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"Chrislam"I just heard of this and wonder if any of you have, and whats your input on this,I hear this is the coming one world religion...

Do you have a definition ?

Its supposed to be Christianity and Islam combined together as a religion..

I've heard of it, but only by people who wanted to warn against it. I don't know whether anyone is actually trying to produce a synthesis of the two faiths. I expect there are some liberals who are trying to make the point that we can all agree to disagree without becoming disagreable about it.

As far as an actual sythesis is concerned, I think such a project is doomed. Jesus is either the Son of God, or he is a liar and a blasphemer, or the gospel accounts what he said and did are full of lies.

If Jesus is the son of God, and God is triune, then the Quran is severely lacking in its treatment of the truth.

I've heard that in Bethlehem, at the entrance to the church of the nativity, you have to pass under a banner that says, "Allah has no sons." That pretty much draws the line in the sand.

Having said that, there's no reason we should treat muslims as enemies.

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Unfortunately, this is far more prevalent and main stream then most people realize. Within mission's organizations reaching out to Muslim's there is what is known as the "C4/C5 controversy" i.e. C5 is a form of Christianity that would constitute "Chrislam". The designation comes from the "contextualization scale" that missionaries use to classify outreach among Muslims. Most missionaries strive for C3 and nearly all accept C1-C4. Here is the Scale.

C1 - An English speaking congregation that worships in a western style; doctrine is orthodox.
C2 - A native langauge speaking congregation that worships in a western style; doctrine is orthodox
C3 - A native langauge speaking congregation that worships in a style that reflects their own culture; doctrine is orthodox.
C4 - A native langauge speaking congregation that worships in a style that reflects their culture and religious ritual i.e they adopt many of the Islamic rituals and rules regarding time and method of prayer, worship (Fridays), diet (Halel), etc..; their doctrine is orthodox (in many ways this is akin to the Messianic Judaism movement that worships on Saturdays, follows a kosher diet, etc...).
C5 - A native langauge speaking congregation that identifies themselves as Muslims, they accept the writings of the bible and the writings of the Qua-ran, they accept Jesus and Mohammad as prophets, most see Mohammad as the greatest prophet, and most reject the divinity of Christ.

There are many mainstream Christian mission organizations that have advocates for C5 contextualization in Muslim missions on their staff; one such organization is Wycliffe. Wycliffe is currently involved in a half dozen new translation projects aimed at producing versions of the bible for C5 congregations; these versions of the bible substitute alternate titles for the term "son of God" because Islam teaches that God did not have a son and therefore Muslims consider the title "son of God" blasphemous. These new versions of the bible are much easier to harmonize with the Qua-ran used in C5 congregations.

This form of Christianty is championed by leaders of the Emergent church such as Brian McClaren. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Abrahamic Alliance (a ministry that champions C5 missions).

I would be interested in where you acquired your details for this scale. It doesn't fit those which I've studied previously. Also, I'm wondering where you acquired this information about Wycliffe and if it can actually be verified. As far as all of my interactions with Wycliffe they are not specific to a "church" (or anything akin to that), but to a language group. Do you have actual credible documentation of these claims?

One journal with several articles (from a reputable organization) that speaks to this can be found HERE.

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I would be very surprised if this accusation were true of the Wycliffe Bible translators, whose translation teams are active in many countries where the scriptures have not yet been translated into the local language. I am more familiar with the work of Wycliffe Australia, an interdenominational group working largely in PNG and with Australian Aboriginal language groups, but the web site below for Wycliffe Global Alliance gives a comprehensive account of their Doctrinal Statement, translation principles and points to various partnership arrangements with like minded groups.
http://www.wycliffe.net/

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Joshua Massey (pen name), who is one of the authors in your article, is someone I have known in real life for decades. I have spent many hours discussing this issue with him personally.

As far as Wycliffe is concerned, there are many articles that can be found by Rick Brown (Wycliffe's lead translator for translation in the Muslim world) where he argues for exchanging the title of "son of God" for something else that is "not offensive" to Muslims. In his early articles he argues that the basis for this change is because the arabic word "ibin" (son) is only understood as a term of biological decadence and would lead Muslim's to believe that God had a sexual union with a woman (Mary) and Jesus was the offspring. He never offers any supporting evidence for this fantastic claim, and their is substantial evidence that this claim is false i.e. Islamic Arabic literature refers to Mohammad's own adopted son as "Zaid ibin Mohammad"; Muslims know unquestionably that this was Mohammad's adopted son and not his biological son; they are not "confused" by the term "ibin". This claim is even more difficult to support when one tries to argue that the word "son" in multiple languages can ONLY refer to a "biological son" and all of these languages just happen to have Muslim congregations.

Those who would like to investigate this further, just Google:

"C4/C5 controversy"
"Rick Brown and "son of God"
"Joshua Massey"



To

A little more information:

If one investigates, one will find that it is true that Muslims believe that Christians teach that Jesus is the biological son of God and they do find this offensive; however, this is because this is what expressly taught by the Qua'ran and not because of a linguistic misunderstanding of the term 'ibin' i.e. the idea that "God had no sons" is rooted in a theological difference between Islam and Christianity; it is not rooted in a linguistic misunderstanding as proposed by Rick Brown of Wycliffe.

When I have confronted those who advocate changing the term "son of God" in Scripture with evidence from Islamic literature showing that the term "ibin" does not invoke an understanding of "biological descendant" i.e. references to "Zaid ibin Mohammad"; references to idomaitic usages of "ibin" like "son of the Nile"; references to "infidels" who had adopted sons (referred to by the term "ibin"), etc..., the answer has been the same "You raise very good questions." Those questions are never addressed or investigated and those involved continue to teach that "ibin" is only understood as a biological term.

Typical of C5 congregations.

They worship in the Mosque during the normal Islamic services with their Islamic "brothers and sisters"

They recite the traditional Islamic prayers in their worship.

They believe the Qua'an is the most holy of all books and accept the bible as a secondary religious book.

They believe Mohammad is the primary prophet of God, Jesus is also a prophet.

They reject the validity of the faith of Christians in the west because we reject the Qua'an as Scripture.


Part of the reasons that many (outside of those directly involved with this issue) are unaware of how radical these beliefs are is because those holding these beliefs typically also hold to postmodern theological views and respond in ways that are typical of postmodern theology.

For example:

If you confront those advocating C5 missiology with the aspects of C5 congregations I listed above, they will tell you that these beliefs are "heretical" and leave it at that; unfortunately that is often when the questions stop. If one probes a little further, one finds that the rest of the answer is "We all hold heretical beliefs and the beliefs of the C5 congregations are no more heretical than the beliefs you and I hold." Similarly if one asks "Do you believe that the bible teaches that there is absolute truth?" the answer will be an unequivocal "Yes" and again that is usually enough to stop further questions; however, with a bit more probing you will find that the rest of the answer is "no man can know absolute truth with any certainty at all and the Muslim, the Christian, the Jew, the Hindu, etc... all have equal access to the Truth." In other words, it is a form of relativism based on epistemological challenges of our ability to know truth rather than a denial that an absolute truth exists. The difficulty that most have in understanding the issue is that terms and ideas that we think we understand have been given new meanings that differ from how they have been historically understood, so when we get the short answer we think we have heard something that we truly have not. When the postmodern speaks of the sovereignty of God, or the omniscience of God, etc... they are using definitions very different from how they have been used historically.

Re Wyclifee translator and Chrislam and the like, I contacted friends who work with Wycliffe Australia and received the following, with an invitation to be put in touch with one of the Global Alliance leaders if need be to sort out the issue.

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The only contact I've ever had with Wycliffe was in Mexico, where they were translating the Bible into various local dialects. There was not a hint of syncretism in their discussions with the visiting team.

And people in my local church who have dealt with them more than I have don't report anything like syncretism going on with Wycliffe.

Linguistic issues concerning how to accurately convey the ideas expressed in the original languages can be extremely complex and subtle. I don't know any Arabic, but the article is credible to me.

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Not all those who wander are lost.

My personal experience with Wycliffe translators is very similar to your own. I have met over a dozen Wycliffe translators over the years and none have endorsed the issues I have described. This isn't an issue that is wide spread among Wycliffe translators; it is an issue that is embraced by a relatively small group that hold very senior positions within Wycliffe.

The Wycliffe article (written by Rick Brown) is deceptive and it saddens me deeply that Wycliffe has chosen to place this article on their website. Rick Brown has presented many articles like this over the years, and in the past Wycliffe's response to inquiries about this issue has been simply to ignore them. It seems that they have moved from passive support to active support.

Before I address some of the difficulties with this article, I would like to share one of the comments that can be found on the website where this article was first published. It comes from someone living and working among the Arabic speaking Christians in Egypt and his comments strongly reflect every response I have heard from Arabic speaking Christians.

If the Father-Son language is so problematic for Muslims, then I guess the churches of the Muslim world are very glad with changing those terms in the Bible?

Benelchi,
Did you not follow up on Sally's (Avid Reader's) comments? She has clearly responded and this by directly contacting Wycliffe about this slanderous rumor floating around the U.S. primarily via the internet. You would do well to not continue to propagate lies about a reputable organization. Your response is simply to reaffirm the slander by asserting unsubstantiated claims. I am troubled that you so easily defame the character of Wycliffe.

Further, just because ابن (ibn) does at times refer to one who is not biologically a "son" of the named individual does not mean this is necessarily the appropriate translational choice for every occurrence of "son of God" in Scripture (especially without some sort of paratext for explanation). If you have worked in translations you would know the issues of sensitivity for the target language so that the text of Scripture does not present something that was never intended without some clarification (particularly when there are known issues in the target language and culture that must be accounted for).

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These are not slanderous rumers; I too have contacted Wycliffe and they simply ignore evidence that contradicts the information they have given in this article. The comments of the Egyptian Arabic Speaker I quoted are typical of how the Arabic speaking Christian church has reacted to Wycliffe's translation and the assertions made by Rick Brown as justification for this translation. Please do a little research before accusing me and others of slandering Wycliffe. The reason why those at Wycliffe can can continue to propagate this issue is that too few are willing to take a critical look at the claims made by Rick Brown. He states again and again, without evidence, that 'ibn' conveys only an understanding of a biological relationship despite the rejection of that claim by many native Arabic speaking Christians and Muslims and nobody at Wycliffe seems willing to challenge him about this and yet this is the basis for the translation choices he is making.


The issue is not whether it is appropriate for every, but whether it is appropriate to remove this term in every occurrence. And note: IT IS NOT ALWAYS ADDRESSED IN THE PARATEXT! This is also an issue that has been raised with Wycliffe.


I understand the issues involved in translation fairly well. As do many of those critical of these translation choices. This is an issue that is only now coming into the light of the public, but it is an issue that has been hotly debated within missiology for at least a decade now. And there are many in missiological circles that have long been opposed to this decision. To make the assertion that one is ONLY opposed to this choice because they do not understand the issue (as you implied in your post) is simply arrogance.