A LACK OR ABSENCE OF A BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL EMPHASIS (CRITICAL EVALUATION: NEW FAVORABLE APPROACHES TO ISLAM AND THE QU’RAN)

Part 1 (5/14/18): Introduction
Part 2 (5/21/18): A Critical Evaluation of Three Contextualization Proposals: The Insider Movement
Part 3 (5/28/18): A Critical Evaluation of Three Contextualization Proposals: Muslim Idiom Bible Translations (MIBT)
Part 4 (6/4/18): A Critical Evaluation of Three Contextualization Proposals: New Favorable Approaches to Islam and the Qu’ran
Part 5 (6/11/18): An Appeal for Healthier Missiological Discussions on Muslim Evangelism

New Favorable Approaches to Islam and the Qur’an

In a witnessing conversation with a Muslim, it may be unavoidable to mention the Qur’an or some contents in the Qur’an. How to deal with the Qur’an has been an important question for a long time. ¹ Several peculiar proposals in recent contextualization discussions are noteworthy. First, some contend that one can proactively use the Qur’an or the Qur’anic verses for the gospel presentation. These proponents have noticed the affirmative value of some Qur’anic verses that portray Jesus in a positive light, such as Jesus’s miracles and his titles as “Al-Masih.” ² They contend that these verses can be utilized for the confirmation of biblical truths about Jesus in regards to his death and resurrection as long as these Qur’anic verses are rightly interpreted. This approach is fundamentally different from quoting the Qur’anic verses as a point of contact before quickly moving to the biblical truths of Jesus. ³  

Second, in the process of using these Qur’anic verses affirmatively for biblical truths, this approach usually employs a different set of hermeneutical lenses to the Qur’an, one that is foreign both to an traditional evangelical hermeneutics and to an Islamic theology. For instance, Higgins contends for the Christocentric hermeneutical lens in order to reinterpret the Qur’an to find common grounds for Muslim evangelism. ⁴ His reasoning is based on two biblical antecedents: Jesus reinterpreted the Old Testaments from a Christocentric perspective, and Paul preached to Athenians “by applying a ‘Jesus Key’ to the interpretation of their poets and religious hymns.” ⁵ Third, there is yet a more striking attempt to discover the authentic religion of Islam and the “historical Muhammad” with his original teachings through re-examining all the historical resources and re-interpreting them. ⁶ This approach is to separate the historical Islam and the authentic meanings of the Qur’an during the lifetime of Muhammad from the traditional Islamic teachings that have evolved over Islam’s 1400-year history. The core contention of this reasoning lead to the conclusion that Islam has many common grounds with biblical truths, and that these common grounds can provide a space for Muslim Insiders to remain within the Islamic community and to observe Islamic practices through reinterpretation.

In an effort of evaluating these proposals and trends, two related aspects at least deserve a careful assessment. First, one must notice that all these proponents fundamentally employ a specific form of theology of religions. Second, since several proponents establish their own arguments on the passage in Acts 17 and develop their theology of Islam and the Qur’an accordingly, it is necessary to evaluate their interpretations of this passage. Due to limited space, this section only highlights the main points of their interpretation of Acts 17 with some exegetical responses before assessing their specific theology of religions (Islam).

Several of Higgins’ interpretive results can be summarized as follows: First, when Paul affirms the religiosity of Athenians in Acts 17:22, Paul assumes that they worship the true God. Second, Paul sees “the altar to an unknown god as preparation for what he will say about the gospel” (Acts 17:22). ⁷ Third, based on Acts 17:26, Higgins contends that “God is at work in the world, including the religions of the world, and [that] God is drawing people to Himself beyond the confines and boundaries we normally refer to as ‘His people.’” ⁸ All these statements carry significant implications for radical contextualization approaches and for a troublesome theology of religions.

While commending the exegetical efforts of Kevin Higgins for the methodological arguments and a theology of religion, one will easily find his exegetical methods and conclusions problematic. His exegetical analysis contains several critical problems. In response to Higgins’ contention that Paul affirms Athenians for the worship of the same God based on the expression “you are religious,” it must be noted that the Greek word, δεισιδαίμων, can be used either in a laudatory sense (“sincere pursuit of a divine transcendent being (whether a true pursuit or not),” or in a denigrating sense (am embracing of superstition).” ⁹ From the contextual reading of the entire passage, it is certainly correct to take this to mean a positive recognition of their religious devotion to “an unknown god.” It is not, however, because Paul affirms their religion to be valid, but because Paul simply used this rhetorical device for drawing their attention in the beginning of his speech. ¹⁰ This is further supported by the fact that Paul’s spirit is provoked in him when he saw that the city was full of idols (Acts 17:16). Moreover, Paul talks about the future judgment of God and invites Athenians to repentance (17:30-31). Paul could not possibly have meant to affirm their religious pursuits with the assumption that they had been worshipping the same God he was about to preach.

Concerning Higgins’s second point, one must first ask why Paul quotes such pagan sources in his evangelistic approach, specifically in Acts 17:28. John Polhill states: “For Aratus ‘we are his offspring’ referred to Zeus and to humanity’s sharing in the divine nature. In the context of Paul’s speech, it referred to God and to humanity’s being his creation.” ¹¹ It is certain that Paul cited this simply because his audience was well acquainted with this statement. His purpose was to set a stage in preparation to make a counter argument against idol worship of the Athenians (17:29-30). Even based upon what they knew from general revelation revealed in creation, they should have avoided idol worship in fashioning images with gold or silver while they were still in desperate need of special revelation. Therefore, the Athenians are condemned by what they already know about the divine nature of God given through general revelation (Rom 1:18-23; 2:14-15). This was an effective Pauline rhetorical device employed to condemn the audience by what they already knew. ¹² Therefore, this passage cannot support the idea that pagan sources play a preparatory role for the gospel proclamation as Higgins asserts.

Concerning the third point, the previous section on the IM already pointed out several faulty exegetical conclusions of Higgins. He claims that God is at work in the religious life of mankind under the divine coordination of God’s sovereign will for human cultures and religions (Acts 17:26). By implication he concludes that since the Qur’an contains significant factors of general revelation for Muslims to know about Christ, it is valid to use the Qur’an to affirm biblical truths. All these, however, are much wider theological assertions than what he can prove from this single passage. To provide such a theology of religion, he must rely on a much wider biblical theological ground rather than solely depend on some ambiguous biblical accounts. ¹³  

Based on the problems mentioned above, the faulty biblical interpretation and the unproven theological assertions, the proposed methodologies must be rejected. One cannot accept the possibility of using Christocentric hermeneutics to the Qur’an to prove the Qur’anic support for the biblical truths about Jesus. Even though one may find some Qur’anic or Islamic terms that appear also in the Bible or in Christian theology, one should not confuse them with Christian meanings. The terms used in the Qur’an must be defined within Islamic theology. Il Joo Kong, an expert in Arabic language studies and a long-time investigator of the Qur’an, convincingly argues that the Qur’anic terms such as “the word (Kalima)” or “Ruh (spirit)” cannot be equated with “the incarnate Word (the Logos)” or “the Holy Spirit” of the Bible respectively. ¹⁴ Can it be acceptable for Muslim apologists to use the Bible to affirm Islamic teachings through an arbitrary Islamic reinterpretation? How valid then is it to use certain parts of the Qur’an that seem to coincide with the biblical truths and reinterpret them while ignoring all the other conflicting statements in the Qur’an? Therefore, one must conclude that it is a completely unjust treatment of the Qur’an to use Christological hermeneutics in attempts to reinterpret the Qur’an for the purpose of affirming biblical truths about Jesus. One must read and understand the Qur’an holistically within the Islamic theological framework, and use proper Qur’anic hermeneutics.

One may simply use Qur’anic verses as points of contact and even as bridges where Christian witness converses with Muslims. Some representative concepts or terms may include sin, judgment, forgiveness, sacrifice, and God’s love. As this writer argues in another paper, Paul’s use of the pagan poem is simply an attempt to build a bridge with the Athenians. The next step, though, as is in the case of Paul, must be to cross over the bridge to proclaim biblical truths about Jesus. Therefore, one must perceive the points of contact as “points of departure” rather than “common ground.” ¹⁵ In this sense, one may find the Camel Training Method less problematic because it only uses a certain part of the Qur’an as a stepping-stone or a point of contact before moving rather quickly to the biblical truths. However, there still remain concerns that selective Qur’anic verses are interpreted from a Christological lens and that this method provides a wrong impression that the Qur’an is taken to be a valid Scripture of God’s revelation.

This article was originally published in Korean Missions Quarterly (2016 English Edition), 197-225.