Evangelicals encountering Muslims : a pre-evangelistic approach to the Qu'ran

Abstract

This thesis looks at the development of Protestant and Evangelical encounter with Muslims from the earliest days of the Modern missions movement. Special attention is given to the dynamic equivalence model (DEM), which resulted in a new method for interpreting the Qur’an called the Christian Qur’anic hermeneutic (CQH). I begin with the early Protestant ministers among Muslims, such as Martyn and Muir. Pfander’s (1910) book, The balance of truth, embodies the view that the Qur’an teaches an irrevocable status of inspiration for the Old and New Testaments. The early and mid-twentieth century saw a movement away from usage of the Qur’an during Evangelical encounter with Muslims. Direct model advocates bypass the Qur’an and other religious questions for an immediate presentation of the gospel. The 1970s saw the development of the DEM, which produced significant changes in how Evangelicals encountered Muslims. Pioneers like Nida, Tabor, and Kraft implemented dynamic equivalence as a model in Evangelical ministry. Concurrently, Accad and Cragg laid groundwork for the CQH. The DEM creates obscurity in anthropology by promoting an evaluation of cultural forms as essentially neutral. This is extended to religious forms, even the Qur’an. Such a simple, asocial value for symbols is not sufficient to account for all of human life. Cultural forms, especially those intrinsically religious, are parts of a complex system. Meaning cannot be transferred or equivocated with integrity from one context to another without a corresponding re-evaluation of the entire system. Theological difficulties are also produced by the DEM and the CQH, and include the assigning a quasi-inspirational status to the Qur’an and a denial of unique inspirational status to the Christian Scriptures. If the gospel is communicated through the Qur’an, then it is difficult to deny some level of God-given status to it. Further, the Christian Scriptures are not unique as inspired literature. My proposal for how to use the Qur’an responsibly looks to Bavinck’s elenctics and is presented as Qur’anic pre-evangelism. Rather than communicating Biblical meaning through the Qur’an, Evangelicals can focus on areas of the Qur’an that coincide with a lack of assurance felt by Muslims in anthropology.