You know when a word has real scare potential when Hal Lindsay starts using it on TV. Like the word “CHRISLAM”.
Last year, televangelist Jack Van Impe got kicked off TBN for calling Rick Warren a ‘Chrislam’ promoter. Rick Warren says the newspaper reports were false and he does not promote Chrislam, but the damage had already been done: Van Impe still hasn’t got his job back on Christian television which is a shame for all his TV-watching fans and for the hair-spray company that has lost a loyal customer.
It’s a silly word. Can we please stop using it?
WHAT IS CHRISLAM?
Chrislam is a tiny religion in Nigeria that happily mixes Islam and Christianity and counts about 1500 people in two churches in Lagos. I really don’t think this group is any more a threat to American Protestantism than my daughter’s dough recipe is a threat to Pizza Hut.
Today a conference is happening in Asia which tackles the “insider movements”. One of the lectures scheduled for this afternoon is entitled “The Whoredom of so-called Contextualization: ‘Spreading our Legs’ for the Latest Religious Ideas.” The book under discussion is called “Chrislam: How MIssionaries are Promoting a Islamicized Gospel” and it is published by the same people that are hosting the conference. I really hope its a balanced discussion today and not a one-sided witch hunt. Is anyone blogging it???
HEY – Lets talk about the controversial issues in missions, including contextualization and insider movements, but let’s also try NOT to use scary words that freak out elderly evangelical ladies and drive extremists into tight corners. Like the word “Chrislam”.
So why am I following CHRISLAM?
Because I was thinking that the blame for the end-times deception and the horrendous deviation of the past three decades of Christian mission should not be shouldered by a Vancouver based graphic designer named Chris Lam. Or a British breakdancer named Chris Lam, who I emailed this morning and apologized if people were blaming him for the destruction of the world as we know it.
So I am now following both Chris Lams. But I chose not to follow Chris Lam the MMA boxing/judo enthusiast as @cagedocbecause he looks as though he could kick my ass.
Related: Emerging Muslim Followers of Jesus, Christianity’s Next Challenge, Insider Movements and Wycliffe’s Translation
Coming up soon: Is the Insider Movement the new Emergent Church Controversy of this decade?
BEST THING I saw recently on the Insider Movement was Cody Lorance’s response to John Piper, summarized here by Warren Farah.
The hal lindsey of the world will always find something to make into an end times issue
When it says in Revelation 7:9 “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” I kind of thought there must be something different enough to distinguish people than just some different facial features and quaint national dress. That would suggest to me that there is contextualisation in God’s Kingdom.
One of the things that I find most unhelpful is the insistence of some not to allow the word Allah for God, is there possibly another word to use anyway? Here in Latvia it is Diev, not God and refers to the Christian God and minor gods too, just as it does in our own language. So why do people object so much to using a recognisable word?
The word ‘Chrislam’ always reminds me of the Calormenes in the last Narnia book who worship the synchretist deity Tashlan… Rick Warren for tisroc!
The upcoming article on insider movements sounds interesting. Is it me or are the people who think that their theology and praxis is ‘pure’ and not influenced by their own cultureand who decry all ‘synchretism’ like these insider movements are actually quite heavily relying on cultural things from older times (like 1950 gender roles or late medieval thoughts about justice and honor)?
Hi Joanna. Not sure why some people don’t like the word Allah for God. The Egyptian christans use it without a problem. And Mohammeds father was Abdullah so we know the name Allah precedes Islam..
And why do these people who are arguing that their religion is pure from syncretism bring up the subject right before Christmas?