I recently read several books for a seminary class on Islam.   I will post these reviews here. 

subject: Notes on reading for CIU course ICS/MIS 6073, “Islam in the 21^st century”

with Dr. Nabeel Jabbour

date:      Tuesday, August 20, 2013

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Burge, Gary. Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to Holy Land

Theology. Baker Academic, 2010. ISBN 879-0-8010-3898-3 

BOOK Abstract 

Mr. Burge, a professor at Wheaton College, seeks to present a biblical study on the meaning of the Holy Land and to challenge some teachings that retain a territorial facet which then support ongoing problems in practical relations in the volatile Mideast.  Chronologically working through the Bible he discusses the understandings concerning the land by the prophets, the Jews of the Diaspora, Jesus himself, and careful studies of key passages in the rest of the NT, especially Paul’s teachings.  He teaches that all the Old Testament symbols have undergone a profound shift away from a literal item, including the land and the temple, and need to be reinterpreted by Jesus’ work and death on the cross. 

BOOK Comment 

1. Evaluate the book. How do you agree and disagree with the author? 

“Early Christians … would have been astonished if they came upon men and woman who promoted a Christian version of Jewish territorialism” (Burge, 71).  The author is amazed, too, that such thinking continues to this day, and I’m glad he has made the effort to study and teach on this key concept of the Bible.  He began with a quote from W Brueggemann “that the land might be the central theme of biblical faith.” (Burge, 1)  I wouldn't go that far; is not the revelation of God and the work of Jesus’ atonement for mankind really the central theme?  He also claimed on the first page that Ezekiel saw Israel “as the center of the earth” (Burge, 1).  None of the versions, however, that I consulted in several languages translate the Hebrew word thus.  At first I was hesitant to listen, but he grew on me, and I much appreciate the main arguments and especially the concept that Jesus fulfilled or reinterpreted many of the symbols of the NT in himself and in his own work of the cross, including especially the land/Jerusalem/temple set of powerful images..

2. How did this book challenge your prejudices and your assumptions? 

I don’t think I’d realized until now how pervasive is the “holy land” theology of the Zionist, both Jew and Christian, and how much it has seriously influenced politics concerning the Mideast.  In pioneering evangelism to Muslims in West Africa we have often put teaching on the return of Christ on a back burner as it is so complicated and so seemingly unnecessary for the new believer.  This book and its related CIU course have helped me understand the implications of mistakes in this crucial area, and have also helped me see the value again of these studies.  

3. What lessons can be learned from this book? 

Quite a few times in the book the concept, variously called fulfillment, reinterpretation, redefinition, reconfiguration, relocating, overturning, etc., has been advanced.  This doctrine is much beyond simply saying the prophets wonderfully spoke of Christ’s coming and death over and over.  I met this concept recently in another book by Wells and Zaspel concerning the issues of the law being reinterpreted in Christ in the NT.[1]  I think it would be good for the many Christian tourists in the Mideast to learn, for  example, that, “Hebrews writes the heavenly Jerusalem is the destination of people of faith.  …  This holy geography was accessible from any province or city.  Therefore by  relocating the true Jerusalem, Hebrews undercuts any need for literal pilgrimage to Judea.  …  In other words, in order to join the heavenly Jerusalem, something must be left  behind—the old  Jerusalem must be exited—in order to join Jesus who himself had no part in the city itself in  his death” (Burge, 98-99).  AMEN. 

4. How did this book impact your thinking, your convictions, and your life? 

Fallacies in interpretation of the Bible can easily lead to wrong thinking about many issues.  Burge would be better to say that misunderstanding land is a central fallacy of many Christians, and that this mistake contributes to serious social and political errors concerning Israel by all parties!  I would like to help Christians avoid this fallacy and the resulting errors and rather help them see the complete freeing beauty of what Jesus Christ has done for mankind in the gospel. 

END

The teacher requested these two statements, if true:
I have read the whole book from cover to cover. I did not read any of the book reviews on the internet.  My response and book review is based only on my reading of the book.

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[1] Wells, Tom & Fred Zaspel.  New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002).

Recommended book review: Dr. N. Jabbour

another book from my seminary summer reading list:

subject: Notes on reading for CIU course ICS/MIS 6073, “Islam in the 21^st century”

with Dr. Nabeel Jabbour

submitted:     Aug 7th, 2013

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Jabbour, Nabeel. The Rumbling Volcano. Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt.

Pasadena CA: Mandate Press, 1993, ISBN 0-87808-241-7, LC #BP64.E3J33. Available from William Carey Library.

BOOK Abstract

 Dr. Jabbour seeks to explain and evaluate the rise of fundamental Islam in Egypt over the past century and show how it affects not only politics in Egypt but throughout the Muslim world.  Being able to analyze the sources missed by most scholars in the West he attempts to understand the leaders of the movements from their point of view and then carefully draws conclusions of their social and religious power and weaknesses.  Written before current changes in the Middle East it gives helpful background and even somewhat predicts much of what has occurred since 2010.

BOOK Comment

1. Evaluate the book.  How do you agree and disagree with the author.

 I imagine Dr. Jabbour’s audience as businessmen, journalists, generals, diplomats, and students of the Mideast who need to understand the Al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist, Jihadi, Boko Haram, and similar Islamist movements that so trouble today’s political scene.  This book should be on the reference shelf of all such leaders, and they should be hoping for an update as events of this decade turn.  The focus is on Egypt, the biggest and most influential political and religious player in the Arab world, and it clearly shows how the country lurched through the decades of 20^th century political, economic, and religious evolution, Israeli conflict, bad governments, and passionate leaders, and prepped it for the calamities of the so-called Arab spring.

He called the assassination of President Anwar Sadat one of the most stunning in the century (Jabbour, 177). Well, perhaps it was for Egypt, but there have been many others sadly, also so stunning for their contexts.  Predicting a volcano erupting in Egypt soon, I would have liked him also to have shown how he expected the fundamentalist revolution to spread worldwide and become the moral and social impetus for much of the terrorism of today.

2. How did this book challenge your prejudices and your assumptions?

I much appreciated Dr. Jabbour’s plan of study that one must understand the fundamentalist from their point of view and try to know what drives and motivates them to do dastardly acts.  He seeks to interpret them by their own thinking and actions, and not merely by an outsider’s point of view.  Many leaders in the Muslim world are very intolerant of them, and Jabbour seeks to see why a Muslim government would not tolerate such thinking and action by fellow Muslims, something the Westerner is also much confused about.  This is an approach to learn and emulate.

3.  What lessons can be learned from this book?

The Western world, especially, can benefit from learning about the key players in the evolution of Islamic fundamental thought and action such as Ibn Taimiyya, Al-Banna, Qutb, Sariyya, Shukri, Faraj, Rahman, etc., all read by fundamentalists today, decades later.  He shows that a puritan emphasis of return to basics has existed since just after Muhammad the prophet in the teachings and actions of the Kharijites which inspire the fundamentalists today.  Such divisions are not just denominationalism, but deep divisions of approaches to the Qur'an and their concepts of action, the caliphate, and the domain of Islam.  The Shi'a branch is even affected, and the Iranian revolution has much inspired the fundamentalists later, also.

A committed Christian leader who knows Egypt, Dr. Jabbour also showed the effect of the movement on a church in the midst of a Muslim society.  God’s church can endure, and many groups have done well through the centuries in a minority context.  Sometimes, however, Christians can be targets in the socio-religious and political movements of the day, and the author shows that the true gospel of reconciliation in Christ can allow a faithful witness instead of a hunkering down and withdrawal from testifying of a gracious God.

4. How did this book impact your thinking, your convictions, and your life?

Normally Christian work in West Africa is not affected by such events thousands of miles away.  But in recent years globalization has brought not just cell phones but also fundamentalist thought to trouble even poor, small, Muslim MALI.  The recent civil war in 2011-2013 was much driven by the Al-Qaida movement, and much opposed by both the civilian and military government and the people.  Yet, many Malians were taken up by it, some joined the rebels, and some started to espouse these teachings (to their regret in some cases).  This book and the related class at CIU have helped me understand the roots of these groups and will help me in teaching once returning to Africa. 

The teacher requested these two statements, if true:
I have read the whole book from cover to cover. I did not read any of the book reviews on the internet.  My response and book review is based only on my reading of the book.

Recommended BOOK Review: Bock

Bock, PH.D., Darrell L., The Missing Gospels, Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities, Thomas Nelson Pub, 2006, pb, 229, pp, I# 9778-0-7852-8906-7, 14 chapters, foreword by Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi. 

                Bock seeks to carefully show the weakness of the popular ideas that other Christian faiths developed parallel to orthodoxy but simply orthodoxy won out!  He counters ideas of the ‘new school’ of Walter Bauer, and modern popular writings of Bart Ehrman and Dan Brown, etc. He proceeds by examining a large sampling of the new materials, especially those like the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi and a sampling of the Bible early church fathers like Ireneaus, Justin Martyr and Clement, etc.  I enjoyed finding many of these traditional texts also on the CCEL site in the Anti-Nicene Fathers of Philip Schaff, and reading the contexts.  The so called new materials took further seeking out. Bock seeks to show the origin and nature of the gnostic materials and how the Bible philosophy is not at all like that, but better.   

This work is parallel to that of Dr. R Price’s Searching for the Original Bible, too that I’m also currently reading.  McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict also has much from the early fathers but it was written before current claims about alternative Christianities.

Gift from P Siebert, 2011, read May 2012 in Senegal.J 

Things I've learned in Africa!

Some Things Learned Since Coming to Africa in 1984!
Not all perfectly, of course!
Some (tech items) we all learned during this period, but we learned them while on the field, in Africa :-) 

·         French language

·         Bambara language

·         Pulaar - Fulani language

·         Salutations in Moor, Wolof, and Soninké

·         Raising kids to adults!

·         Diapers and discipline!

·         4-wheel driving off-road

·         Diesel engine maintenance

·         Riding a moto in the bush

·         Living in Africa and the importance of greetings

·         Eating w/ hands (giving a new meaning to eating together)

Oumar, a Fulani evangelist, and two of his kids

·         West African foods

·         Sleeping on hard mats

·         Mali bathrooms!

·         All computer and i-net stuff

·         Networking ministries

·         Reconciliation and dialogue

·         Construction Mali style

·         Well digging

·         Car & generator mechanics

·         Games: Quarto, Phase 10, dames, Trente Deux, Speed Uno, Pigs, etc.

·         Archaeology of Israel

·         Living w/ diabetes and depression

·         Living with shoulder and back pain

·         Mali & WA social and political life and issues

·         Travel in African transport (giving a new meaning to rubbing shoulders)

·         Sahel flowers, trees and trimming them

·         Reading the Quran and Hadiths

·         Reading the Maccabees and all the Apocrypha

·         Staying cool in a hot place!

·         Digital photography 

·         WA history and slave trade effects

·         WA tribes and social structure

·         TEE & BCC ministries

·         Read classics i.e. Augustine, Origin, Knox, Eusebius, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pascal, Brother Lawrence, Francis, Gill, Carey, Josephus, Jerome, Ignatius, Wesley, Kipling, Bunyan, Beza, Luther, De Sales, Hugo, M’Cheyne, Newton, Fenelon, Polo, Owen, etc.

·         Greek studies and exegesis

·         Liturgy appreciation

·         Church dependency issues

·         Eating healthy

·         College financing

Bala teaching about Abraham's sacrifice
after I showed him how to.

·         Stocks, bonds, mutuals, annuities, IRAs, etc.

·         Cross cultural teaching

·         Development work

·         Refugee help            

·         Mali business contracts & hiring and firing

·         Dealing w/ beggars and the poor

·         Storying of Bible for evangelism and discipleship

·         Sonlife (living with Jesus)

·         Training for Storying

·         Handling short-term teams of many kinds.

·         Digital audio ministry

·         Partnerships with 2/3^rd World churches

·         Partnership w/ WA churches and missions

·         Partnership w/ African Americans, Brazilians, and Chinese!

·         Math teaching and home schooling

·         Sending kids to boarding school

·         Fallacies of Islamic theology and practices

·         Witness to Muslims

·         Islam structure & different groups in WA

·         Bible school teaching

·         Animism theology in WA

·         Language learning techniques

·         Studio building and setup

·         French typing and letter form

·         Solar and battery living

·         Depending on God for support: always

·         Continued learning of Gods’ grace

·         Contextualization of the gospel

·         Teaching contextualization (in other languages even!)

·         Use of OT in SLM evangelism

·         Seeing Jesus in every part of OT

·         Audio recording and editing

·         Difference of  sheep and goats J

·         Navigate in bush w/ or w/o a GPS

·         Geocaching!

·         To terimelike (bartering) for everything you buy, except what has a fixed price, and knowing the difference!

·         Fine tune theo.: NCT & Unfulfilled Prophecy, but opposing Open Theo., Emergence, Preterism, & Prosperity Gospel, etc.

·         Abortion protests and support of prolife positions

·         Alphabetization (Literacy teaching) in Bambara and Fulani

·         Walking in intimacy w/ God

·         Flexibility in ministry opportunities.

·         Prison ministry

·         Christian schooling

·         Orienting new mis’ies to life and ministry in Africa

·         Walking and exercises for heart & back health

·         Christian ‘salat’ prayers to help Fulani believers

·         Field finances and spreadsheets

Pastor Moise getting ready to make a compressed dirt brick

·         Management objectives and vision

·         Casting vision & team leadership

·         Servant leadership

·         Foreign currency handling

·         Living thru a coup d’état

·         Moving family across borders

·         Understanding JWs and Mormons a bit better.

·         Losing parents & other mentors

·         Asking questions of people and scripture

·         Recognition of personal limits

·         Adaptability of media in ministry

·         Tolerance of limits in partnership

·         Allowing expression in delegation

·         Foreign language book sales

·         Film and projector operation

·         Recruiting and training new workers, 17 so far!

·         New 2012: compressed mud brick construction

At least 53 Questions to Ask New Workers to West Africa
re Strategies and Adaption to New Cultures:

Is there a written strategy document?
Do they understand contextualizing the gospel?
Do they understand that not all methods work in all places?  That not all media is appropriate for all situations?
Can they tell Bible stories?  Do they know the seven key characteristics of God useful in SLM evangelism?
Can they do personal witness in another culture setting?
How does their agency train workers for ministry here?  How many months?
What cross-cultural training is done in the home country? 
What training is planned to be done in West Africa?  What cross-cultural orientation will be done?  How often?
Is continuing education encouraged?  Will they be studying while on the field?
What kind of supervision is planned?  What model?  How often? 
Do they have a mentor for spiritual life & growth?  Would they like one?
What kinds of evaluations and debriefing will be conducted?  How often?
How often will they leave the district for conferences and vacation?

Benjie holding a ....... ?

 What language learning method will be used?  Have they had specific training in this method?
Can they learn a language in the field without direct supervision?
Do they understand social structure issues?  Have they had any anthropology courses? 
Do they have any plan for understanding the social structure of the culture in which they’ll work?
Have they considered what effect the discovered social structure will have on their strategy?
Do they understand the stages of culture adaption and culture shock? 
Have they looked at all the possible ways to educate their children?  Would they accept far away MK dorms for their precious ones?

Can they suspend judgment of a culture for the first year or more?
Can they settle beforehand the question of trust in relationships?
Have they studied working on conflict resolution in team relations and also in relations with nationals?
What do they know of spiritual warfare?  Do they practice fasting? 
Have they studied animism and folk Islam?
What is their understanding of revelation, dreams, visions, and God’s healing?
What kind of lifestyle do they expect?  Can they live simply?  What transport?
Do they understand the issues of bonding?  Who will they bond with?
Will they want a village house and also a base house in a larger city? Or just one place?
Have they studied Islam?  Have they studied the varieties of SLM in West Africa?
Have they studied well the concepts of the Trinity, Jesus’ incarnation, God’s grace, inspiration of the Bible, & destiny/fatalism to answer common SLM questions?
Have they read on West African history and current politics?  How many of these 18 countries’ current presidents can they name?  Which ones are French or English?  Which ones are Christian?
Do they have a personal holiness commitment?  Are they intimate with God?  Would there be testimonial references for this available?
Are they able to feed from the Bible and God directly?  What is their practice of study and worship and prayer?
Will they be able to freely worship in other orders of service, sing in other forms, and use other forms of prayer?
Do they practice absolute dependency on Jesus Christ in all areas i.e. relationships, money, protection in bad places, health, travel, family, kid’s education, ministry results, language & cultural ability, etc.?  

Do they understand servant-leadership roles?
Are they comfortable with, do they respect people of other races, languages, education, & economic levels? 
If they are African-American (or African-European), do they understand the special expectations & challenges on them in Africa?
If they are African, do they understand the special challenges on them in Islamic West Africa?
Have they studied issues of poverty and community development? 
Have they worked out concepts & strategies of outreach via development?
Have they studied issues of church dependency?  Are they committed to circumventing it?
Have they worked out how to handle beggars, scammers, the truly needy, and pan handlers in a gracious way?
What skills/jobs/vocations have they trained for?  Business? Farming? Health care? Accounting? Teaching?
How flexible and adaptable are they?  Can they tolerate significant changes in their assignment while on the field?
Do they value networking and partnering with other agencies?
Do they see the value of using the OT in SLM evangelism for redefining God for the Muslim?
Can they tell the difference of a sheep and a goat? 

and here we have two ......  ?

After thirty years in the business, Jenn & I are still learning.  We have some notion of answers on these, and others unasked, but we have yet to answer all fully.  New workers must consider these and set a goal of attempting to answer them as they live and minister among our friends.