Brent Neely reviews "Living among the Breakage"

Brent Neely has reviewed Miller's recently published book Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-making and ex-Muslim Christians. Here is a portion of the text:

I begin with a direct assessment. This is a fresh and compelling study in what is sure to be an increasingly important field. Miller has provided us with pioneering research in an emerging sector of World Christianity: the indigenous theology of Christians from a Muslim background. Miller deserves commendation for doing well a work that needed doing.  

[...] 

A key contribution of this study, then, is to elicit, search out, analyze, and order the “theology” being produced by these new groups of believers in Christ. The point is not that these CMB communities feature “professional theologians” or the publication of formal theological texts. No, rather, the point is that in reality the CMBs are “working out their faith” in practice, in church life, and in various forms of communication from popular-level books to online poetry. Thought, talk, and action about God (or even “for” God) constitute “theology.” 

Read the complete review which appeared in the International Journal of Pentecostal Missiology.

Bill Rhea's review of Houck's 'Epidemic'

We are happy to announce our first paper of 2016, a critical review and analysis of Russ Houck's  2012 book Epidemic: The Infected Roots of Judaism and Christianity.

Here is the abstract:

William Rhea reviews Epidemic: Examining the Infected Roots of Judaism and Christianity, by Russ Houck. Houck’s book proposes that both Judaism and Christianity have fundamentally misunderstood their own religious texts. Christianity, in particular, is profoundly mistaken in regarding Jesus as fully divine and the Second Person in the Trinity. For these failings, Houck blames Constantine. Rhea responds by examining the biblical development of early Christology as well as the history behind the events at the Council of Nicaea. He seeks to demonstrate a fundamental continuity between the early church’s worship of the enthroned Jesus and the confession of Nicaea, as well as the futility of divorcing the Bible from the religions of which it is inseparably a part. 

Click here to download the PDF of this Mary's Well Occasional Paper by William J. Rhea.

Mary's Well Occasional Paper: Alex Miller reviews Khalad Hussain's Against the Grain

For our first Mary's Well Occasional Paper of 2015 we have a review by Duane Alexander Miller of Khalad Hussain's conversion narrative Against the Grain (Xlibris 2012, 218 pages).

We wish to extend thanks to Dr. Edwin Zehner of Walailak University for serving as the guest editor of this essay.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

In the past ten years there has been a significant increase in the number of conversion narratives from Islam to Christianity (and vice versa).[1] In this volume, Kashmiri convert Khalad Hussain makes his own contribution to this growing body of literature. My own doctoral work[2] through the University of Edinburgh lead me to delve deeply into the literature of converts from Islam to Christianity. This included an analytical article on Saiid Rabiipour’s Farewell to Islam (2009), published as ‘”It is okay to question Allah”: the theology of freedomof Saiid Rabiipour, a Christian ex-Muslims.’[3] As with most articles I publish I shared this on my professional blog,[4] and it was by this means that Mr. Hussain contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in reviewing his own autobiography. 

The book begins with a depiction of the bucolic life led by his family in his hometown in the Mirpur region of Pakistani Kashmir. We are told about everything from schooling to agriculture to gender relations. Many native terms and words are shared with the readers in this section (and throughout the whole book). The author takes pain to translate customs and practices for the Western portion of his audience. The author also presents us with a number of questions about Islam that occurred to him (in retrospect, at least). For example, how could it be ethical that the Sikhs and Hindus were forced out of Pakistan at the time of independence? (p. 20) Why were women inferior to men? (p.  32) 

Click HERE to download the review essay. 

Key Words: religious conversion, Kashmir, Pakistan, autobiography, ex-Muslim, Pakistani diaspora

---

[1] For instance David Nasser’s Jumping through Fires (Baker, 2009), The Imam’s Daughter by Hannah Shah (Zondervan, 2012), I was a Minister in the Nation of Islam by Alexis Johnson (Winepress, 2009), Son of Hamas by Mosab Yousef (Tyndale, 2011) and Farewell to Islam by Saiid Rabiipour (Xulon, 2009).

[2] The doctoral thesis is Living among the Breakage: ContextualTheology-making and ex-Muslim Christians (2014). A link to the PDF can be found at nazsem.blogspot.com/2014/02/doctoral-thesis-of-duane-alexander.html (accessed 16 July 2014).

[3] In Mary’s Well Occasional Papers 1(4), 1-13. www.nazarethseminary.org/datadir/en-events/ev91/files/MWOP_Miller_Duane_on_Saiid_Rabiipour.pdf. (Accessed 16 July 2014).

[4] Duanemiller.wordpress.com. Other book reviews by this author can be found there and at his academia.edu page.

Alex Miller reviews Garrison's 'A Wind in the House of Islam'

A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review of A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison (WIGtake Resources, 2014)

David Garrison is considered to be one of the most competent researchers among evangelical Christians interested in the global dynamics of world Christianity. In this book he investigates the significant number of new movements of people from Islam to Christ. He does this by dividing the house of Islam (and that is a technical term, Dar al Islam) into nine ‘rooms’, each corresponding to a defined region in the Muslim world, like the Arab room, the Persian room, and so on. Most of this book consists of these nine chapters wherein Garrison provides anecdotes and trends he identifies in those ‘rooms’. He also often tries to include the story of how this or that movement was initiated.

This book is concerned with movements, not individual converts, and this is precisely what makes it so valuable and important. There are plenty of books about why individual Muslims convert to Christ, and there are works that treat specific facets of this or that movement to Christ, but this is the first book to summarize on a global level what some movements in the nine rooms of the house of Islam look like.

Garrison is a serious researcher and knows the ins and outs of research in the social sciences. That having been said, readers who are looking for a detailed study with place names will often be disappointed. There is no way to get around these limitations though when it comes to research among apostates in the Muslim world. That something novel is happening among Muslims is incontrovertible, namely that more than ever before in history are converting to Christ.
Garrison writes that his historical investigation led him to the following figures: Through the 18th Century there were no movements, in the 19th Century there were two, in the 20th Century there were eleven, and so far in the 21st Century he has identified 69 movements.

Many of his findings confirm findings from previous research: Muslims are attracted to the love of Christ as portrayed in the Bible and by Christians; security and persecution are real problems; Internet and satellite TV have played a huge role; Bible translation has been important, and so on. Garrison summarizes these and other findings in the last section of the book, while also noting that Islam itself has played a role in driving Muslims away from itself in a number of ways: Muhammad’s questionable treatment of women and non-Muslims, disappointment with the Qur’an, inter-Muslim violence, etc.

I can point to two weaknesses in this book, only one of them major. The first one is related to sources. Considering this is the first major book on this topic, the inclusion of more sources is desirable. This book really is written in a popular, and not scholarly level. That is not meant as an insult, but it limits its value for scholars. Perhaps the best way to address this would be to issue a lengthier academic book based on the same research.

Garrison’s references to medieval history represent the main failure of this book. He is clearly not aware of recent research elucidating what the medieval inquisitions were (and were not) and also the Crusades., which could have been written in 1900. When he speaks of the ‘atrocities’ of the Crusaders one might get the impression that these soldiers were exceptionally brutal or merciless. Wrong. For truly outstanding brutality one must look at the Muslim ruler and leader Baybars. And regarding the inquisitions, they took place before civil courts convened and were charged with gathering evidence, the same as our contemporary inquests. Contemporaries were sometimes critical of the inquisitors for not being more zealous in using torture, and a large majority of inquisitions were resolved with no punishment for the person under investigation. And finally, inquisitions were undertaken to investigate Christian heresy, and so Muslims and Jews could not be investigated by an inquisition, that is unless they claimed they had converted to Christianity, but in fact kept teaching aspects of Islam/Judaism contrary to the Christian faith.

One unresolved question was in relation to his rooms in the house of Islam: South America has a small but well-established Muslim population in the country of Guyana. At 7% Muslim, it is the most Islamic country in the Americas. Is there no movement there? Or should this (small) room be added? 

Aside from this grievous mistreatment of medieval history, the book has much to commend it. In relation to the so-called insider movements Garrison handles the issue carefully and responsibly, sticking to description and not offering one particular case as exemplary or ideal. Garrison also manages to appreciate the limited context of previous generations of missionaries and indigenous Christians. It is all to easy to criticize the early missionaries in, say, the Ottoman Empire for not evangelizing Muslims, and sometimes those criticisms are fair, but as Garrison understands sometimes there was no possibility for this sort of witness. The same applies to indigenous Christians who century after century resisted the lure of escaping dhimmitude and the jizya (poll tax) by conversion to Islam. One can hope that this book will also be the final nail in the coffin of the C-scale, a tool which so over-simplifies complex concepts like ‘culture’ and ‘form’ to make it less than useful.

Garrison concludes his book with some practical ways that his readers can, if they wish to do so, be part of these various movements from Islam to Christ, though he is rightly clear in explaining that even with all these movements we are talking about fewer than .5% of Muslims world-wide converting to Christ. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter make it ideal for a reading group or prayer group, perhaps used with the recent edition of Operation World.

Reviewed by Dr. Alexander Miller 

Lecturer in Theology and Church History

Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary

(This review was originally published in St Francis Magazine, July 2014.) View all Dr. Miller's reviews

Review: Kathryn Kraft's 'Searching for Heaven in the Real World'

Searching for Heaven in the Real World: A Sociological Discussion of Conversion in the Arab World by Kathryn Ann Kraft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kathryn Kraft’s book is a study of groups of converts from Islam to Christianity in Egypt and Lebanon. Working in the field of sociology of religion, she attempts to analyse and understand the consequences of the decision to leave Islam and embrace a Christian faith. (Why the indefinite article? This is never explained but I’m certain this is not the way that converts speak of their faith.)

Her intent is clearly explained on page 16: After telling us, at some length, about her methodology and research experience, she will utilize two Islamic doctrines, tawhiid and umma, to “explore the lives, cultures and values of converts from an Arab, Muslim background.” She does this by treating a number of idealized topics (hence the word “heaven” in the title): the perfect researcher, perfect unity (tawhiid), perfect community (Umma), perfect dream, perfect believer and a perfect identity. A recurring theme is that these converts (and it is good that she uses the correct word here—convert) have a vision and hope for something in converting to Christianity that they do not ultimately achieve. In making the dangerous and difficult move of converting they are hoping for heaven on earth, but in fact meet with disappointment on multiple levels. They are disappointed by churches that don’t welcome them, by missionaries who are overbearing or pastors who are disconnected, they are alienated from their (Muslim) families and nations, they are disappointed by the intolerance of Islamic law, and so on (anomie is the technical term which Kraft uses to summarize this state).

That Kraft is frank about the difficulties faced by Christians from a Muslim background is refreshing. Much of the material that exists about these converts tends to lionize them and portray them as having faith to move mountains and standing up under persecution like Polycarp or Perpetua. This does indeed happen sometimes, but Kraft’s exploration of the other side of the coin is welcome, even if at times the “anomie” of these “deviant persons” tends to overpower the equally genuine truth that these converts often have a powerful and refreshing sense of hope and love which they had not experienced in Islam.

Kraft is able to explore some new territory in relation to these converts. How do converts manage the question of self-identity in a country like Egypt where they cannot legally change their religion from Muslim to Christian? How do they relate to their families? What are the effects of leaving a structured diin like Islam, with set fasts, pray times, a manner of chanting the Qur’an, for evangelicalish Christianity (mostly), which tends to eschew such structure and (blandly, perhaps) encourages people to simple pray to God whatever is “on their heart”? Also welcome is Kraft’s willingness to acknowledge the complexity of the convert identity, and her treatment in Chapter 7 of various strategies used by converts to figure out how to live as Christians from a Muslim background is nuanced and does not oversimplify the topic. In engaging with the question of identity she is following in the footsteps of Seppo Syrjanen who composed the first sociological case study of converts from Islam to Christianity.

There are problems with the book, however. At times it was not clear to me whose voice was speaking: the convert’s, or hers? Some sections had a wealth of quotations from her sources which were helpful and welcome, but at other times one could go for pages reading the author’s analysis on some facet of conversion life without reading a single quotation from the sources themselves. This does not mean that her conclusions are false, my own research among converts (Arabs and Iranians, mostly) actually tends to back up most of her points. But there are sections where allowing the voices of the researched subjects to be present before going on to analyse them would improve the reading experience.

As to the methodology and her own reflection on herself as a researcher (the end of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2), I am ambivalent. Students doing scholarship among MBB’s in the Muslim world, and especially the Arab world, will find this lengthy section helpful and indeed may well want to use it as a template for their own methodology section. Comaprisons to nuns leaving the convent may warm the heart of anthropologists, but add nothing to the book. Readers who simply want to know about the converts from Islam may well want to skip her chapter on “the perfect researcher”.

Perhaps the most difficult decision to make in relation to field research is related to how to analyse the data. After weeks, months or years of interviews, e-mails, conversations, visiting churches and hearing sermons and songs—one must figure out how to go about identifying what stays in and what stays out, what is worth exploring more and what is not, what gets a whole chapter in the thesis, and what gets a paragraph or an appendix or is simply saved for future articles. It is at this point that

Kraft makes her most puzzling move by choosing two Islamic concepts: tawhiid and Umma. Kraft has claimed that she wants to let the converts speak on their own terms, using their own ideas, and not impose ad extra her own presuppositions. So why would she choose these two concepts? The question is never answered in her book.

The author overestimates, I think, the significance of tawhiid, which refers to the monadic monotheism of God’s essence in Islamic theology. Kraft believes that this tawhiid is refracted onto the life of the Muslim by creating a unified and integral way of life. For instance, tawhiid would resist the idea that secular order and religious order should be separated from each other. And so, she appears to believe, in leaving Islam converts are hungering for this same sort of integrated life and identity they had experienced (maybe?) in Islam, but become disappointed when this dream of heaven on earth is not fulfilled in Christianity.

The implication is that there is something special about Islam, because of tawhiid, that makes the Muslim (and ex-Muslim) hunger for a well-integrated life and identity that is not present in other societies. This is a problematic claim. Is it not more likely that modernity tends towards compartmentalized, fragmented identities, and that the normal way to be human, including for non-modern Christians, is to desire and perhaps attain such an integrated life? This position has been argued extensively by Peter Berger in his book, Facing Up To Modernity: Excursions In Society, Politics, And Religion. According to him, Modernity has created five key problems. One, abstraction: this is related to the mass state and media, and the rise of the Machine, and the destruction of what have been historically integrated communities (71, 72). Two, futurity—as children of Modernity are always focusing on the future and not the present or the past. Three, individuation: entailing the separation of the individual from the collective, which has led to greater anomie. Four, liberation: people have liberty to choose who or what they will be, but that liberty may convert itself into being forced to choose, and thus become oppressive, this experiencing of being forced to choose is called the heretical imperative. Five, there is secularization: “Modernization has brought with it a massive threat to the plausibility of religious belief and experience” (78).

One could ask similar questions about the concept of the Umma. Are we to believe that the desire to belong to a close-knit and united community is particular to Islam? Is it not in fact particular to many forms of Christianity throughout history (if not evangelicalism today)? In other words, it is not Islam that is different here, it is modernity that is bizarre and novel in its willingness to fracture and compartmentalize facets of the human life, and while not all Christianity is the fruit of modernity, evangelicalism certainly is.

Kraft’s choice of two concepts from Islam, a religion which her converts claim to have left, to explain how Christians live is the most problematic and puzzling aspect of this book. In spite of this over-reliance on the explanatory power of tawhiid and Umma, her analisys actually succeeds quite well. I just wish she would have used different words to treat the topic. After all, the chapter on tawhiid is very much about relationships, and the chapter on Umma about community. Simply acknowledging that relationships and community are integral aspects of what it means to be human—whether one is Christian or Muslim—and that the convert’s life cannot be examined without treating the two topics would have sufficed.

The book’s conclusion (the final chapter) is its strongest note, with Kraft briefly explaining the next frontier of exploration in relation to Christians from a Muslim background: the second generation. How converts raise their children in societies like Egypt where the extended family is Muslim and the child is, according to the dictates of the shari’a, by necessity Muslim and must be taught Islam in school—these topics are completely unresearched to my knowledge.

Kraft has provided us with a valuable book, one of the only ones in existence about converts from Islam to Christianity. Her sober treatment of the difficulties they face and the complexity of their strategies in negotiating identity and relationships outweighs any deficiencies on might identify, and mean that, without a doubt, this book will be indispensable reading for any scholar researching similar converts.

Reviewed by Duane Alexander Miller, NETS Book Reviews, October 2013

View all my reviews

You may also download the PDF of the review here.

Book Review of "A Muslim who became a Christian: The Story of John Avetaranian"

Alex Miller has recently published a book review of the following book:

A Muslim who became a Christian: The Story of John Avetaranian (born Muhammad Shukri Effendi), second edition, by John Avetaranian, translated by John Bechard (Sandy, UK: AuthorsOnline 2003)

Here is a section of the review:

Born Muhammad Shukri Efendi, as the complete title indicates, this writer and subject of the book lived from 1861 through 1919. Born into the prestigious Ottoman effendi class, Shukri was a descendent of the Prophet himself. He spent much of his early years traveling around with his odd and peripatetic father—a mystic who could not settle down. 

The review of this book has recently been published in the International Journal of Frontier Missiology, Vol 30:1, Spring 2013. The review can be downloaded from their website. 

NETS Book Review: Rhodes reviews Benedict XVI

Book Review:

Jesus of Nazareth: The InfancyNarratives

By Pope Benedict XVI

Trans. Philip J. Whitmore (New York: Image, 2012) 132 pgs. $20.00

Reviewed by D. Bryan Rhodes

Of all the tensions between Catholics and Protestants, the issue of biblical literacy among the laymen continues to enjoy attention and interest, especially in a post-Vatican II context. Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth series makes a remarkable contribution to that very concern. It represents the former pontiff’s attempt to make the Holy Scriptures more accessible to his flock throughout the world. This third and final installment of that series focuses on the earliest years of the life of Christ, as told in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is Benedict’s latest effort to bring the best of Roman Catholic scholarship from the Vatican mountaintop to the worldwide village below. The book is primarily an exegesis of the infancy narratives, written “…to help many people on their path toward and alongside Jesus.” [...]

Read the whole review and download the PDF HERE.

Review of "I was a Minister in the Nation of Islam" by Alexis Johnson

I Was a Minister in the Nation of Islam by Alexis Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed by Duane Alexander Miller

Nazareth Seminary, Israel

I have read many books by ex-Muslims over the years, as religious conversion from Islam to Christianity is one of my main areas of academic research. But I had never happened across a book quite like this.

First, I did not realize how different and heterodox the Nation of Islam (NOI) is. The most interesting aspect of the book for me was learning about the NOI and what I found to be frankly bizarre stories about its founding figures. I would have liked some more quotations directly from NOI sources, but I always say this about conversion narratives. I want to read a well-documented, properly researched treatise, the convert wants to tell their story.

Second, the main purpose of the author in this book is clearly to warn American churches and Christians and black people against what he sees as the propaganda of the NOI and specifically Louis Farrakhan. He spends a good amount of the book explaining why, in his opinion, the NOI and Minister Farrakhan are not what they appear.

Another goal of his is to offer a salvation that is not based on race or ethnicity. The universality of the offer of salvation in Christianity is balanced by a very real awareness of injustices suffered by black and brown Americans, and the sometimes patronizing (if well-intentioned) behavior of white Christians. Thus he avoids the trope of self-victimization while also not ignoring the reality of racial injustice in the past and the present.

Strengths are the material on the founder of the NOI and the rather graphic and gritty description of his life in the drug trade before his conversion to the NOI. Weaknesses are his lack of sourcing his material (sometimes) and a rather disjointed final chapter.

People interested in the Nation of Islam, racial relations and religious conversion will find this engaging and well-crafted book of interest.


View all my reviews                 View all my articles