Leading Calvary: Egypt and Muslims

We have all been concerned for the situation that has been unfolding in Egypt over the last several days. The protests of a people who are tired of the tyranny of a dictator and the unwillingness of Mr. Mubarack to step down have given way to sympathy and empathy for the people, fear of the potential of the rise of an extremist islamic leader, and uncertainty about the stability of the middle east.

As Christians, these leads us to do at least three things: (1) pray for Egypt; a peaceful resolution to its situation; freedom for its people; protection for the Christ followers and missionaries there; (2) encourage our president to intervene on behalf of the people and human rights; (3) pray that the new leadership not be from the islamic extremists.

This brings to light a related subject that is broader than the Egypt issue. It has to do with the growth of the Muslim population. Two weeks ago I attended a conference that dealt with the subject of evangelizing Muslims in the United States. Although this is something that I don't have any experience in doing, I have heard numerous testimonies which encourage me in this area.

The sheer population statistics should cause us as evangelical and missional Christ followers to reflect on this.

An article published by a CNN blog, reports the following,

"Twenty years ago, the world had about 1.1 billion Muslims. Twenty years from now, it will have about twice as many - and they'll represent more than a quarter of all people on earth, according to a new study released Thursday. Pakistan will overtake Indonesia as home of the largest number of Muslims, as its population pushes over 256 million, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life projects. The number of Muslims in the United States will more than double, to 6.2 million, it anticipates.

Afghanistan's population will nearly double, to about 50.5 million, making it home to the ninth largest Muslim population in the world.

Israel will become nearly a quarter Muslim. The Palestinian territories have one of the highest growth rates in the world.

Fractious Nigeria, where Christian-Muslim violence has left thousands dead in the past decade, will become a Muslim-majority country by 2030, the Pew Forum projects.

And two western European countries - France and Belgium - will become more than 10 percent Muslim. Sweden will hover just below that level, at 9.9 percent.

Iran, on the other hand, will see very slow growth. Iranian women have among the fewest children of anyone in the Muslim world. They use birth control at exactly the same rate as American women, 73 percent.

The Muslim share of the global population will rise primarily because of their relatively high birth rate, the large number of Muslims of childbearing age, and an increase in life expectancy in Muslim-majority countries, according to the report, "The Future of the Global Muslim Population."

Conversion will play relatively little part in the increase, the report anticipates. It says little data is available on conversion, but what little there is suggests Islam loses as many adherents via conversion as it gains."

While these are interesting facts, the report keeps things in perspective by comparing the growth to Christianity,
Despite the rapid growth of Islam, Christianity seems set to remain the biggest religion in the world for the next 20 years. There are currently more than 2 billion Christians - 30 to 35 percent of the global population - making it very unlikely that there will be fewer than 2.2 billion Christians in 2030.

"There is nothing in these numbers to indicate that in 2030 there would be more Muslims that Christians," Cooperman said.

In fact, both Christianity and Islam could be growing, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the whole, he pointed out.

"We don't want people to jump to the conclusion that if Islam is growing, everyone else is shrinking," he said. "Christianity and Islam could both be growing at the expense of other religions."

(you can read the entire article at World Muslim Population Doubling (CNN))

In terms of Texas, some sources report that there are 140,000 Muslims, making Texas the 8th largest Muslim population state in the Union. They are primarily concentrated in Houston (57,000), Dallas (30,000), Fort Worth (4,000), Austin (5,000), San Antonio (5,000), Arlington (3,000) and El Paso (1,500). Recently a Brownsville newspaper reported that in the Rio Grande Valley there are about 200 Sunni families who meet in four mosques: Brownsville, Edinburg, McAllen and Weslaco. Interestingly, the article states that Muslims in the Valley find it easy to interact with the Hispanic culture and that Hispanics seem to be attracted to Islam.

There are some who lump all Muslims into the category of extremists and/or terrorists, which is an uninformed opinion. Those who do so see all Muslims as the enemy and choose to either hate them or fear them (or both).

We must remember that God loves Muslims and that Jesus died for their sins too. We should be encouraged by the fact that many of them have come to faith in Christ through dreams, visions and the witness of faithful missionaries.

We can choose to see them as the enemy and launch a crusade against them. We can choose to ignore them with apathy as they continue to grow around us and die without Christ. Or we can be proactive about praying for their salvation and learn how to share our faith with them.

I have much to learn in this last aspect but I believe that I need to reflect on my role in helping to bring the gospel to Muslim peoples as an individual. I believe our church needs to do the same, with a very critical involvement of our Spanish ministry, and learning to network with other like-minded Christians.

In the meantime, join me in praying for: