"it is only through the unique Messiah Jesus that salvation is offered and only in the Church He founded as His body that fellowship is to be practised. The Insider Movement encourages Muslim background believers to distance themselves from traditional Christian forms, but rather than returning to the New Testament paradigm, it at least implicitly endorses Muslim doctrines, rites and traditions, many of which were developed in conscious opposition to Christianity and the Bible"First: the appeal to the Samaritan woman does not refute the Insider position: if anything it may support it: if salvation is really in the Messiah and worship de-localised, then that is no problem to the C5 Insider; rather the reverse: it is the fetishising of 'Christian' culture, buildings and religiosity that is the problem in a similar way to the fetishising of Temple and Kashrut.
The other major thing is the blind spot this exhibits to the 'compromises' made with culture and religion in the course of western cultural and mission history; it smacks of pulling up the ladder after we've climbed up. Every problematisation of C5 stuff in this paragraph can be paralleled with 'acceptable' things in western Christianity.
This is not to say that there aren't problems with the C5 Insider position, but they aren't quite those presented here. Furthermore, the presentation here is unfair on the actual issues 'in the field' and the ways that those involved wrestle with them.
I still think that there is serious merit in the thought that 'if it doesn't risk syncretism, it isn't mission'.in reference to:
- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)
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