Sign this petition: Keep "Father" & "Son" in the Bible

[Covenant Joel]

While we are on the topic, many evangelical orgs are trying to "build bridges" or find "commonalities" with Muslims as a means of evangelism.

But, I think the best strategy (overall) is to stress the DIFFERENCES between us, not anything "common" between us.

While initial points of commonality may be used to initiatie conversations (even as "bridges") we must remember that bridges over dangerous chasms or to be crossed, and crossed quickly and we are not to linger on them.

Here is an excellent John Piper clip about "A Common Word" - yet another tiresome document trying to show that we Christians and those Muslims just are not that different after all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTY-9FY13kw&feature=share

I'm quite partial to him, since I spent so many hours with his books in writing my thesis, but I think J.H. Bavinck gives some of the best advice for dealing with the similarities and differences. He makes the point that you do, that practically, the similarities are quite helpful in starting conversations and beginning relationships. But theologically, he says, there is no "point of contact" (a phrase he used before Van Til made it quite a point of conversation for apologetics). And thus when we say the same thing we don't mean the same thing by it. If we suggest that we actually hold to the same things, we really deceive ourselves. I highly recommend An Introduction to the Science of Missions and The Impact of Christianity on the Non-Christian World.

I also wrote a paper on A Common Word an a presuppositional approach to it here: Papers | joelws.com

For an even more in-depth Reformed response to ACW, see my friend Laurence's paper here: An Uncommon Logos and

 

[Pergamum]

Joel, your Common Word paper is great!

 

[Covenant Joel]

Joel, your Common Word paper is great!

Thanks Perg! There are probably things I would say a little differently now, a few years later, but it was a great exercise for me to really start working through some of these things.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Thanks, Perg, for continuing to highlight this very serious missiological and elenctic concern.

We've had Bassam Madany (who has an article in the Chrislam book) both speak in chapel and give a series of classroom lectures on these issues. We want all our students alerted to it and ready to oppose it. This is an extraordinary Satanic attack on the mission to Islam.

I may put something more up on this as I interact with Bassam about it. We should certainly be in prayer for the committee that is working on this for the PCA. I am thankful for the work that they are doing and for men like Dave Garner who is promoting concern about this in the PCA. We look forward to what that committee will bring to the General Assembly.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Pergamum]

Thanks, Perg, for continuing to highlight this very serious missiological and elenctic concern.

We've had Bassam Madany (who has an article in the Chrislam book) both speak in chapel and give a series of classroom lectures on these issues. We want all our students alerted to it and ready to oppose it. This is an extraordinary Satanic attack on the mission to Islam.

I may put something more up on this as I interact with Bassam about it. We should certainly be in prayer for the committee that is working on this for the PCA. I am thankful for the work that they are doing and for men like Dave Garner who is promoting concern about this in the PCA. We look forward to what that committee will bring to the General Assembly.

Peace,
Alan

If the OPC wanted to counter-act these bad trends by launching efforts into Indnsia themselves, I have connections that would allow new workers to learn the language and get settled into the country with a minimum of adaptional stress and could help give them a "soft landing." Please connect me with any of your students who may be interested in such a ministry.

 

[Pergamum]

Here are two more articles/blog posts worthy of reading:


The first is a critique that I firs saw offline 2 years ago, and I am glad that the writer decided to post it online:

Jay Smith's Assessment of Insider Movements, C5 Missions Strategies

Towards the end of January 2009 I was asked by my mission board, the Brethren In Christ World Mission (BICWM) to attend the ‘Common Ground’ Conference in Atlanta, a group promoting and teaching the ‘Insider’ methodological model of evangelism to Islam. I was asked to assess its viability as a model for our mission work to Muslims living in a Middle Eastern country.

I knew something about the ‘model’, which some have based on the C-5 category of the contextualization scale, due to my studies at Fuller Seminary in the 1980s. Later on my colleagues and I tried a nascent form of contextualization in the late 1980s and early 1990s in a largely Muslim dominated West African country. We realized, however, that it caused a good bit of confusion, as some of our African Muslim friends felt we were being deceitful and dishonest, and trivialized what for them were time-honoured Islamic ‘identity codes’ of practice and belief.

...Concerning the Common Ground Conference itself; I was not invited, so I had myself invited; to which they finally relented, with the proviso that I was not permitted to say anything about the teachers nor the countries they represented. I can say, however, that they were all eloquent, seemed mostly my age (40-50s), all white, American, and all well groomed.

Security was tight, with only delegates permitted to even enter the sanctuary. I was not sure why they felt it necessary, since we were in Atlanta, and only those who had been invited could attend. What’s more we were all Christians, vetted and so quite knowledgeable, but this was their conference, not mine.

(2) Extraction: New believers should not be extracted from their Muslim families (their ‘Oikos’). Matthew 5:15 says to shine as light in one's oikos. The dictum is actually ‘remain in’. The Holy Spirit will tell them some things that are okay. The point is that a believer is uniquely gifted by virtue of bloodline and upbringing to reach those of his natural Oikos. So our desire is to see this natural gifting used for the sake of the Gospel. The goal is for people to be salt and light in their ‘oikos’.



Jay’s Assessment: Unfortunately, the above paragraph does not explain just how far the new believer must ‘remain’ within one’s oikos. At the conference and in much of their literature the Insiders suggest that the new believer should continue to call themselves ‘Muslims’, should continue to pray the five ritualistic Islamic prayers, go to the mosque regularly, and participate in the yearly fast. In other words, for all practical purposes, they are to be seen publicly as a Muslim, and to continue doing so till they die, promising in some cases that they don’t ever have to ‘leave Islam’.

(5) Muslim Compliant Arab Bible: Mazhar Mallouhi’s user friendly ‘Muslim Compliant’ Arabic translation has attempted to translate the meaning in a way that the message will speak to Muslims. He replaces references to God as ‘Father’, changing them to: Allah, Rabb, Waliy, Al Aziz, Amri, Ruh Allah. We appreciate the difficulty in communicating the fatherhood of God in a Muslim context. The goal is to use meaningful terms for your audience, even if they are ‘Muslim compliant’.
Jay’s Assessment: Yes, I would agree, the intent is fine, trying to contextualize the Bible for the audience it is intended for is perfectly legitimate, or finding a ‘dynamic equivalent’ as an alternate is a practice which we do with all of our translations. The difficulty comes when you change the text itself, for the sake of a person’s sensibilities, and in so doing give it a meaning the author never intended; that is not good exegesis, but ‘eisegesis’. This is particularly problematic when in attempting to ‘speak’ to Muslims, Malouhi replaces references in the Gospels and the book of Acts to God as ‘Son’ (‘Huios’ in Greek, usually translated in Arabic as ‘ibn’), and changed them to ‘Habib’ (beloved), or ‘sayyid ul basheer’ (master of men).

Does this do justice to the original text, and will this not have implications for how we now explain the relationship between the first two persons of the triune Godhead, to say nothing of how we then apply that to the numerous applications of fatherhood/sonship used by Jesus in the gospels (i.e. “whoever denies the Son, denies the Father.” I John chapters 2 and 4, and 3 John)? What about those of us who use the relational aspect of the Godhead as a model for our relationships within the family, community, fellowship, and the church? How will we be able to explain them, once we have eradicated them from the text?


Lastly, how are we going to answer the accusation by so many Muslims today that we ‘change’ the text of the Bible whenever we find a problem with it, and that is why it remains corrupted in their eyes?

Here is another article:

Wycliffe

Wycliffe and SIL leaderships need to act quickly. These organizations’ reactions have been dismal. It has taken 7 weeks for them to admit they are responsible for a translation that removed “Father” from the Trinity. They have yet to admit that same translation also removes “Son” from Matthew 28:19.


...Wycliffe is using Dr. Poythress’ “input, feedback and support” according to one of Dr. Rick Brown (real name Darrell Richard Brown) and Leith Gray’s (who also goes by Larry Chico but his real name is Larry Ciccarelli) articles, Translating Familial Biblical Terms: An Overview of the Issue, as an endorsement of their translations in this current controversy. The article is posted on Wycliffe Global Alliance website with this endnote:

The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful input, feedback and support received from many translators and other interested parties, and from Bible scholars such as Prof. Vern Poythress of Westminster Theological Seminary and Roy Ciampa of Gordon-Conwell Seminary.

Eddie Arthur, director of Wycliffe UK, wrote a post Bible Translation Controversy: The Problem of English on February 19, 2012.

Mr. Arthur cites Dr. Poythress to defend these mistranslations. He claims elsewhere this controversy has been misunderstood. On January 30, he responded to a tweet, “you might want to get the full facts before spreading Internet rumours [sic] about other Christians.” The tweet in question, “Is this a good translation of Mt 28:19, “Cleanse them by water in the name of God, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit”?”

The person who had tweeted was quoting True Meaning of the Gospel of Christ, one of the mistranslations in the controversy, which Wycliffe has admitted as of late last Friday it replaces “Father” with Allah. Wycliffe initially had denied “Allah” was substituted for “Father.” It had also claimed, “This translation is unfinished and still being revised” but you can buy copies of its consulted translation online on Amazon UK. Wycliffe’s FAQ, with all new revisions, mirrors Biblical Missiology’s Fact Check, which is a review of Wycliffe’s initial statement.

Mr. Arthur also wrote and posted a letter which has a link to Dr. Poythress’ article. In that letter he assures, “I trust that this allays your concerns. However, if you have further questions, you may first want to read… Vern Sheridan Poythress, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary and Editor of Westminster Theological Journal, writing on this issue for the online publication, Mission Frontiers” and gave a link to the article.

I have read Dr. Poythress’ blog article on the Mission Frontiers page titled Bible Translations for Muslim Readers. I would like to point out two errors in regards to Islamic understanding of certain terms:

First, he wrote, “As a result, I am critical of any translation that would put into the New Testament text the expression “Messiah” (or equivalent) instead of “Son of God” (or equivalent)–with no further explanation.”

“Messiah” in Islam is a created being and can be destroyed. Qur’an, 3:59, shows the Jesus of Islam was a created being. He can also be destroyed in 5:17. Therefore, Messiah cannot be substituted for “Son” or “Son of God” even with footnotes.

Here is the link to Poythress' article:

Bible Translations for Muslim Readers

And here is the previous article to which the link above is responding:

Bible Translation and Contextualization

 

[DMcFadden]

This is just wrong; we can't change scriptural terms like this.

On a side note: at least they are not using ridiculous terms like "Mother", "Daughter" and "Loving-Womb" like some liberals around the U.S.

Yes, but the logic is the same. We must get away from offensive patriarchal language and move to feminist-friendly language to meet modern Americans where they "are."
We must get away from offensive trinitarian language and move to Muslim-friendly language to meet modern Muslims where they "are."

Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! It drives me crazy.

 

[Heidelberg1]

Related thoughts here:

[video=youtube;gOb7ny97GAI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOb7ny97GAI[/video]

And here:

[video=youtube;LzPK93pI65I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzPK93pI65I[/video]