Samuel Zwemer and 9/11

I know, nothing can excuse the horrific events of 9/11/2001.

And yet I have to wonder, what if Christians had not neglected the Muslim world for centuries? What if, instead of the Crusades, we had engaged them more consistently with respect and love?  

Samuel Zwemer is an example of the latter approach, but he was the first visible one to do so since the 13^th century. Back in that time, Raymond Llull, who– although not exemplary in his attitude towards Jews– tried to dissuade the Pope from attempting to use military force to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Zwemer’s life spanned three careers—as a missionary on the Arabian peninsula, as a mission leader in Cairo, and as a professor at Princeton university and publisher of what was then a prestigious journal, Moslem World.

Zwemer and a friend named James Cantine formed the American Arabian Mission during the latter part of the 19^th century. Zwemer and his first wife, Amy, endured incredible hardships on the Arabian peninsula. Their two daughters (ages 4 and 7) died within only eight days of each other in Bahrain. The words written on their tombstones sum up the Zwemers' lives and ministry:  “Worthy is the Lamb to receive riches.”

Ruth Tucker (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: a Biographical History of Christian Missions) relates how Zwemer, as a single missionary volunteer, visited nearly every church in his denomination west of Ohio to raise support on behalf of Cantine, while Cantine did the same for Zwemer in the churches east of Ohio! (Is that a possible model for mission workers today? Some workers are certainly more adept at raising support—could they offer to do it on behalf of their colleagues?)

Samuel Zwemer

Zwemer was full of energy, never able to stay in bed for more than half an hour at a time! Even though he probably never saw more than a dozen Muslims turn to the Lord in his whole lifetime, his greatest achievement was awakening the church to the needs of the Islamic peoples.  

He is truly and rightly labeled ‘the Apostle to Islam.’  

I think we need more Christians like Samuel Zwemer. And then I don’t know, but I suspect that if that had been the case in preceding centuries, there might be less Muslims like Osama bin Laden?

What do you think?

By the way, check out the Institute of Muslim Studies named after this missionary statesman– it's one of the best!

An Unreached Muslim People-Group In China?

The Uyghur people of Western China number over 11 million, with several thousand more scattered through some other countries. Uyghurs are almost 100% Muslim, and almost entirely ‘untouched with the Gospel’ (Operation World): ‘The highly charged political and religious atmosphere, the removal of expatriate Christian workers from most of the region, and the general lack of vision by Han Chinese to evangelize these peoples are all contributing factors’ to this dire situation in Western China.

What makes this situation even more tragic is that  there was once a thriving church among the Uyghur people (13^th century).

Some years ago, a young Uyghur named ‘A’ was contemplating what he had learned from his study of the Qur’an: that Isa (Jesus) had never sinned. ‘Why,’ he thought, ‘do they say that Muhammad is greater, if Muhammad sinned, but Jesus did not?’  No one, not even his grandfather, nor his scholarly teachers, could answer that question for him, but many years later a foreign Christian at his university did. ‘A’ eventually came to Christ, studied in Bejing and in Turkey, and became an effective preacher of the Gospel to Muslims in Europe. God can reach them, but He uses human agents to do so!

‘A’  was a student in our Bible school in Germany back in the 90s. He as such an effective evangelist

among Turks that the mission that had sent him to our Bible school asked him to stop evangelizing in our city, because it was getting back to Ankara and making trouble for their work there!

Pray that the Uyghur people will be open to the truth of the Scriptures, and that they will have access to them, and read and study them! You can read up on the Uyghur people at the website of one of our partner missions, SIM:  http://www.sim.org/index.php/content/uyghurs

Missionary Memorial Day

In a previous post, I mentioned the idea of having a Memorial Day in our churches for fallen missionaries. What I’m talking about are those who gave their lives in an attempt to establish a ‘beachhead’ for God’s Word—giving a chance for people to hear the truth about Jesus who otherwise have never had a chance.

In her classic missions textbook, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, Ruth A. Tucker writes that in the nineteenth-century Congo, ‘only one out of four missionaries survived the first term of service’ (p. 155).

The ratio was probably similar in some other places. Adlai Stevenson II, former Democratic presidential candidate, responded when asked what had most impressed him during a visit to Africa in the 1950s: ‘The graves. The graves. At every mission station, there were graves.’ His description of the rows of crosses is suggestive of military cemeteries, such as Arlington and Normandy.

And yet how many American Christians would be able to name at least three missionary martyrs?

More importantly, what difference does it make if we do know something about them?

Missionary pioneers are generally not an easy crowd to be around. In some ways they are spiritual giant, but many have or had significant personality flaws. Tucker comments that David Livingstone (not martyred, but he nonetheless gave his life in missionary service, as did his wife when she went out to join him) ‘was not an organizer, and soon [his] mission [agency] was in chaos’ (p. 152).

The same and more could be said of many others. They tend to be hard-headed (otherwise they wouldn’t be pioneers) and too often discount the wise counsel of colleagues. Perhaps more tragically, their families often pay a high price—think of C. T. Studd, who left his wife behind in England for more than two decades while he pioneered in the Congo.  Tucker’s comment on Livingstone, that their children buried a father ‘they had never really known,’ could be a common epitaph.

But at the same time, I have to wonder if my tendency to see the flaws in these men and women really doesn’t reflect my values as an aging American baby-boomer more than it does God’s perspective on these more recent apostles. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:37-38) describes them this way: ‘. . . they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy.’  For me, one of the most gut-wrenching scenes imaginable is the one in the movie End of the Spear which a young Steve Saint watches his missionary pilot father fly off for the last time.

There were no Congressional Medals of Honor given for martyrs like Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, or any of the others who gave their lives in reaching the Waorani in the rain-forests of Ecuador in 1956.  But I would imagine that Jesus words, ‘well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matt. 25:21) are worth a great deal more to all five of them than any earthly honor would ever have been.

Not to discount the debt we owe in the ‘free world’ to those who gave their lives in combating tyranny—the Apostle Paul says that some do give their lives for a good cause (Romans 5:7). But it may be a good deal harder to give one’s life (and sometimes even more so to live it out, consistently) for sinners, trusting, but not necessarily seeing, that in the end it will bear fruit.

 We honor military heroes who risked their lives for the sake of others. I wish we would honor God’s heroes (yes, I think He actually thinks that way about them) at least as much.

We owe it to Him and to them.

-ReachAcross U.S. Director