Author: Dr Joanthan Ingleby, editor of encounters
Abstract:
The heading says it all. How do we, as those concerned about the mission of the church in today’s world, see the complex phenomenon of Islam? This is such a complicated issue and such an important one, I thought we needed a spectrum of opinion from a variety of commentators. So I asked six mission scholars and practitioners to respond to some questions about Islam and its relation to Christianity and modernity. They all received the same questions and their answers are given in this edition of Encounters in full. None of them saw each other’s answers so there is inevitably a small amount of repetition. Below is my summary of the contributions under each heading (with the questions), but it is quite brief and I do urge you to find time to read the responses in full. One warning: all the respondents are Christians. I did think about inviting Muslim scholars to take part, but that was not the way it worked out – another day perhaps. Also one request: rather to my surprise most of the respondents agreed with each other about taking a fairly relaxed and unthreatened approach to contemporary Islam. I wonder whether the Christian public at large agrees with this approach. If you are one of those who disagree, and I know some of you are out there, do write in (via our web-site) and let us know.
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Encounters Mission Journal 