Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church: Exploring the Mission of Two Communities

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Summary: Two Communities and Mission at Stake
Review: Christian community and Muslim community are both missionary movements in a constant competition. Each community tries to win the other. It seems that their mission target is the same, however, the ways each community see this mission to be realised is drastically different. To understand the mission of these two communities, convergences and divergences must be identified. A Muslim or a Christian wants to know the reasons behind and how to bridge them to develop credible and trusting relation.
The uniqueness of this book is that David W. Shenk is both a biblical Anabaptist theologian and Islamic scholar; in addition, he has a long rich experience of mission and dialogue with Muslims. Therefore, this book is one of the best that can provide adequate information for both communities to learn from each other.
Through this book David tried to establish comparison and contrast ground between Muslim nation, which he called 'Ummah' and the Christian church and specifically that based on Anabaptist theology. Mostly we see the convergences in general and superficial aspect of the two communities, however, when addressing the divergences we start falling into a very deep differences in terms of theological and missiological grounds.
Shenk brought Muslim contribution into this book i.e. voices, ideas, opinion, and theology through anecdotes and dialogues he had held whether was in a formal and informal settings. In deed, Muslim nation, and Christian church have very different journeys. Sometimes it is correct to say that they are in opposite directions.
The comparison and contrast of these two different journeys is made in various historical, theological, and missiological areas. These areas are: the history of the beginning and the growth of each community, creation, the Sons of Abraham (Ishmael-Isaac), leaders (Mohammed-Jesus), Scriptures (The Qur'an- The Bible), revelation (Tanzil-revelation), power (Hijra-The Cross), holy cities (Medina-Jerusalem), God (Tawhid-Trinity), pilgrimage (The Hajj-The Eucharist), ways to apply mission (Shari'a-The Holy Spirit), Prayer (Salat-Fellowship), and Global Mission (The Umman-The Church).
As an area of convergence Muslims and Christians agrees on the existence and oneness of God, and Abraham as the father of both faiths. Any step forward will encounter so many distortions and misunderstanding that need to be identified and corrected. Best correction made for Christians and Muslims is about the divinity of Jesus the Messiah. It is correct to say that Jesus the messiah is God; but it is incorrect to say God is Jesus the messiah. The difference is explained very well, opening a door to Muslims to remove some of their preconceived theological ideas about Jesus Christ in the Bible.
One ultimate divergence in the mission journeys of the two communities is about the power of God. Both Islam and the Gospel celebrate the power of God. Islam proclaims that all-powerful God cannot suffer for us. The Gospel proclaims that all-powerful God has chosen to suffer for us. Moreover, we see through history that mission journey in Islam often carried through power of the sword and human strength. While the Gospel always goes deeply into the heart of the people through the power of the Holy Spirit. This bring another crucial question about the truth. We can suppose that if the truth is a truth, therefore, it does not need to be placed or won over by power or force into people. This raises more questions such as: does truth need assistance of coercive power? What happens in the soul of a person when he "believes" in submission to power that is imposed?
There are other issues the author supposed to bring into the presentation. For example, the principle of abrogation in the Qur'an versus the claim of corruption in the Bible should be addressed. For instance, the Qu'ranic verse 2:256 has been abrogated by the verses of war. Therefore, using this verse to show that Islam is tolerant towards other faiths is irrelevant. In addition, sometimes the reader wants to have a clear-cut answers to questions such as: Is the Qur'an the word of God? Can Christian accept the prophet hood of Mohammed? Is the God in the Bible same as the God in the Qur'an? Can Muslim Nation be saved through the mission of the Qur'an? With complete understanding to the author's respect to the Muslim Scripture, these questions are considered seriously important if we want to explore the mission of the Muslim community.
The high faith position of David W. Shenk as a believer and a witness to Jesus is very impressive through out the book.
This book is excellent for Muslim people to compare their faith, test the identity of their God, and help them to rethink their commitment to Islam.
The world religion teachers' weather in academic or church setting, missionaries, and all Christians who have questions about Islamic religion would find the material in this book very interesting. It is a summary of a well-done mission experience on how to approach Islam and it comes from a well-founded Anabaptist theology.