I was sent this article and am in full agreement with this brother about the dangerous heresy pushed by the Insider Movement! Go get ’em Jay!
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE INSIDER’S PRINCIPLE PARADIGMS (Jay Smith)
Towards the end of January 2009 I was asked by my mission board, the Brethren In Christ World Mission (BICWM) to attend the ‘Common Ground’ Conference in Atlanta, a group promoting and teaching the ‘Insider’ methodological model of evangelism to Islam. I was asked to assess its viability as a model for our mission work to Muslims living in a Middle Eastern country.
I knew something about the ‘model’, which some have based on the C-5 category of the contextualization scale, due to my studies at Fuller Seminary in the 1980s. Later on my colleagues and I tried a nascent form of contextualization in the late 1980s and early 1990s in a largely Muslim dominated West African country. We realized, however, that it caused a good bit of confusion, as some of our African Muslim friends felt we were being deceitful and dishonest, and trivialized what for them were time-honoured Islamic ‘identity codes’ of practice and belief.
Since then, we have now moved to London, where, for the past 17 years, I have engaged in a highly public confrontational and polemical ministry engaging with the more radical elements within Islam, a methodology which is probably as far removed from that of the Insider Movement as one could imagine (possibly a negative C-5 on the contextual scale). Ironically, ‘Believers from a Muslim Background’ (BMB) tell me that my model of evangelism is actually a truer form of contextualization, since, my forthright and public style is closer to the paradigm of what a religious man should be; one who is as willing to publicly go ‘toe to toe’ with the best, and just as willing to die for what he believes…as are they.
The assessment below, therefore, needs to be read with that history in mind. I make no apologies. After working for over 27 years with Muslims, on three continents, and having taught others to minister with Muslims in over 20 countries, I come to the table with a good bit of experience, both contextual and irenical, yet also confrontational and controversial, much of the latter in an hostile environment. I say this all up-front so that you know where I stand, and so you can better understand why I take the positions I do; and unapologetically.
Concerning the Common Ground Conference itself; I was not invited, so I had myself invited; to which they finally relented, with the proviso that I was not permitted to say anything about the teachers nor the countries they represented. I can say, however, that they were all eloquent, seemed mostly my age (40-50s), all white, American, and all well groomed.
Security was tight, with only delegates were permitted to enter the sanctuary. I was not sure why they felt it necessary, since Continue reading →
