Bishops battle it out over Muslims

[didymus]

This is actually C of E news but the same issues confront us.
tinyurl.com/6s5sg5

Bishops battle it out over Muslims

The row between the Bishop of Rochester (who wants to convert Muslims) and the C of E’s “Bishop of Urban Life and Faith” (who doesn’t) goes to the very heart of Christianity.

The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, who holds the Church’s urban life portfolio – since when was the bench of bishops a shadow cabinet? – says “the demand for the evangelisation of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities”. I’d like to hear him argue that point to St Paul, or to any of the martyrs who were put to death for preaching the Gospel to non-Christians without regard to “community cohesion”.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester started the row by condemning multi-faith “fudge” in a Sunday newspaper. As an ambitious anti-gay evangelical, he isn’t my idea of a fun person to sit next to at a dinner party – but on this occasion he is right on both theological and practical grounds.
First, Jesus of Nazareth was adamant that mankind must turn urgently towards him, and that the consequences of not doing so were literally hellish. There is not a hint in any of his sayings that his followers must learn to respect the “path to God”, as Lowe puts it, of people he would have regarded as pagans.

Second, the history of religion shows that faiths which lose the impulse to convert members of other religions or traditions, but concentrate instead on trying to re-energise their core constituency, are at enormously higher risk of fading away.