John Span

This is a complilation of resources from the global church which identifies best practices for discipling ex-Muslims who are now in Christ. This list is a work in progress, and any additional material from solidly theological sources will be added. Methods derived from the Insider Movement Paradigm have not been included, but it is possible that some authors below have embraced some of its practices. As well, sources that report on wildly "miraculous" and massive movements among Muslims have largely been avoided. Many of these studies have been examined and found wanting.

This paper examines the idea that one can pour whatever content they like into the Biblical Jesus. It argues that by causing Him to affirm things He may never have intended, in effect these persons are making what the Apostle Paul termed 'another Jesus."

The Gospel is tampered with when seductive voices of the spirit of the age (Zeitgeist) tickle the itching, uncritical and responsive ears of too many in church missions’ leadership. The most deafening whisper today is the voice of accommodation at all costs. Using the convention of accounting I offer ten sample additions or subtractions to demonstrate how tampering with the Gospel can result in a bottom line of bankruptcy as far as missions is concerned. The question posed to the reader is “Where is the concern for the five Solas of the Reformation, which surely are compromised by such accommodation?”

This Article Explores Whether The CAMEL Method And The Insider Movement (IM) Paradigm Share Similar Philosophies, Approaches, And Underlying Presuppositions. After A Brief Overview Of The CAMEL Method And Its Contexts (twentieth-century Missions, The International Mission Board, And The Bangladeshi Context), I Will Discuss Four Themes Common To CAMEL And IM. We Will See That CAMEL And IM Share Similar Assumptions Yet With Different Outworkings. Both Seem To Share The Sentiment Of The Catholic Louis Massignon, Chief Architect Of Vatican II’s Approach To Non-Christian Religions: “Rather Than Destroy Islam, Might It Then Not Be Better To Expand It? … If A Moslem Followed His Soul’s Promptings To The End, He Would Come To Christ.” KEYWORDS: Camel Method, Insider Movement, mission, Islam, Bangladesh

Page 1. THE AREOPAGUS: A STUDY IN CONTINUITY AND DISCONTNUITY By John Span1 1 Introduction Acts 17:16-34 provides us with a story that can be read in two min-utes, and for which scholars have used copious quantities of ink and saliva for the last two millennia. ...

Is there truth in non-Biblical sacred texts? After some brief definitions and a brief survey of Christian attitudes throughout history to Islam and the Qur"an, this paper will examine Calvin"s writings for his theology of religions, and largely limit our examination to his view of "the Turks" [=Ottoman Muslims]. We will find that even though John Calvin has been accused of having an "unthematic" theology of religions, the primary sources demonstrate a consistent approach to the "religious other" that is revealed in his sermons, commentaries, letters, polemical writings and his Institutes. It will be seen that Christ as "the Truth" is a completely different genus and species than the "truthlets" which some modern writers are so fond of. Calvin thus can help the contemporary reader to analyse the sacred texts of any religion.

There is much to celebrate worldwide in terms of unprecedented numbers of Muslims coming to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. The global church has the welcome challenge of discipling these new worshippers of the biblical Jesus and to integrate them into the life of the church. These are wonderful challenges to face. At the same time, just as there are encouraging statistics of growing numbers of ex-Muslims now in Christ (xMnCs), there is a statistic that few missionaries want to talk about. It is the worrisome number of so-called converts who return to Islam. Patrick Johnstone’s engaging question below sets the tone for this study, which establishes the need for this research, briefly examines biblical and qur’anic terms for apostasy, considers a number of historical examples, identifies common themes, and then proposes some antidotes. Concerning those who fall away, Johnstone (2008:12) asks: “How many of those who find the pressures too hard, the Christians around them too unwe...

This article explores whether the CAMEL method and the Insider
Movement (IM) paradigm share similar philosophies, approaches, and
underlying presuppositions. After a brief overview of the CAMEL method
and its contexts (twentieth-century missions, the International Mission
Board, and the Bangladeshi context). I will discuss four themes common
to CAMEL and IM. We will see that CAMEL and IM share similar assump-
tions yet with different outworkings. Both seem to share the sentiment
of the Catholic Louis Massignon, chief architect of Vatican II's approach
to non-Christian religions: "Rather than destroy Islam, might it then not
be better to expand it? ... If a Moslem followed his soul's promptings to
the end, he would come to Christ."1




Posted with permission of Unio cum Christo.

In the illustration of kingdom circles, proponents of the insider movement suggest that Islam and other religions somehow intersect and are complementary to the kingdom of God in Christ. This paper offers a critique of the notion of having feet in both kingdoms.

In this paper, the concept of the adequacy of ‘light of nature’ as expressed by the Canons of Dort will be explored. The phrase ‘light of nature’ is defined and Article 4 is examined closely, as well as its relationship to other articles and refutations of errors that contain the phrase. It is suggested that these references likely arose from the question, “what is adequate for a human to come to a ‘saving knowledge of God and conversion to him’?” It is proposed that Article 4 is a response to the Arminian and Roman Catholic idea that an unregenerate human can start a journey to saving faith by placing his feet on the ladder solely informed by the light of nature available to all humans and with some effort and God’s help will arrive at a full knowledge of God. Backgrounds to this way of thinking, and subsequent confessional statements and contemporary perspectives are also explored.

This article shows that the concept of ‘point of contact’ goes beyond the popular idea of an area which a believer in Christ and a non-believer have in common. It sets out to demonstrate that God in Christ by virtue of being a covenant God is an initiator of contact with humans.
Point of contact theory is closely related to hermeneutics because the manner by which a believer in Christ interprets the worldview of the non-Christian will strongly influence their approach to how these points of contact are utilized. The article demonstrates that consistently Reformed apologists like Hendrik Kraemer, J.H. Bavinck and Cornelius Van Til maintained a healthy tension between the potential of points of contact between humans made in God’s image, and the radical discontinuity between a biblical-Christian worldview and the worldview of non-Christians. Their standpoint will be compared and contrasted with the presuppositions of those who hold a strongly continuous view of points of contact.

Is there truth in non-Biblical sacred texts? After some brief definitions and a brief survey of attitudes of Christians throughout history to Islam and the Qur'an, this paper we will examine Calvin's writings for his theology of religions, and largely limit our examination to his view of "the Turks" [=Ottoman Muslims]. We will find that as much as John Calvin has been accused of having an "unthematic" theology of religions, the primary sources demonstrate a consistent approach to the "religious other" that comes out in his sermons, his commentaries, his letters, his polemical writings and his Institutes. It will be seen that Christ as "the Truth" is a completely different genus and species than the "truthlets" which some modern writers are so fond of. Calvin thus can help the contemporary reader to analyse the sacred texts of any religion.

This paper was originally published in the Hapshin theological review, which is the journal of the Hapdong Theological Seminary in Suwon, South Korea.

This paper was originally published in the 2016 issue of the Hapshin Theological Review Journal, a periodical from the Hapdong Theological Seminary in  Suwon, South Korea. It compares and contrasts the hermeneutical principles of the New Perspective [on Paul] and the hermeneutics behind the CAMEL method of evangelism. Common to both is an underlying statement, "If you only knew what the text says, then...."  The article concludes by stating:
".....NPP over-reaches sound grammatico-historical interpretation of the Bible and finds its own methods, and CAMEL over-reaches the uniqueness of special revelation in the Bible and looks for it in a book with an overarching Christ-denying quality."

The Apostle Paul's speech before the Areopagus recorded in Acts 17 is a text often appealed to as a template for gospel communication. This paper explores the historical setting of the Apostle Paul's approach and concludes that he stressed both continuity with his shared humanity with the Athenians, but radical discontinuity with their philosophies. Although appearing at first glance, to advocate the ideas of the poets that he quoted, in actual fact, he uses them subversively to challenge the worldviews of the Epicurian and Stoic philosophers.

This paper explores the question, "Is Allah of Islam the same, similar or different than the Triune God of the Bible?"

Two additional recommended resources are:
1. Sam Solomon and Atif Debs, "Not the Same God: Is the Qur'anic Allah the Lord God of the Bible?" ANM Press, 2015
2. Bernie Power,  "A Volf in Sheikh’s clothing?’ How Allah: A Christian Response may deceive both Christians and Muslims ALLAH: A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE"
https://www.academia.edu/11295836/A_Volf_in_Sheikh_s_clothing_How_Allah_A_Christian_Response_may_deceive_both_Christians_and_Muslims_ALLAH_A_CHRISTIAN_RESPONSE

By means of a case-study,  this paper investigates the wide-ranging effects of a seminal Muslim Idiom Translation (MIT) produced by David Owen. It documents factors that contributed to its development and its subsequent influence on other contemporary MITs. It concludes by addressing multiple lessons that the global Church can learn from this historical example.

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The Qurʾān presents an interpretive challenge for Christians, especially since it contains biblical ‘echoes’ in its text. Throughout the history of Christian-Muslim relations, one can find responses to these echoes, which range from declaring that the Qurʾān is an anti-Christian, post-Christian, pre-Christian or a pro-Christian text. The two latter postures lend themselves to attempts to read Christian meaning into the Qurʾān.

The process of reading Christian meanings into the Qurʾān was first called Christian qurʾānic hermeneutics, but in this study, the term ‘Christianized qurʾānic hermeneutics’ (henceforth CQH) will be employed. This approach demonstrates an attempt, not only to read it with Christian interpretive glasses but to impose a Christian reading onto the Qurʾān for the purposes of apologetics. In this way, it is a dogmatic re-interpretation of the way that the Qurʾān has interpreted biblical materials: thus, re-interpretatio Christiana.

This study will document the history of CQH through a sampling of nine proponents, as well as to identify five key themes in their writings. Through these themes, it will be ascertained whether the contemporary CAMEL method of outreach to Muslims can be properly classified as a manifestation of CQH. The theological presuppositions of CQH under the categories epistemology, natural theology, points of contact, the roles of redemptive analogies, fulfillment theology, preparatio evangelica and the role of the Holy Spirit in non-biblical sacred texts will be investigated. These presuppositions will help to answer the underlying research question of this dissertation, namely “Is the Qurʾān a valid source for Christian doctrine?” It will also be shown that CQH and CAMEL are anything but novel and that their approaches to the Qurʾān are a direct outflow of their presuppositions.

In response to the challenging work of evangelical outreach to Muslims, missiologists began—especially in the early to mid-twentieth century—to ask questions about the methods that they were employing. In Protestant circles, this emerged strongly during the 1970s when responses based on fulfillment theology; the application of linguistic dynamic equivalence theory to missions; contextualization and qur’ānic bridging all were proposed. In Bangladesh, sometimes known as the laboratory for missiological experimentation, these ideas were tested, and in the late 1990s, a method based on the qur’ānic text of Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān 3:42-55 was developed. It used the acronym, CAMEL.
The method, although declared wildly successful, requires a closer examination of its main premise that the Qur’ān can be used as an apologia for Christian truth. This paper critically examines the CAMEL premise in light of four recurrent themes that emerge from the CAMEL corpus between 2003 and 2015. These themes touch on the idea that Christianity can fulfill Islam; a presentation of the gospel can be built on the foundation of the Qur’ān; that the Qur’ān is a repository of Truth—as it calls it; and that the miracles of the Muslim Jesus of Q. 3:49 can serve to prove his divinity or his divine attributes.
In order to show that CAMEL has adopted the approaches of proof-texting and employing a ‘Christianized qur’ānic hermeneutic’ to Q. 3:49, we examine that text in light of the larger Islamic worldview and the exegetical traditions of Islam. These clearly demonstrate that CAMEL for all of its noble purposes of presenting the Biblical Jesus to Muslims has taken the Muslim Jesus (ʿĪsā) and has made him more Christian than the Qur’ān ever intended him to be. Thus, the paper concludes that CAMEL’s use of the Qur’ān as an apologia for Christian doctrine is inadmissible.

Background and terms The term 'Muslim Jesus' was popularised in a book written by the Muslim author Tarif Khalidi. What Khalidi is doing is making a helpful distinction between the Jesus figure found in Islam and the Jesus of the Bible Yet, Khalidi shows his true colours when he makes the following statement: "In its totality this gospel is the story of a love affair between Islam and Jesus and is thus a unique record of how one world religion chose to adopt the central figure of another, coming to recognize him as constitutive of its own identity… Jesus is always identified as a Muslim prophet... for he is, after all, a figure molded in an Islamic environment. Here, then, is the true Jesus, "cleansed" of the "perversions" of his followers, a prophet truly obedient to his Maker and offered up as the true alternative to the Jesus of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Redemption."