Quentin Tarantino film? Can you go backwards?
Memento. Don’t watch that. Just get it’ll yeah. Just try it and see what happens. Well, once again, Muslim terrorists.
A terrorist Islamic extremist now. These are the terrorists of the country. They’re brand of justice and brutal endeavors. Newsflash America. These is not irrelevant.
It is a warning. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast. The official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Some of the controversy, you know, Shahada.
Can you say Shahada? You know, if you’re doing all your prayers 17 times a day. What is Shahada? You’re affirming the pillar of Islam affirming there is no god but God. Muhammad is a messenger of God.
Okay. I mean, Muhammad would be a huge point of contention. Right? Yeah. So So is okay.
I get it. So you’re saying that you can’t really be a true Muslim in in in all of its forms because because there’s part of it that is is just not compatible, like Mohammed, of course. Well, that that would be the argument against insider movements. Now the insider and even the guy’s testimony, he says that he read an article a few years back that shows that there’s no contradiction in his faith. And what he’s talking about is the only reference in the Quran to the, idea of Jesus not dying on the cross is one that says that the Jews boast that they killed the Christ, but they killed him not.
Allah raised him up to himself, and he has reinterpreted that verse to coincide more with the early commentators of Islam that said this verse could mean that Jesus actually died on the cross and that God raised him from the dead. What? That’s what it says? That’s a possibility. That is one interpretation.
It’s not accepted now. No Muslim in the world now. But it’s there. Except that, but it is there in the earliest parts of Islam that that was a possibility. So if you wanna read that article, it’s written by Joseph Cumming.
We’ll put a link to that as well. Very good article, but it talks about the terminology that’s used, the Arabic terminology, and whether or not it’s possible to read that, ultimately, what was being said was that the Jews didn’t kill the Christ, but it was the lord’s will to smite him and that Christ was crucified and that God crushed him and actually raised him up afterwards. How big are the prophets would you say in terms of like, for instance, for us as Christians. Right? You know, what are the prophets that we usually quote?
Jeremiah, Isaiah. Yeah. You know? No. I don’t think that the that the Quran really is used that much in daily life for the vast majority of Muslims, but, you know, it might not be that way for the vast majority of Christians either.
I don’t know. I guess what I’m thinking is, you know, with like, let’s say there’s a, a Muslim who wants to stay a Muslim, follows Jesus, has no problem with believing in Mohammed. You know, believing that Mohammed was still a prophet of God and still being a Christian, is that a problem? So the way that it would be worded, from the insider perspective, and I’m not an insider. So I’m I’m trying to do my best here.
Is that Thank you for that. Is that Mohammed is seen as the same as an old testament prophet one that points people towards Christ. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you just take the chronology out of it, you would put Muhammad in line with the Old Testament prophets that are pointing towards Jesus.
And they would say that there’s no contradiction with the Quran and their following Jesus and that ultimately, Muhammad was pointing people towards understanding Jesus as the Son of God. I I look at Howard’s face and he’s like, yeah. I’m just like, really? The insider would think that. Yeah.
They would have to reinterpret parts of their faith that don’t coincide with Christian faith or they would have to reject them. Hey, ladies. I’m from, truth about Muslims podcast. Have you heard of it? Yes.
Okay. So we want you to read an ad for us. Can you do that? You’ll be famous, like, world famous. It’ll be amazing.
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Alright. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. You wanna read that again? No. You’re like, I’ll be so embarrassed maybe not mad.
So one of the verses that’s most often used by insider proponents is 2nd Kings 5 18, and that’s the the time where Naaman, his master sends him to the prophet of Israel, Elisha. And he, in essence, becomes, you know, a a follower of of Yahweh. And so Naaman, before he returns, he says, may the lord forgive, your servant for this one thing. When my master enters the temple of Ramon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm, I have to bow there also. When I bow down in the temple of Ramon, may the lord forgive your servant for this.
And Elijah says, go in peace. And so some have argued that, you know, continuing to go to the mosque, continuing to say Shahada, continuing to identify themselves as Muslim will be forgiven because they’re simply doing this to remain in their cultural context so they can be a witness to those people around them. Now the people that are against the insider movements are saying, nope. This is a compromise of the faith. They’re only doing this to avoid persecution.
They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. Christ did not come to bring peace but a sword. And so Right. There’s an entire book written called Chris Lomb that bashes the insider movements pretty pretty soundly. And that’s why I say that this issue is incredibly divisive because I think it’s unfair to say why someone’s doing something to make the assumption that they’re doing it to avoid persecution as opposed to be a witness to they would say they wanna remain in their context.
They wanna remain in the context of which they were saved, quoting, I believe, it’s Corinthians, but, obviously, Paul’s talking about marriage there. But, yeah, they they would argue from the insider perspective that they just want to be a witness, and they don’t wanna be excommunicated so that they have no witness with their families. Either way, what we have seen historically is that a Muslim comes to know Christ and they are extracted. They end up coming to the United States, going to American Bible College, and then pastoring a church here or leading a mission organization or teaching in a mission organization. Not saying you’re not talking about to stay in the context and be a witness.
And so I think a lot of this stems from a desire to be able to reach out to people, and be a light. Now, there are those that say that, hey, we call ourselves Muslim because that’s more truthful than to call ourselves Christian because in our community, if I say I’m a Christian, that means a, b, and c. Right. All these bag all these baggage that’s connected to it. And that has nothing to do with what they believe.
You know what I mean? Right. Going back to that prayer, Muslims pray 5 times a day. What do they say in English? In the prayer?
Uh-huh. There’s liturgies that they would go over Oh, it’s not the same thing every time? You know, that’s a good question. I’ve never actually looked into the raka about what’s said. Because I wonder if what they are saying goes against what they believe as Christians now, or as a Muslim Christian.
You know what I’m saying? Like, if they’re not saying anything that is, it’s not like like, you know, bowing down to Buddha. You know, it would be still in line with their faith if they believe that Allah is, you know, the father of Jesus. Right. You know what I’m saying?
Right. I’m not a 100% sure on what’s said, but I’m I’m quite certain the person leading the prayers, says something a little bit different during the during the prayer times, and so I don’t know you could say with assurance that everything that would be said you would agree with. But in the same sense, not everything that’s said often in the church is something that is always agreed with too. So Yeah. That’s true.
I don’t know. I mean, I just I think that we need to look at it with at least the most amount of charity that we can from those that are in the insider movements. And Right. One of the things that I thought was very helpful was, a research that was done by, partial and some others, where they went and they interviewed people that claimed to be C5 Muslims. What did they find?
The most, interesting statistic to me was 97% of them said that Jesus was the only savior. What percent? 97%. So it isn’t what people think that they’re not truly Christian? I think it’s unfair to question their their faith and to question whether or not, they’re Christian.
So what is in that book Chris Long? What are what are some of the things that that they say? Like to bash, is is it is it questioning their fate? Well, I think absolutely some people have gone so far as to say these people are not Christian, but, I don’t think I know many people that are comfortable going there. Right.
93% say that Allah loves and forgives them because, Jesus gave his life for them. Uh-huh. 100% said that they could be delivered from evil spirits, because of their faith in Christ. That’s funny. That’s a 100%.
Yeah. And 100% said that they felt the, peace of God whenever reading the NGO, the gospel. Oh. So there’s some other not so encouraging ones, like, for instance The branch of the inquiry. Yeah.
96% of them said there are 4 heavenly books. So the gospels, the Psalms, the Torah, and the Quran. So they continue to see the Quran as being revealed by God. Yeah. And not all of them meet regularly as, as a church.
Not all of them see or understand the trinity, the trinitarian nature of God or would accept Jesus as a son of God. So it’s it’s interesting. Right? But the the big question, and I always mention this to folks, is, how important is that understanding? You know?
Yeah. I mean, he I think it was John Piper when talking about this said something about he who has the son has life and he who does not have the son does not have life. But I think if I were to interview the vast majority of the youth groups here, in Columbia, I would find that very few of them could articulate what it means for Jesus to be the son of God. Yeah. And so, it almost it begs the question, are we placing a burden more so on the Muslim world than we would others?
You know, how many of our, how many listening could articulate the Trinitarian nature of God. Yeah. It’s a toughie, you know? But, it is important, obviously. I’m not minimizing the importance of doctrine.
Right. But, how important is doctrine? How much does a person need to have correct in their belief system in order for it to be, salvific or efficacious in their in their salvation? Do they need to understand what it means for Jesus to be the son of God, or can they simply accept Jesus as Lord and follow him? Is that enough?
Those are big questions. Yeah. I do find it amusing when I look back in my life. This is what causes me to be gracious. I think that in my past I have believed a lot of funny things.
You probably do now. Yeah. I was just It’s just that you’re in the present or future. You’re gonna look back to this day, baby. I’m so smart right now.
You know? No. But just, you know, I just look back and I’m just like, wow. You know, I’ve really as I’ve grown and learned, you know? I just think of the I just, you know, I’m thankful for the grace of God in my life and how he continues to reveal himself to me, you know?
And I think, I think about that passage where, Paul is saying that, you know, God is faithful to complete the work that he starts, you know. And, for a Muslim, you know, that comes to the Lord, whatever they are in c scale, you know, I believe that the Holy Spirit is efficacious, you know, and that He will follow through and continue. But that’s me. So Yeah. Well, I think one of the ultimate, tests is going to be, does it reproduce?
Does it last? Will it be multi generational? Were those children that are hearing the gospels read and the prayers in the evenings continue to follow Christ and have a church fellowship? Other issues such as baptism, communion, you know, sacraments of the church that have been important. The identification, you know, what about the term Christian?
I’ve heard some in the United States that don’t want to use the term Christian. They use follower of Jesus. I see that a lot more and more now. Yeah. I’m not a Christian.
I’m a follower of Jesus. It’s like, well, you know, there’s there’s, you know, there’s a history there. You know, do you wanna stand in a historical narrative that’s bigger than you, or do you wanna start a 21st century movement? Yeah. It’s there’s a lot of complicated questions that go with contextualization.
Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you like partnering with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. I wanna close with, looking at 1 guy, named Shadrach.
Really, his name is Raiden Aba Shadrach Suraparanta. So, I mean, how could you not wanna hear about that fella? Right. And I really wanna know how to spell that, but I’ll ask that later so I can put it in the show notes. Yeah.
And you can, there’s a doctoral thesis that was written on this guy. He was born in 18/35. He is a Javanese. And, from birth until age 17, he had the name Raiden, which meant, is a traditional Javanese name. And, that was quite normal to not have necessarily a Muslim name right then and there, but a Javanese name.
He was orphaned, but he’s eventually adopted by a guy named Kuriman, and Kuriman was what’s called a Guru Umu. I’m probably butchering that for all my Bahasa speaking friends out there. Sorry. But he was a teacher of the secret knowledge. You know, he’s a medicine man essentially.
So, Raiden eventually becomes, this himself. He apprentices under him. And at age 17, he sets out on his own, joins an Islamic boarding school, almost lives in, like, a a monastic lifestyle, and, adds, Abbas to his name. And, he adds this so that people would understand that he could be a Muslim teacher, that he had training in Islam. And so he began teaching in mosque and engaging in a lot of debate with Christians.
And so we have Raiden Abbas. Right? This is age 17 to, early thirties. Well, eventually, he reconnects with his adopted father who had become a Christian after losing a debate. So his father, his adopted father, loses a bait to a guy named Tung Guo Wolong, becomes a Christian, and then Raiden, Abbas, begins learning from this guy who he’s most impressed by because, 1, he beat his dad in a debate and, 2, he had the ability of being fully Javanese and fully Christian.
So you have to imagine at this point in time, all we have is the Dutch Reformed Church. Right. Right? We don’t have any sort of contextual churches. So, eventually, he becomes baptized and adds Shadrach to his name.
So now his name is Raiden Abbas Shadrach. He’s, eventually, you know, disillusioned by his father and also this guy that’s mentoring him, because one, his father becomes addicted to opium, and 2, his, mentor, the guy who converted his father, takes on another wife. So he got a little too Javanese. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yep.
And so he didn’t like at the same time. Right. And so, eventually, he doesn’t really follow their sort of teachings because he’s, you know, like I said, disillusioned by that. And, he sees that there’s really two extremes. There’s the Dutch Reformed Church, which has no Javanese flair flavor at all, And then he sees, a Javanese Christianity that’s almost unrecognizable as Christianity.
And so he wanted something that was fully Christian and fully Javanese. Faithful and above. Right. So he begins to engage in some contextual practices that today we would find fascinating. Now what I think is most interesting about this is this is truly an insider thing because there’s no outside influence happening.
He’s doing this. He’s doing this. So he comes up with a creed that’s put to a Javanese musical form. I believe that God is 1. There is no God but God.
Jesus Christ is the spirit of God whose power is over everything. There is no God but God, and Jesus Christ is the spirit of God. Now, why did he choose spirit of God? I’m assuming I don’t know. But I’m assuming because that is a title of Jesus in the Quran, the Ruhollah, the spirit of God.
And so this creed is recited with a soft voice and it gradually gets louder and is accompanied by hand clapping, head movements side to side, and sort of this emotionalism that, connects, and it fits very well with a Muslim sort of style of, Sufism. Yeah. Sufi prayers and and dhikr. So he took that on. He started having opening open debate with religious leaders.
He would go into a village and he would purchase a field, and the field would be the field that they thought was inhabited by the spirits and so nobody would do anything with that field. He would grow crops there and, they would see yeah. Power encounter, essentially. Jesus is bigger. Mhmm.
And so he does engages in rhythmic poetry. He puts the 10 commandments, the apostle’s creed, and the Lord’s prayer to rhythmic poetry and liturgy. He calls the church buildings a masjid, which is the same as a mosque or same term for a mosque. He does something strange. He puts he replaces the crescent on top of the mosque with a Hindu disc, which is a symbol for power.
And he also builds 3 domes instead of 1 to symbolize the trinity. Leaders are called imams or Muslim teachers. Nobody’s allowed to take a biblical name. Only he did. He thought that was bad?
Yeah. He thought what’s Javanese about that? You know, taking up the biblical name. And the Javanese, as I understand it, the Javanese that would convert to Christianity were only allowed to take Old Testament names. They weren’t allowed to take new testament names, so he just said no names.
They received, giving was called zakat, the Muslim word for giving. And then, yeah, they it just did a lot of things that were quite radical Yeah. Or would be considered quite radical. He used a drum to call people to prayer. I’m assuming that’s very Javanese.
Right? He would set the scripture on a table and a stand the same as they would do in the mosque. They would sit on floor mats, Javanese songs with Christian words, Javanese scripture using the terms Issa, and Allah. Yeah. Going back to the songs, they would write theirs their, they would take traditional Javanese songs and put Christian words to them.
Is that what you’re saying? Okay. And we’ve we’ve we’ve we’ve done things like that. Oh, yeah. So In Christian history.
Yep. Yeah. So the things that were prohibited was no fasting during Ramadan, no attending the mosque, no praying for ancestors, no offerings to spirits, no holidays associated with Mohammed. So there is a line. Oh, yeah.
You can draw a line between Javanese and, Muslim practices. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now the thing is is he was incredibly effective, and that’s what I think is so, interesting. It said that at Shadrach’s death, there was approximately 20,000 believers.
Wow. Now prior to Shadrach, there was virtually nothing. The Dutch Reformed Church had determined that they shouldn’t even try to reach the Muslim Javanese anymore. Because it’s not what was happening. Nothing was happening, and 2, it was causing political problems.
And so they end up sending a, a representative from the Dutch Reformed Church to meet Shadrach, and he spends a grand total of 1 hour with him and says that he has just created a new sect of Islam with a Christian color. Shadrach eventually goes to jail because he tells the communities to refuse the I believe it had to do with the inoculations. Oh, like vaccinations. Vaccinations. Yeah.
So, you know, and he’s persecuted for what he’s doing and and it’s kinda one of those missing parts of Christian history. This guy, Shadrach, that was probably one of the most, if not the most effective church planner, in Indonesia and what I find most interesting about Shadrach, this is why he’s one of my favorites, if you can ever find a person or a story or an individual or a text that lies at the center of the argument for and against that person you should look into. And I’m telling you that those that are anti insiders use Shadrach as their model. And those that are pro insiders use Shadrach as their model, and they just pick and choose which parts of Shadrach’s ministry and life they want to argue from. Because he did some things that were incredibly contextual and in my mind, borderline syncretistic.
Right. And then he did some other things that were proper contextualization and very, you know, docile. But he was all over the board. If you were to say, where was Shadrach on the c scale? Oh, my goodness.
Depends what day of the week it was. Right. What you looked at. I like Don McCreery. He’s like, all over it.
All over it. But needless to say, God used him in a magnificent way. I mean, 20,000 believers when nothing else was happening. You know? They prayed over their food in the same way that Muslims would, the bismillah over their food.
They would have halal. They practice male circumcision. They had, just a lot of things that were what were happening were quite Muslim in feel and flavor, and it it was effective. I I can’t help but feel, like, at the end of this this show, because we’re about to wrap up, is that, you know, we haven’t really answered, like, a direct question. It’s more like we really did just talk about a lot of the issues and what’s going on.
So I think as far as our listeners go, like, what they can do with this is, really use it as a as a catalyst for one to wanting to know where they stand, where they, you know, what they wanna know about, even their own faith and how they do things, especially evangelization and, missions, because I know a lot of you guys will go on short term mission trips and, have to start thinking about these kind of things, especially if you go to a place that doesn’t have the gospel, like anywhere in the 10:40 window, you know, without these churches. Or if you know missionaries that are going, like church planters and stuff, it’s it’s it’s interesting discussion, to have with these missionaries because I know that they’re probably thinking about it. Because I know we were when we were starting to send out teams and people were starting to go. Mhmm. Mhmm.
And what I think is really neat is that, contextualization, insider movements, this debate, it’s not new. Yep. I mean, this is for a long time. This is the the mid, he’s born in 18/35, and so you’re talking 19th century. This is going on, and, you know, one thing that I think is really neat is that we can rely and totally, believe that the Holy Spirit is capable of purifying and refining and preserving his church, which I think we tend to forget sometimes.
Right. We we we have to be the guys that guard it with, you know, everything we got. Yeah. And we have a history. Right?
I mean, there are parts of the world that really are not as interested as they once were in hearing our opinions. And the the thing is is that God’s doing some amazing things around the globe and raising up some theologians that are challenging some of our theology, and that’s that’s pretty neat. Right. Yeah. Body of Christ.
Global body of Christ. I was thinking about the Chinese church and their theologians Mhmm. That are coming and re identifying what we think that we knew already. Yeah. That’s right.
Right? They’re like, we have something to teach you about spirituality. And you’re like, okay. And then they start saying, like, hey. That’s actually pretty good.
What is that? Yeah. Yeah. So So stuff. Yeah.
We got a lot of resources, that I’m I’m placing on the show notes. Check them out, and pass this on to friends, especially missionaries that are going overseas so they can kinda tell what they’re they’re thinking too. Yeah. And be careful, guys, when you’re talking about insider movements and Chris Lom and all of those things. Be careful not to be too harsh, too judgmental, and not too divisive, but simply approach it with grace and humility and, rejoice in the fact that god is using and doing things, despite us.
And sometimes, maybe we don’t agree. Maybe we think they’re wrong, and God will reveal those in time. Right. I had this professor once in, at CIU named doctor Gentry, and he was reminded or he always told the class whenever you’re debating somebody, always give them the benefit of doubt. Like, be gracious.
Charity. Yeah. Have charity when you’re debating. And I thought that was really cool. I remember Joel Williams.
Remember? I’m okay with that. Yeah. He was one of our Oh, he was our Greek professor. I’m okay with that.
I’m okay with that. I’m like, you shouldn’t be. Yeah. We were always fired up, and you’re just calm as you can please. I’m okay with that.
I’ve become less quick to draw the sword these days. Which is saying a lot because if you knew Trevor back in the day Yeah. I’d have chopped a year off for a year. He was a gladiator. Spiritual gladiator.
Oh, man. Yeah. Thanks for listening, guys. We’ll see you next week.