Patrick Sookhdeo and the Barnabas Fund - some reflections

I've been out and about for several days, doing teaching for trainee ordinands in St Albans and Bristol and speaking to some postgrad students in Oxford. It's been very stimulating and I've found a great deal of openness to a constructive engagement with Islam in Britain. At the same time, I'm realising that the mental furniture of so many Christians is decked out with threatening shapes of what Islam is and aspires to be through the publications and articles emanating from the Barnabus Fund. I write this post with genuine hesitation, because Patrick Sookhdeo is a fellow Christian and I want to honour and respect his heart for mission and his concern for the persecuted church; the persecution of which is an uncomfortable reality in so many Muslim countries and even within Muslim communities here in the UK. Patrick speaks with some learning and from the hard realities of being a Muslim convert to the Christian faith. But there is a big "but" coming.....

Only the other day, I received a Barnabas Fund email newsletter offering a critique of the "A Common Word" document that had been sent by a number of international Muslim leaders to Christian leaders as a statement of the basis of dialogue at the end of last year. The tone and Christian theology underlying Patrick's conclusions to this effort at dialogue, very typical of his writings, are what I'd like to unpack. Anyway, deep breath, I'll respond to several specific points in the Barnabas Fund newsletter, "A Common Word: a path to progress?":

1.  Patrick begins by highlighting the tale of Hartford Seminary in the US which, so he  says, was originally a missionary training college with "good Calvinist foundations" and now has a student body that is  35% Muslim and a centre for Islamic chaplaincy training, all because it started on a path of understanding Islam and seeking dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The lesson seems to be that any form of dialogue is a slippery slope to syncretism, compromise and the watering down of truth. I take as my model Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, "full of grace and truth" who "heard us", listened, incarnated amongst us, took on our humanity but also challenged us. Dialogue is the essence of the life that is "God with Us".....and, yes, he's right, it's risky, but it's part of what we should do and be.
2. The Barnabas Fund response does highlight some genuine inadequacies in the "A Common Word" document. There are major omissions (what about Judaism?, what about the doctrine of apostasy? is "love of neighbour a true pillar of Islamic teaching?) but it is not intended to be "the final word": it is a start, a preliminary to some needed and significant discussions. Are we as Christians to be mean-spirited, cynical, arrogantly waiting for "them to get themselves in order" before we engage in relationship? Again, the way of Christ would, surely, say no.
3. Patrick provides a scathing critique of a "Yale Document" response to A Common Word which can be found on the A Common Word site and has been signed by a host of evangelical leaders and theologians. To suggest that some of those signatories are no longer trinitarian because they quote "The New Testament" as opposed to "The Holy Bible" and refer to "the Prophet Muhammad" out of respect to their Muslim audience is more than a little outrageous. The letter does not purport to be a deep and meaningful theological response (read Daniel Madigan's letter if you want to see the best of those) but a statement of intent and goodwill.
4. The practice of "taquiyya" is invoked by Patrick. This is the Arabic principle of dissimulation, of  presenting a false image to those in power in the furtherance of Islam. It is a doctrine that has a basis in Islamic history and is often used by the Barnabas Fund to cloak the efforts of progressive Muslims with a veneer of suspicion and deceit. Whilst recognising the reality that exists within some Muslims, brandishing this term about actually mitigates against the vulnerability that Christians ought to bring to relationships and that Patrick highlights as so different to the Muslim faith. To beat people with doctrinal truths whilst failing to embody them makes us, at best, hypocrites and at worst agents of division.

At the end of the day, the message from Patrick is "here be monsters": back off, don't trust, and until they prove themselves worthy, do not give any ground to Muslims. The Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss, writing in the 1930's was posed with the problem of what being a Jew meant in Nazi Germany. To survive, you had two choices: assimilation or emigration in order to set up a new Zion. The first option meant that you were denying everything you stood for as a Jew. The second option meant that you betrayed all that it was to be a Jew because you could not assert and grab what could only be received as a gift from God. As we reflect on our Christian response to Islam in Britain, taking in controversial issues like the planned public calls to prayer in Oxford, covered by Ruth Gledhill, we face a similar tension. How do we present the Christian faith in the public square, without falling into the trap of losing the very sense of what it means to be a follower of Christ?

Patrick concludes his letter with the suggestion that the naivety of western Christians is actually exacerbating the suffering of Christians in Muslim majority lands. Let's hear the voices of the suffering church, campaign, speak out and pray.....But let's also be vulnerable and loving, without fear or favour to our Muslim neighbours. Any other route is just not of Christ.

Comments

[Timothy Wright]

Hi,

I haven't read your book and I have just come to your site after googleing your name because of your new book.

I believe that as an evangelical Christian I have absolutley nothing to learn from Islam. I have lived in Islamic countries, traveled extensively to them and the org that I am with has people in every Islamic country in the world praying that people will be delivered from the darkness of Islam.

You said the words "worst agents of division" if we beat people with doctrinal truths. I agree that it is quite easy to be arrogant when we say things without thinking. But in all humility we are agents of division, Jesus has come into this world proclaiming that He comes for us to be in relationship with Him. A new world order has arrived and we are living in it. To agree with anything takes away from the proclamation of Jesus as Lord of the universe, is to deny the story of Jesus or not to understand its full meaning .

As Christians we should graciously say no the call to prayer, no to sharia law, out of love and not fear. When I see a child walking towards moving cars I must do all that I can to protect them from the danger of the cars, not out of fear but from love. Lets us by all means dialogue with Muslims , but in no way compromise on any aspect of the story of Jesus and that our society flawed as it is , is set up on Christian principles. We have full confidence that the laws of this land through a democratic process will grant justice to all people living
in this land.

Looking forward to reading the links in your reference to this discussion point.

Tim

[Ben]

I've just reviewed Global Jihad myself, on Fulcrum:

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=380

[excerpt]
"...Before going any further, it is worth emphasizing that Sookhdeo is a man who deserves a fair hearing, and Global Jihad, with its extensive notes, research, and comprehensive sweep is a significant work that offers substance where many in this area only offer froth. Sookhdeo’s experience and position of influence means that familiarity with his work is a necessity.

All that said, Global Jihad is compromised – perhaps fatally – by significant problems that are all the more serious given Sookhdeo’s position and considerable knowledge. I intend to divide these concerns into three broad categories, and the first one of these is the repeated decontextualisation of political conflicts....