Any Muslim convert to Christian??

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new_one said:
Dear,

hope this message finds you well.

I am a muslim from afghanistan and want to become a catholic so need help currently living in ukraine but i cant do anything in my home country and in ukraine cause in here you know the there are alot of our afghans are living and muslims and you know if they know about us they may kill us we are two freinds so please find a solution for our problem and solve.

waiting for a breif answer
looking forward to hear from your as soon as possible

with best regards

mohhammad fazel and mohhammad khaled
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Wow, well if you’re serious then I would attempt contacting the local Bishop, and seeing if they or Rome might be able to help. Obviously I can not make any promises, but I can say it most certainly is worth giving a shot.
 
Angelos said:
Peace & blessings to everyone

When I was a student at secondary schools, I mostly annoyed my professor of religion with my objections to his assertions about the Christian scripture. I remember very well once he said
“ on the first page of the Gospel is written that Joseph is Jesus’ father although they claim God is Jesus’ father.
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Just curious, where did you go to secondary school, what grade were you in and what class is that that that pitted Islam against Christianity and even referenced the first chapter of the bible?

I only ask because I grew up and went to secondary school in a Muslim country and the bible was not even accessible to anyone let alone for a teacher to reference the first chapter and pointing out contradictions.
 
Famdigy, if you check his status, you’ll see that Angelos has been banned for a while.

As I remember, he is Bosnian, and hence people in his area probably had more access to the Bible than many other Muslims, given Bosnia’s large Christian population.
 
happygal said:
Hi i just curious to know if anybody here in the forum were converted from Muslim to Christian?? What is the reason for your convert??
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Sort of. I wasn’t born Muslim, but converted to Islam after college. I left to return to Christ. Bit of a long story, I wrote a somewhat condensed version of it on my blog here. 🙂
 
Angelos said:
Peace unto you & all believers 🙂

I am a convert to Christianity (Eastern Orthodox) from Islam. Actually, I had been a devout Muslim practicing daily prayers five times a day and fasting for the whole month of Ramadan until I decided to convert and started going to church in 1994. I received baptism in 1997, now I am a 9-year-old child! I haven’t got a very interesting story of conversion (like Paul’s) , but what I am now is solely by God’s grace. If you have further questions about my reasons for choosing Christ and preferring the Good News to Quran, put them forward. I’ll try to answer them step by step . 😉

“In the early days of my conversion, most Muslim friends and relatives of mine pitied me for being deceived by priests to believe in a totally corrupted scripture! This was my response: If you suppose I have been deceived, good, praise the Lord, being sure that I have been deceived by the only truth whereas you have been justified and saved by a lie!”
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Welcome back in this forum, brother.
 
I don’t see any strong reason why Muslims in the following countries don’t convert to Christianity:
Turkey, Tunisia, Balkans, Central Asia and Iran.
 
Hadi said:
I don’t see any strong reason why Muslims in the following countries don’t convert to Christianity:
Turkey, Tunisia, Balkans, Central Asia and Iran.
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I visited Turkey recently and our tour guide happened to be a muslim convert to Christianity. He gave us lots of reasons why converting from Islam to Christianity in that country was not a “good” experience, even though there were no laws prohibiting him from doing so.
 
Hadi said:
I don’t see any strong reason why Muslims in the following countries don’t convert to Christianity:
…Iran.
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Isn’t apostasy greatly frowned upon there by the government, so much so to the point where many have been arrested and/or executed for it? It doesn’t surprise me that not many Muslims convert to Christianity then.
 
It is true, Byzantine_Wolf. One of the more famous cases in recent history is that of Mehdi Dibaj, who converted to Christianity sometime in his teens and actually spent about 45 years evangelizing in Iran’s home-church movement. He was murdered in 1994, only five months after being released from prison following an intense international outcry over his imprisonment. He had been sentenced to death for apostasy. Here you can read an English translation of his beautiful, passionate defense that he delivered before the Islamic court that sentenced him to die in December of 1993.

The growth of Christianity in Iran in recent decades has mostly been through evangelical home-churches, which usually face a lot of problems due to the fact that they are often composed either entirely or predominantly of Muslim converts (this is also the case in North Africa, where the faith is spreading in large numbers among Berbers). The film “A Cry From Iran”, advertised near the bottom of the webpage I’ve linked, is actually a pretty good one if you want to hear about the evangelical churches in Iran and some of the recent martyrs they’ve been blessed with.
 
dzheremi said:
He had been sentenced to death for apostasy. Here you can read an English translation of his beautiful, passionate defense that he delivered before the Islamic court that sentenced him to die in December of 1993.
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This is so going on my blog at a future date.
dzheremi said:
The growth of Christianity in Iran in recent decades has mostly been through evangelical home-churches, which usually face a lot of problems due to the fact that they are often composed either entirely or predominantly of Muslim converts (this is also the case in North Africa, where the faith is spreading in large numbers among Berbers). The film “A Cry From Iran”, advertised near the bottom of the webpage I’ve linked, is actually a pretty good one if you want to hear about the evangelical churches in Iran and some of the recent martyrs they’ve been blessed with.
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I have always been a firm believer that the Church under persecution is the Church at its finest - not because I enjoy hearing about people being martyred or persecuted, but because that is where the faith of the followers shine. It won’t be like here in the west where you only go to church to be social, be seen, or because your parents made you go and you liked the routine. No - you go because you love God, and you love Him so much you don’t care if openly worshiping Him will result in the end of your life.

So I love the quote at the bottom of the letter:

“I have always envied those Christians who were martyred for Christ Jesus our Lord. What a privilege to live for our Lord and to die for Him as well. I am filled to overflowing with joy; I am not only satisfied to be in prison…but am ready to give my life for the sake of Jesus Christ.”
 
Byzantine_Wolf said:
Isn’t apostasy greatly frowned upon there by the government, so much so to the point where many have been arrested and/or executed for it? It doesn’t surprise me that not many Muslims convert to Christianity then.
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True, but many Iranians hate anything related to Arabs,they mourn the loss of their empire by the Arabs…so they hate everthing Arabs brought and that ultimately includes Islam… some Berbers feel the same, (is that related to why black Americans convert to Islam?? , maybe )

As for Turkey and Tunisia, they believe that the more they distance themselves from Islam , the more advanced they become… they are largly seculars,but Islam (and also Judaism) is a community religion…unlike Christianity, where it’s more private and individual religion… thus, if the community at large does not practice Islam,the inviduals eventually lose their religion.
 
dzheremi said:
It is true, Byzantine_Wolf. One of the more famous cases in recent history is that of Mehdi Dibaj, who converted to Christianity sometime in his teens and actually spent about 45 years evangelizing in Iran’s home-church movement. He was murdered in 1994, only five months after being released from prison following an intense international outcry over his imprisonment. He had been sentenced to death for apostasy. Here you can read an English translation of his beautiful, passionate defense that he delivered before the Islamic court that sentenced him to die in December of 1993.

The growth of Christianity in Iran in recent decades has mostly been through evangelical home-churches, which usually face a lot of problems due to the fact that they are often composed either entirely or predominantly of Muslim converts (this is also the case in North Africa, where the faith is spreading in large numbers among Berbers). The film “A Cry From Iran”, advertised near the bottom of the webpage I’ve linked, is actually a pretty good one if you want to hear about the evangelical churches in Iran and some of the recent martyrs they’ve been blessed with.
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And I know the home church movement is also very strong in Turkey, where the only places that Christian communities managed to survive the “secular” state were Antioch, and Istanbul (barely), although in the case of Turkey, the movement is largely run by Western missionaries.
 
Hadi said:
As for Turkey and Tunisia, they believe that the more they distance themselves from Islam , the more advanced they become… they are largly seculars,but Islam (and also Judaism) is a community religion…unlike Christianity, where it’s more private and individual religion… thus, if the community at large does not practice Islam,the inviduals eventually lose their religion.
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I was amazed at how few mosques (and other religious buildings) I saw in Smyrna/Izmir. Quite a spiritually dead place.
 
Hadi said:
True, but many Iranians hate anything related to Arabs,they mourn the loss of their empire by the Arabs…so they hate everthing Arabs brought and that ultimately includes Islam… some Berbers feel the same, (is that related to why black Americans convert to Islam?? , maybe )

As for Turkey and Tunisia, they believe that the more they distance themselves from Islam , the more advanced they become… they are largly seculars,but Islam (and also Judaism) is a community religion…unlike Christianity, where it’s more private and individual religion… thus, if the community at large does not practice Islam,the inviduals eventually lose their religion.
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Hadi, your assertions are full of false assumptions about a religion that you do not practice. Christianity is an intensely communal religion. It is American (and other Western) culture that is so individualistic. This bleeds (unfortunately, in my view) into our faith. I don’t know…America can be a very bad place to be Christian, honestly. But America is not Christian, and “Christianity” does not equal “America”!

My first time visiting a Ukrainian Catholic Church a little while ago was so wonderful because even though I had never been there before and did not know the customs, after the Divine Liturgy everybody there introduced themselves to me, asked me where I came from, some of them patted me on the back and welcomed me to come back anytime, etc. It was like visiting family…my Christian family! When I first attended a Catholic Mass, the priest himself stopped me at the door when I was leaving to ask me if this was my first Catholic mass (it must’ve been really obvious! I had only been to funerals of family and friends before when I was much younger), and when I said yes he asked me my family name. I told him and he said “Ah, yes. I think I knew your grandfather. Yours is a good name here. A good Irish Catholic name!” I’m not one drop Irish, but that still impressed me. 🙂

Here is a video for you on the Coptic Church in America that talks a lot about the community that is Coptic Christianity in the United States: Out of Egypt: A Story of Coptic American Culture
 
Hadi said:
True, but many Iranians hate anything related to Arabs,they mourn the loss of their empire by the Arabs…so they hate everthing Arabs brought and that ultimately includes Islam… some Berbers feel the same, (is that related to why black Americans convert to Islam?? , maybe )
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Isn’t their anger centered more around Sunni Islam? I’ve read about the Arabization of Iran many centuries ago, and heard it was related to the Sunnis and hence why Iran and much of that part of the world is today Shia.

As for black Americans, I think that’s centered more around the desire for structure in life and the failure of most black churches to provide that, since so many of them are fundamentalist Evangelical or crazy Charismatic. Some do see Christianity as a “white man’s religion,” which is ironic given that Arabs are technically “white” by some racial standards.
Hadi said:
As for Turkey and Tunisia, they believe that the more they distance themselves from Islam , the more advanced they become… they are largly seculars,but Islam (and also Judaism) is a community religion…unlike Christianity, where it’s more private and individual religion… thus, if the community at large does not practice Islam,the inviduals eventually lose their religion.
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As dzheremi said, Christianity is actually a very cultural religion as well, especially in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the immigrant populations of America, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere 🙂
 
Hadi said:
True, but many Iranians hate anything related to Arabs,they mourn the loss of their empire by the Arabs…so they hate everthing Arabs brought and that ultimately includes Islam… some Berbers feel the same, (is that related to why black Americans convert to Islam?? , maybe )

As for Turkey and Tunisia, they believe that the more they distance themselves from Islam , the more advanced they become… they are largly seculars,but Islam (and also Judaism) is a community religion…unlike Christianity, where it’s more private and individual religion… thus, if the community at large does not practice Islam,the inviduals eventually lose their religion.
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Since, this is a Catholic Answers Forum, I wanted to mention that I disagree with you. Catholicism is, in fact, a very public religion.
 
What a powerful and honest testimony Byzantine Wolf. Thank you.

humbly in Christ,
Anthony
 
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