Positive Infinity

We continue our discussion (the first part is here) with Abu Daoud, Anglican missionary to the Middle East.

5) How have your financial arrangements been for the work? What could be improved about this for you and others?

Like most missionaries all of our income comes from churches and people who support our work. Some people send in in $20/month, some churches send a couple hundred. Most of our support comes from Anglican/Episcopal churches and people, but we are very ecumenical, and have supporting churches and people from other traditions as well.

The American branch of the Anglican Communion is the Episcopal Church (USA), and it has been losing churches and people by the thousands over the last years. So this has been hard. We are theologically conservative and evangelical in spirit, but even those churches that really get what we are doing have lost people and money, which I understand. Our main sending church in the US was originally supporting us with $2000/month, which is fantastic. Then that was cut to $1600, still very good. But then last January to $800/month. In 2010 that church split in three. The funds are still a big help, but it is a one-way trend, it seems. The churches that leave TEC for some new group also don’t usually have time for us. They are spending money on lawsuits so they can keep their old church building, or if they are sponsored by some African bishop, they send their ‘mission’ money to Nigeria or Rwanda. Maybe our four bishops in the Middle East should start a new mission to the USA! Christianity is growing well in sub-Saharan Africa, and meanwhile the Middle East is bleeding Christians.

So I have come to the conclusion that it is ultimately individuals and families who will keep this mission going. They don’t make us fill out a five-page application every year or inform us of changing mission visions and ask how we fit into that, or what have you. Our supporters keep in touch by my blog (islamdom.blogspot.com) or email or phone. When we are back in the US we meet for lunch or coffee. It is very healthy and organic, for want of a better word. So yes, it has been difficult, but I feel like we are in a better place than many other missionaries. One good thing about Episcopalians is that the lay people really appreciate what we do, and will support us. And unlike most non-denominational churches they don’t have tons of people coming around asking for missions support each month.

6) Where do you see MENA going, especially in view of events such as the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the Arab Spring?

This is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? First, the people who protested didn’t take political control, so as much as they wanted freedom and democracy, they just won’t get it, I’m sorry to say. The Egyptian elections were demonstrably corrupt, though the international press has not said so—I have no idea why. The Islamists will take power and they will not let it go. And why is this surprising? That is precisely what Muhammad did—engaged in diplomacy and compromise and so on, but once he had power he was ruthless. In the end, an Islamic society cannot be a free society. Islam and freedom are mutually exclusive.

The question I have is this: will it be like Iran? After the revolution in `79 Islam had a chance to prove itself in the political arena, and Islam, unlike Christianity, makes substantial guarantees in this area. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have concluded that Islam failed—it did not deliver politically so it must be false in terms of its religious and spiritual claims too. They have turned to Christianity some of them, and some to secular humanism or atheism. Will this happen in these newly Islamist states? Perhaps. I pray it will. Islam’s love of political power may well be its Achilles’ heel. Meanwhile, that means the native Christians need to stay as long as they can, and foreign missionaries like me need to stay no matter what. I will do it. Maybe the kids and wife need to go back to the US, I will do everything I can to stay here even if all hell breaks loose.

7) How has your time in the region impacted you personally and your family?

It has made a huge impact on me and all of us. Our oldest child has lived most of his life outside of the USA. After a while I came to realize that Islamic civilization, for all its faults, is in some ways superior to Western civilization. I am a harsh critic of Islam, but also of the West—I try to be fair. Muslims still have a great deal of appreciation for family, marriage, and children, something lost in much of the West. The West is on its way out, people just don’t have enough children and we are without traditions. A people without traditions has no collective memory or sense of identity. Consequently, they have no sense of value, no sense of why their culture is worth perpetuating and continuing. Muslims have that. And they have kids.

You could ask my wife this question too, and I’m guessing she would say the hardest thing for her has been trusting God with the kids. For me, I worry about money and visas and so on. She worries about our son making friends with Arab kids in his school and things like that. So I really respect the old paradigm of monastic missions now. I mean, sending out monks and nuns to do mission work makes a great deal of sense to me. American evangelicalism has no way to utilize the great charism of celibacy though, unfortunately.

Finally I would say it has made me more direct and more bold. Maybe I’m just more opinionated. (In case you haven’t noticed.) I would say my faith is much stronger. You really learn that sometimes you just have to launch out in a direction because you sense that is where God is leading you, even without knowing you will arrive. Imagine me telling you to get in a boat and row south-southeast into a huge lake at night, without me saying how long or why or even if you will arrive for sure. It’s like that.

8 ) What can Christians outside of MENA do to further efforts such as yours?

The first thing is to ask if God and his Church are calling you to this mission—to the mission to Islam. Are you called to go to the Muslims? Will you be a missionary with us? That would help!

Second, everyone can pray, and that is very valuable. On our mailing list we send our prayer letter to religious houses and convents and prayer groups all over the world actually. We never get money from them, and the printing and postage and labor come out of our pocket, but I know it is worthwhile. So pray.

And finally, give. I don’t have a secretary or administrative aid. When I need paper I walk down the hill to the paper store and buy it. We don’t have a professional consultant to do fundraising or anything like that. Unless someone lets me use office space for free, I just work out of our home. Our overhead is very low, so I think we are very strategic in terms of finances. So by all means, people and churches can pray about supporting our mission financially.

Readers of this blog know that Abu Daoud, Anglican missionary to the Middle East, is a long-time blog partner and friend with Positive Infinity. We caught up with him in an (appropriately) undisclosed location to discuss his work and Christianity in the Middle East, now and moving forward.

1) How did you become interested in ministry to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)?

I had been familiar with missions since my teen years, when I made a confession of faith during a five-year stretch when I was living in Latin America. I was never a missionary kid, and in fact my parents never taught me the first thing about the Christian faith, notwithstanding their baptismal vows (May God forgive them this great offence). Anyway, I went to school with a lot of missionary kids though, so I certainly knew some basic ideas on mission. But it was back in the US when I was about 22 that the mega-church I was attending, a Bible Church, asked me to co-lead a weekday evening study group on world missions. It was a simplified version of Perspectives on World Mission which is a great program for any church to host.

It was then that I became aware of two things: One, the largest group of people in the world who have not heard the Gospel are Muslims. And two, that Christians had largely given up on Muslims. I had seen the effect of this in Latin America, where American evangelicals would cross sea and land to make nominal Roman Catholics into evangelicals. Fair enough, I suppose there is a place for that, but my heart was captured by the Church’s mission to Muslims. I felt a great burden on my heart and sense of needing to repent for the faithlessness of the Church in this area. I asked God what I could do, and he said ‘Go’. This was before I got married, which happened when I was in my mid-twenties.

2) What type of training did you obtain for this? Was it helpful? For others who might be considering this, what kind of training is best?

My own training was largely on my own. I will say that having a background in philosophy from a secular university is great. I mean, philosophy is all about listening very carefully to what people say and write, to the point where you understand them better than they understand themselves even. We debated and thought about the big questions—the relation of the soul to the body, the existence of God, the nature of good and evil, and so on. With that sort of background you are really able to interact with Muslims on a whole different level than what folks learn at the local bible college or what have you. Also, Muslims are aware that in the distant past they produced a couple of outstanding philosophers. I mean, these were the people with whom Thomas Aquinas was interacting! So when you say you are a scholar of philosophy and religions, which is what I am, and what I tell people when they ask me, ‘What do you do?’ they really respect it.

All of that having been said, that was providential and the hand of God, not some specific strategy thought up by a missions agency. For people considering the Muslim world today, I would make the follow recommendations:

1. Read stuff about Islam by Muslims, not by evangelicals. I am sad to say that while there are some great evangelical scholars of Islam like Gairdner and Cragg (both Anglicans), most of the stuff published by evangelicals on Islam is rubbish. Don’t waste your time. If you want to know Islam pick up something by Muslims or by Roman Catholics who, for some reason, are more competent scholars by and large, in my opinion. And read Ramon Llull, if you don’t know who Llull is then don’t even think about mission to Islam until you meet him. He is the father of the movement, after all.
2. There is no magic key. Don’t believe it when someone says that after 1400 years of mission to Islam they have discovered the magic key to getting Muslims to convert. Americans love this sort of thing. We go to conferences that promise to save our marriages or finances or spur church growth or whatever, but all of those are easy matters compared to mission to Muslims. There is no substitute for lengthy, sensitive, creative mission in the Muslim world. Ora et labora. There is nothing new under the sun.
3. Learn about politics. Americans think that politics and religion can be separated. Not really. It sounds nice on paper but in real life it is impossible. If you want to reach Palestinians learn everything about their history and land, same with Iranians or Algerian Berbers or Turks. When they realize you know their history better than they do, they will hear what you have to say on other matters because you will have won their respect, because you have shown them respect.
4. Finally, know how to interpret the Bible. Most young evangelicals don’t know the first thing about biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), though they think they do. What they have memorized at Bible college are the traditions of their own churches regarding how to interpret certain themes and passages from the bible. If they would say, ‘it is the tradition of the Assemblies of God (or Southern Baptist Convention) to interpret the following verses as meaning X, Y, and Z’, that would be a coherent, responsible, cogent answer. But no, ‘The Bible says X and it means Y.’ That is what you will hear, and it is not an honourable way of treating Muslims, tradition, and especially the Holy Scripture. Tradition is important and respected here. The man without tradition is the man with no soul. But they say, these verses mean X, Y, and Z, without understanding what they are saying or why. This is disrespectful to the word of God.

3) You come from an Anglican tradition. How is this advantageous in ministry to people in MENA? Are there any drawbacks?

It is advantageous in many ways. The main one being that Anglicanism is reformed and protestant, but in a measured way, and that is truly global. This allows for a great range of opinions within Anglicanism, and has produced probably the single best corpus of Islamic scholarship of any one church in the world, with the possible exception of the Catholics. It is also helpful because it is a broad family in that we have liberals, evangelicals, anglo-catholics, progressives, and traditionalists, and being in one family means that we have to talk with each other and be in conversation with people with whom we don’t really agree on various topics. It’s a mess, no doubt. But a good mess. Also, the traditional churches, like the Orthodox, respect Anglicans—we have bishops and liturgy and holy days. They get that and don’t react fearfully like they do with other, newer, forms of Christianity.

In terms of drawbacks, yes there are some. Anglicans, especially the Church of England, have a strong history in the area of Muslim evangelism, but most Anglicans (outside of sub-Saharan Africa) have lost that vision. So when I say I am Anglican my fellow evangelical missionaries view me with suspicion. But after a while they get to know me and things work out fine. It is a good thing about the mission field—you have to work with people who are unlike you to make any progress. I work with Baptists and Brethren and Assemblies of God missionaries and ministers all the time and that is a strength, not a weakness.

4) What types of response do you obtain as a Christian in MENA?

It depends…I live in a city with a sizeable Christian minority, but my country has a tiny Christian minority. Some people respect Christians because they have made great contributions to education and healthcare here. I feel like a lot of Muslims are really frustrated by Christians though. Our numbers are much lower but we are much more respected internationally than they are. They send their kids to our schools. They get sick and come to our hospitals. I think they ask themselves, how is it that that Qur’an says we (Muslims) are the greatest people in the world, but these powerless Christians do so much more for society?

Personally, people are usually friendly to me. I speak Arabic well; I know the local customs. I clearly identify myself as a Christian, not as a Jesus-follower or Jesus Muslim or any of those silly things that other Americans do so often. If they don’t know what Christians believe or think, I explain it. It’s not that hard. If people don’t know what a submarine is, you explain it and describe it, then they will have a basic idea. You don’t invent some new term or word or say, ‘well, you know cars…it is like a car.’ They assume Americans are Christians, which is not unreasonable. I try to be myself basically, and not fabricate some new Abu Daoud for people because I think I will do better in the area of evangelism. You need to stay in peoples’ lives over time also. You can’t just pop in and expect to share the Gospel and for people to listen. They need to see you month after month for years and then you will be part of their life, and then they will feel comfortable speaking with you and listening.

The interview is continued here.