Archives for September 2014

Samuel M. Zwemer (1867-1952), Hope College graduate, Princeton professor, minister in the Reformed Church in America, and “The Apostle to Islam,” prayed for the Muslim world like this:

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who hast made of one blood all nations and hast promised that many shall come from the East and sit down with Abraham in thy kingdom: We pray for thy prodigal children in Muslim lands who are still afar off, that they may be brought nigh by the blood of Christ. Look upon them in pity, because  …

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10 AM Worship

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3 PM Worship

David Murray writes:

Rachel Held Evans concludes her blog post “If my son or daughter were gay” with this paragraph:

If God blesses Dan and me with a child who is gay, I would want that child to know without a doubt that he or she is loved unconditionally. I would want her to know nothing could separate her from the love of God in Christ. I would want her to know that she isn’t broken, she isn’t an embarrassment, she isn’t a disappointment.  May I be part of creating a world in which I will not have to protect her from the bullies.

I believe Rachel’s motivation is to create a more welcoming and loving environment in the church for those who identify themselves as homosexuals, or who struggle with homosexual desire. I admire and agree with her motive, and must say that I’ve learned from her in this area of being much more careful in how I speak and write about homosexuality.

However, I would challenge Rachel in two areas.

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Dr. J. G. Vos writes:

“[For Muslims,] salvation is obtained by human works. It is characteristic of religious Muslims that they are proud or self-righteous to such a degree that it is extremely difficult to get the Christian gospel of sin and redemption across to them. …

“Why is Islam so successful? How can its rapid spread be explained? And why is it so hard to win Muslims for Christ? A Muslim student once asked the present writer why Islam is so much more successful than Christianity. After a moment’s thought the reply was given that Islam is an easier religion than Christianity to live up to; it makes less difficult moral demands upon people. There is nothing in Islam to lead a man to say, ‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ or ‘I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.’ A religion with reasonable attainable objectives fosters self-confidence, complacency, and spiritual pride—it leads inevitably to self-righteousness, but it does not give the sinner the anguish of a guilty conscience nor the frustration of trying without success to attain in practical living the requirements of an absolute moral standard. In brief, Islam makes a man feel good, while Christianity necessarily first (and often thereafter) makes a man feel bad. The religion of the broken heart is Christianity, not Islam.”

J. G. Vos, A Christian Introduction to Religions of the World (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965), pp. 65, 66, 67.