A Gospel Centered Approach to Islam: A Case against the Polemical Approach

(This is an old essay from an issue of the Defender Times from October 2020)

    The one thing that I am passionate about is evangelism to various different groups of people so that they may repent of their sins and come to know salvation through Jesus Christ. Whenever it came to evangelism and other Christians, I always had problems with those who never really made any actual effort to preach the Gospel. Some would just say “you are a sinner and you are going to Hell” with no follow up on how to be saved. There was no identification of what the good news of the Gospel was. It was either just the bad news or polemical insults to degrade the individual or the worldview in question. These people showed no real sincere interest in reaching out to see people come to Christ, but instead they wanted to merely destroy the religion so that only one option can be removed, but other options are considered “better” compared to being a Muslim.

    Whenever it comes to polemical approaches, I will certainly have an issue. Whenever I see some of these type of people like Christian Prince & Rob Christian on YouTube, they seem to express a means to only reflect distaste for a religion and feeling the need to encourage people to behave “consistently” with their religion or to stop being a Muslim. However, these approaches breed nothing but a sharing of similar tactics that militant atheists use for the sake of mocking a religion and nothing more. Christians should be called to a higher standard than this. Some that use a polemical approach of insults and condescending tones, yet have intentions to see people come to Jesus Christ, are found in people like David Wood, Jay Smith and Sam Shamoun.

    The purpose then would be for this essay to help explain that we as Christians do not and should not cave in to polemical approaches since this would be behaving like the world and acting contrary to what the Scriptures command our defense of the faith to be. We will also answer the counter objections they respond with as some will do their best to try and justify displaying behavior that shouldn’t even be performed by the body of Christ in representing and honoring our Lord. This is not meant to be an attack piece or a hate filled rant. This is meant to show a mere representation of the open rebuke that the Bible describes as “better than secret love” in Proverbs 27:5. If anything, the words that are to come about from this are to merely show love and care for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who adopt a polemical approach in Christian Apologetics. To any Muslim who reads this that might think that this means I am disowning the brothers as being “no longer Christians”, then I am sorry, but you will not find there. So I suggest you go look elsewhere.

    Whenever we read of the scriptures giving a command to be giving a defense of the faith, it says we are to do so with “meekness and fear” as 1 Peter 3:15. However, in the translation of the CSB (my favorite translation besides the KJV), it accurately translates it in the modern day terms to mean “do this with gentleness and respect.” What is the purpose for this? Well as 1 Peter 3:16 says, it is so that we who have “a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.” So when we apply this principle in our apologetics against Muslims and some respond with harshness and condescending behaviors, they are put to shame by their own deeds in front of people. Not because of your polemics, but merely by their own foolishness and accusations. I remember that I had a similar experience with a Muslim (we shall call him “Marshall”) several times who was showing problems. Not only did I answer his objections with gentleness, but I was able to gently point out his inconsistent errors, like how he claimed God flooding people is a wicked and evil action that no God would ever do. Once he was shown that was also in the Quran, he slowly started to go silent and show himself to be put to shame by his own pride. Another one was with a Muslim named Mansur, a popular apologist at Speakers Corner. Mansur was asking about the Trinity and while I responded, he just decided to act like I wasn’t answering him as he tried to misrepresent what I actually said. Not only was his reasoning shown to be fallacious, but his behavior was even rebuked by some of the twitter Muslims. Never be surprised at what gentleness and respect can bring about.

    A further examination of scripture will point out that we are commanded to behave gently to the world in general and not just in the realm of apologetics. In 2 Timothy 2:24-26, we read the following in the CSB translation: “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth. Then they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” The Lord’s servant is said that he must “be gentle to everyone” whenever he is teaching. The Lord’s servant must be patient to those he is witnessing to. The Lord’s servant must be instructing his opponents with gentleness. Without these traits, we are not being faithful to scripture and as a result, we are no longer showing honor to Christ and his apostles. When we do so, we help build a case for people to “come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” Now consider finally what Galatians 5:22-23 says whenever it deals with the fruit of the spirit in the born again believer: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Paul gives a clear list of all the different signs or evidence of the spirit in the Christian. One of these signs is gentleness as well as longsuffering. So gentleness and patience are to be seen and displayed in our conduct not just to Muslims, but to everybody in general when we engage in a defense of the faith or a basic evangelism demonstration to promote and share the good news of the Gospel. We are also to show “meekness” which is another way of saying “gentleness”. Thus it is clear from these scriptures and various others that we are to display a particular behavior and attitude whenever we witness, debate and preach to anybody. We are not to act like jerks with rude attitudes and behaviors that mimic the style of the world.

    Next we respond to some of the defenses made to justify the behavior they give. One of the most common ones is “well, the prophets weren’t friendly.” This is refuted immediately by the fact that we aren’t prophets and we aren’t called to be that way. We are held by the scripture of the New Covenant and as a result of that, we are under the New Covenant’s orders for us Chrisitans. We already read what some of those commands are and they cannot be ignored if you truly claim and actually follow after Christ as Lord when you submit to His Lordship. Even more so, to help further drive the point on about the New Covenant, we are no longer under the Old Covenant. For if we are, we would still be under the Mosaic Law as a result of this.

    Another response by those in the crowd of the snarky apologetics approach usually refers to Jesus in Matthew 23:33 when he says “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” So whenever we hear this language being used by Jesus and we always hear that phrase about “what would Jesus do,” we end up thinking that it’s permissible to imitate all the things Jesus did. This isn’t necessarily the case as the Bible is quite clear on what we covered earlier and we are not Jesus. Jesus did things like forgive sins to the point that the sins were no longer considered in judgement. This is said to be only something Jesus can do as the Son of Man (which the Jews considered his statement to be blasphemy when he said such a thing). Also, we are commanded directly by divinely inspired apostles to be gentle and humble, such as what Ephesians 4:2 tells us. So regardless of what Jesus did, we are to keep to and obey the words of the scriptures when it comes to the New Testament’s teachings for New Covenant adherents known as the Christians.

    A final point usually made is more so an appeal to emotions when they say “well the Muslim apologists will act means and rude to us, therefore we should give them a taste of their own medicine.” They essentially are going back to an Old Covenant treatment of the subject with eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. However, Jesus quotes this passage and responds by saying we should turn the other cheek. In Matthew 5:38-39 we read the following: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Essentially, we are to not respond with the same kind of hate or mistreatment they offer. We are instead to show the fruit of the spirit through a gentle response that cuts their objections apart through God’s Word.

    So in the final analysis, we should remember that we are not to behave like the world. We are to act in obedience with Christ and the commands of the New Covenant. We are to display an apologetic that actually honors Christ with how we represent Him today.