The Table Briefing: Respectfully Engaging World Religions -- By: Darrell L. Bock

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 175:699 (Jul 2018)
Article: The Table Briefing: Respectfully Engaging World Religions
Author: Darrell L. Bock


The Table Briefing: Respectfully Engaging World Religions

Darrell L. Bock

and

Mikel Del Rosario

Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament Studies, Project Manager for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and adjunct professor of Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.

If loving our neighbors well means getting to know them, this may include getting to know a core part of their lives—their religion. Beyond focusing on critique or apologetics, this requires growing awareness of what makes their religious tradition attractive to adherents and converts.

As part of a Table series on engaging world religions, we talked with four leaders about keys for respectful, compassionate engagement. Fouad Masri founded Crescent Project, originally known as Arab International Ministry, and has been ministering to Muslims since 1979. William Subash pastors Crossroad Church in Bangalore, India, and teaches New Testament Studies at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies. Conrad Bowman1 is a staff member with Crossworld, ministering to Hindus in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Harold Netland teaches philosophy of religion and intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and worked with Buddhists as a missionary educator for nine years in Japan.

In this briefing, we explore what makes three major religions attractive and key points of connection for respectful engagement. If people were born into a tradition, why do they stay? What attracts converts? How can Christians respectfully engage and attract

people through the beauty of the gospel? We consider each of these questions in the contexts of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

Respectfully Engaging Islam

After Christianity, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world. As there is a spectrum of beliefs and practices among Muslims in a variety of branches of Islam, Christians must avoid assuming a familiarity with the personal beliefs of any Muslim and instead take time to learn and understand. Darrell Bock and Fouad Masri discuss what compels Muslims to remain in Islam, what may attract non-Muslims, and how the gospel speaks into these spaces.

Bock: It strikes me that Islam’s attraction is the orderliness that it gives to life in the way it sees life and also in t...

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