Wes Jones is the New Life Station's Director of Follow Up Teaching.  Wes is also a veteran missionary who has shared the gospel message world-wide.  Most pertinent to this discussion, Wes and his family lived and worked for many years in the world's largest Islamic nation, Indonesia.

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• Defining Terms and Concepts
• The Bible and the Koran
• Common Misconceptions
• The Heart of Islam
• The Heart of Christianity
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Defining Terms and Concepts

Mike: Joining me now in the studio today is The New Life Station's Director of Follow-Up teaching, Dr. Wesley Jones. Wes, I appreciate your taking time to be with us.

Wes: Mike, it's a pleasure. KNLS provides such a great opportunity to talk to the people of the world, and that's why I'm happy to be here with you.

Mike: Well, today we want to begin a new series of discussions, Wes, and we very much appreciate your willingness to join us for this series of discussions. We are entitling it "A Christian view of Islam", a compassionate look at two of the world's great faiths, and you certainly are well qualified to address this issue, having lived and worked in the world's largest Islamic nation for many years.

Wes: I look forward to sharing some of these experiences, Mike, because Mrs. Jones and I have such great friendships in that part of the world, have such respect for the neighbors we enjoyed during that time, and so it is a compassionate look and we look forward to that.

Mike: We do want to stress that to both our Muslim friends and our Christian friends who may be listening. For our Muslim friends, we do not intend for this to be confrontational and for our Christian friends, we do not intend for this to provide them with ammunition, if you will, a club with which to beat their Muslim neighbors over the head with.

Wes: Well said, I just can't imagine anything being accomplished by that kind of spirit.

Mike: Wes, as we begin, it might be good for us to define some terms. In all faiths, there is a different terminology used that can cause misunderstanding as two faiths try to dialogue. Can you establish some definitions?

Wes: That's where so many of our problems begin, Mike, with that vocabulary. World religions, obviously include faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Christianity and Taoism. I'm not attempting to make a complete list. In university, we used to call that comparative religion. We consider it a bit of progress in communication that we no longer call "comparative religions", studies in which one is weighed against the other, but rather World Religions. In that way we try to understand the world view of other people.

Now to some of those terms: Islam means "the straight path", the path of surrender, and Muslims are the people who follow that straight path. Muslims see themselves as people who surrender to God. The strength of Islam comes from the prophet Muhammad, who is regarded by them as one of a long line of prophets going back to Adam, and including Jesus. The Koran is a holy book of Islam, and we will have to spend some time, Mike, talking about the Koran, as we surely will do. Surah is the word for chapter, so surah 10 is chapter 10 in the Koran, just to get out a little of the mechanics of the book early in our conversation.

Mike: Wes, let's do go on and talk about the Koran. Is the Koran the Bible of Islam?

Wes: Only loosely. The two, the Bible and the Koran, should not be compared, because the regard that Muslims have for the Koran as a holy book, is different, Mike, from the regard Christians have for the Bible as a book. Notice I just used the word" different", and I'm not qualifying that different view. It's just a different view. One should not put the Bible and the Koran on a balance scale and attempt to check them out against each other. The believers in each religion, Islam and Christianity, come at the two books from different directions.

Mike: You are saying then that, obviously, that the Christian's Bible is THE book. That's not the case with the Koran for Muslims?

Wes: It is the case. It is even more the case. In Islam, it is THE book. In Islam, the Koran is regarded as a holy object. For example, you would never find a Muslim writing in his Koran, and you would never find him letting it lie on the carpet by his chair, and you would never find him stacking it on the table with other books on top of it. It is regarded as a sacred object. The Christian, on the other hand, sees the Bible as a study tool, as an instrument of instruction, If you, Mike, are like most Christians, you use a highlighter, and you outline certain passages in scripture (that's certainly the way I do). That's not characteristic of Muslims. They would never do that with a Koran.

One time, while in Cairo, I was presented the most beautiful Koran I have ever seen, and it was presented to me with very, very careful dignity, and I tried to receive it in the same way. In that spirit, it would not be appropriate for one who is not a Muslim to walk into a bookstore in a Muslim country and simply say, "I want to buy a Koran", like we do when we are purchasing Bibles, and look through and decide which particular version that we wanted. That doesn't happen.

Mike: If I may ask, what is the Muslim's regard for the Bible? Can you tell us how they feel about the Christian holy book?

Wes: Certain parts of it they admire very, very much. Particularly the early history of the Bible. Most of the differences between Muslims and Christian in regard to the Bible has to do with interpretation. Maybe we'll have some time to talk about that kind of interpretation as we go along.

Mike: Wesley, can you see any benefit to a Christian engaging in a study of the Muslim faith or in studying the Koran?

Wes: Well, if he wants to be part of the real world, there's a great benefit. He should read the Koran, and he should read it respectfully, carefully, and he should study other Muslim literature. I began doing this when Mrs. Jones and I were moving to Indonesia to live in the world's largest Muslim nation (and that's what Indonesia is!). We were also going to live in the province of West Java, the area of Jakarta, which is the Muslim stronghold of the world's largest Muslim nation. For me, it was not a defensive practice, to read the Koran or to read about Islam. I just couldn't imagine myself fitting in that the life of the Province without knowing more about the people who are around us and their faith. As I read the Koran (and by the way, continue to do that), I find so many elements of that faith which I can respect and appreciate, and recommend that to everybody who wants to develop a truly well-rounded world view. After all, Islam is one of the world's great religions, in terms of population alone! About 1 billion of them, it's the fastest growing religions in the world, one of the fastest growing in the United States! We must not stick our heads in the sand, and just ignore that fact.

Yes, there are all kinds of advantages to studying the Koran . Maybe to say that another way, Mike, What does a Christian have to be afraid of? What does a Muslim have to be afraid of in reading about Buddhism? If our faith is meaningful to us, we shouldn't feel threatened by a compassionate look at somebody else's faith.

Mike: Wesley, thank you for that. And that's just exactly what we will be doing over the next several days. We appreciate your willingness to do this for us. In fact, before we end our time together today, it might be a good idea for you just to give our listening friends some idea of what to expect over the next couple of days as we talk further.

Wes: Under the heading of understanding one another, we will talk about perceptions. Communication people, Mike, understand that perceptions are often more powerful than realities, and we've got to work our way through some misconceptions, some perceptions that each religion has of the other, that is Islam and Christianity. We promise to do that without being one-sided.

We must talk about the intentions of the two revelations, that is, those revelations that are claimed for the Koran and those that are claimed for the Bible. What is the nature of those two revelations? And I do not intend to conceal at all the fact that I have a Christian agenda. I just want to do that and honor the integrity of my Muslim neighbors, and so I will certainly speak of my own faith. I will give the reasons why I choose to be a Christian rather than Buddhism or Islam or any other of the world religions.

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The Bible and the Koran

Mike: As we ended our time together yesterday, we were talking about how the two faiths look at their holy books, the Bible for Christians and the Koran for Muslims. Let's talk a bit more about that.

Wes: One of the ways to illustrate that, Mike, is the attitude toward translations. It's well known that Christians have and use many translations of the Bible. But let's just acknowledge the fact that is not problem free. We have many followers of Christ who jealously regard one translation or the other. So that is a problem area among Christians. Our desire, I believe, is to know the accuracy of the original manuscripts as written by 40 or so people as they were guided by God, from Moses to the beloved John of the book of Revelation.

Now, on the Muslim side, there is some debate among Muslims about whether the Koran can be translated or not; whether or not it is truly the Koran only when in the original. And in several countries of the world where we have either lived or visited, we have listened to the Koran being read in the Arabic in which it was originally written, whether understood or not. For me, that would be like listening to the Old Testament in Hebrew, so little of which I would understand.

Our listeners need to know that Koran are available in the bookstores in English, that it is no disrespect for them to go there and buy one. For example, there is a good translation by J.J. Arberry. These translations have footnotes and you can often buy them with commentaries, so if one who knows no Arabic is really interested in understanding the intent of Muslims, one can go to the bookstore and buy that English language Koran and study it for himself and therefore not be taking anybody else's opinion about what it says.

Mike: In the past and in other discussions, I have heard you suggest to people who are studying the Bible places where they might begin in their study of the Bible. Can you do that same thing for the Koran?

Wes: I cannot because of the way the Koran is arranged. The place to begin with the Koran is at the beginning because that is where the Shahaha is found, which is a really important element of the Muslim faith, which we are going to need to talk about - the declaration that there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet. Since that is the foundation of Islam, and it is the opening statement of the Koran, that is the place where one must begin.

Mike: Wes, let me ask you a bit about motives. Regardless what kind of nice titles we might place on this series of discussions, and in this case, we have subtitled this series "A Compassionate Look at Two of the World's Great Faiths", there may be some of our listening friends who wonder about our motives for this discussion.

Wes: That's certainly a fair question. As a Christian, I have no apologies for my confidence in Jesus Christ as my Savior and the gospel story. At the same time, I cannot imagine one who believes in Christ ignoring the feelings, the beliefs and convictions of other people. Jesus didn't do that. He came into a world that was confused with all kinds of disagreements, and he walked among people with great compassion himself. He listened to people. He did not just speak, he listened to people, and surely we ought to do that. If our motive is to teach one another -- and Mike, how can we stop short of that? -- If our motive is to teach one another, then we must treat one another with respect, with honor and with dignity. It is that for which I would appeal.

My motive? We were going to Indonesia, a couple of decades ago, specifically for the purpose of sharing the story of Christ. I knew in my heart of hearts that there was no way to do that without being a good citizen and a good neighbor myself. The very constitution of Indonesia allows that kind of personal freedom. it was with that in my heart, both the constitution of Indonesia and the example of Christ, that we went to share the good news about Jesus Christ by being good students of the culture. My motive now, with you, is parallel to that.

Mike: Something that you said earlier may illustrate how you managed to do that. This may not be something that you want to brag about, but certainly something by which I was impressed , and that is, by the time you finally left Indonesia, your language skills had gotten to the place where you were invited to enter a Muslim university.

Wes: Yes, that was in Bandung, Indonesia, the capital city of West Java. I would have loved to have done that. Personal circumstances required that we come back to North America, it's just one of those corners that one turns with a backwards look, and then must go forward. It would have been a thrill to have done that. Another thrill would be to enter the university in Cairo, Al Azar university in Cairo, Egypt. However, I probably am not qualified. You have to have a significant scholarship preparations before you admitted to El Azar. That would have been a great joy, too.

Mike: Wes, that certainly is a compliment to your language ability, your willingness to immerse yourself in that culture, and also an attitude that you took to your relationships that they would invite. I appreciate that attitude in you. There is a great deal of tension between these two great world faiths. That seems to have been exacerbated in the last couple of years, perhaps as many other things, just because the world has become such a small place. We are certainly hearing more and more often about these tensions. But Church burning has been in the news lately, in Indonesia itself. Certainly the situation in the former Yugoslavia and in certain of the former Russian republics, there has been a great deal of tension and violence.

Wes: Sorrowfully, these dreadful tensions exist Let's be specific. World Magazine for example, in the issue of the 9th of November 1996, reported these episodes of violence and Church burning in Indonesia. What bothers me, Mike, is that many people will read that lead story, and they will not keep reading. Before the report is complete, the Muslim leaders of Indonesia are apologizing because there are certain radical elements that have broken away from the spirit of the Indonesian constitution and the intent of Muslim leaders, and have attacked Christian places of worship. Let's not read and repeat the stories of violence without reading the apologies. We have done that for years with one another. We looked across an ocean and sort of taken an attitude, "Look at what THEY have done!" without seeing all of the account. Our perceptions of each other are just kind of bad. Christians in North America see Muslims only in a quick clip in the six o'clock news and Muslims in some parts of the world perhaps see Christianity only in terms of American foreign policy. We do talk loosely about a Christian nation, and therefore for Muslims, that means that whatever our Secretary of State does is an expression of Christianity. She does not intend that, and we do not intend that, but it's a perception. So let's not overlook those apologies that were made by Islamic and political leaders in Indonesia, and let's not overlook the fact that walls of misconception have arisen between us.

Mike: That seems an overwhelmingly important point, Wesley, this idea of perceptions and misconceptions about each other. I'd really like to ask you to talk to that a little bit more, maybe even some examples, perhaps personal examples from your own time interacting with that culture.

Wes: We saw some burned church buildings when we were in Indonesia, and were told that had been done by Muslims. Just recently, there was a story from Pakistan about Bibles that were gathered up in a certain village not far from Lahore and burned by Muslims. But the same news story said that before that, there were Christians who were taking Korans and tearing the pages out of them and trampling on them. This is chicken or egg stuff, I don't know which was first, but whichever was first, that's a shameful way for people to treat each other in the name of either religion. I cannot imagine Jesus treating someone else like that, and especially knowing a Muslim regards those pages as sacred pages. So that is where we are. These things get started, maybe they are like two brothers fighting with each other, and the parents trying to figure out who threw the first stone.

Wherever it gets started, you have spoken to the fact that our world has become so small, and you see, that is an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that to which you have referred. We do get into these squabbles; but the advantage is in the fact that we have so many more opportunities now, even by computer as well as by well circulated newspapers and news media that operate right on the spot to really know about each other and to look beyond the surface reports and find out what is going on.

Mike: Thanks you so much for the time you are spending with us.

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Common Misconceptions

Mike: We left off yesterday discovering some of the misconceptions, the very poor perceptions that these two great people, Muslims and Christians, have of each other. Can you talk a bit more about that?

Wes: We had begun with the example of some recent incidents in Indonesia and the failure to realize there were apologies from Muslim leaders that followed those incidents as there often is. We just jump to conclusions about each other, it seems to me Mike. That is not any more true of Muslims as it is Christians, or vice versa. If we get very emotional, our objectivity, our thoughtfulness disappears. Someone said to me one time, "You know, when a person is out of sight and you disagree with them, you begin to imagine that they grow horns, like Satan has." And that can happen.

In today's world where we have the opportunity to travel, to read about each other, to share each other's experiences, there is so little excuse for that type of prejudicial attitude in which we jump to these conclusions, and I hope your conversations and mine will contribute to a different attitude altogether in which we will learn from each other.

Mike: Wesley, talk to us some more about methods for our preventing a demonizing each other in this way.

Wes: If we find and magnify the incidents in which people are kind and gentle with each other, rather than dwelling on those in which people mistreat each other it will surely help. Here in North America, everybody equates the World Trade Center event in New York City with Muslims. That is irrational for me and I refuse to do that at all. The only reason Mike, is that I remember living next door to Muslims. I remember their attitude if a member of my family was ill, that they would show gentleness, I remember my five year old son at the age when we moved to Indonesia, playing in the streets with the Muslim children. I remember times when other groups, other than Muslims or Christians, became violent, Muslims would close ranks with us. It is such a different spirit than that of which we commonly think.

We know that there is terrible tension in the middle east. It is on our news nearly every day. There are people who do not behave as they should, they don't behave according to the ethics of their own religion. Muhammad, in the Koran, called for a non-violent state, and it is short-sighted of us and illogical of us to jump to conclusions that terrorism grows out of the Koran, and that there is religious justification for it. That simply is not an accurate concept.

Mike: You are quite right. We certainly have attributed actions of a few to and entire class or group inappropriately.

Wes: Now to be fair, Mike, to everybody, we must go ahead and say that Muslims have done that too.

Mike: That's what I was getting ready to ask. Do they have that same set of perceptions on the other side? Do they feel like there is something to fear from Christian people?

Wes: They, too, read the newspapers. They, too, see the televisions. And they have that same opportunity, and there are some of them that make the same mistakes. But let's stop and think about Northern Ireland, where we have two groups of Christians who have been fighting each other, blood-letting for decades. Now if we who are in North America look at the conflicts in the Muslim world, and say that is characteristic of Muslims, why shouldn't they look at Northern Ireland and say that is characteristic of Christians? You see, if they said that to us, we would say, "Oh, no, no, that is a small isolated segment of what the world calls Christianity." Well, they should say to us, they are saying to us, "The violence in the Middle East, or in other places in the world, represents a small segment." They would say to us, my friends in Indonesia say to me, "We are certainly not proud of Saddham Hussein. We think as little of him as North America does." They are not proud of Minister Farrakhan. They would say to us, "Let's please not choose radical people on each side and characterize them as representative of our religion.

And then, Muslims, Mike, remember the crusades. They can read history, too. Here, centuries ago, in the middle ages and before, there were Christians under banners of the cross, marching by the thousands, even sending children to their death, in order to defeat Muslims, and dislodge them, militarily. They can remember that. It is no more fair for them to remember that than for us to remember some of the things they do, and vice versa. But they are not representative of the heart and core. Mohammar Kadafi does not represent Islam, if you please. And there are radicals in Christianity that do not represent us.

Mike: Wouldn't it be fair to say, Wesley, that a lot of that, including several of the things you just mentioned as examples, has a great deal more to do with the exercise of power and economics, and politics and national will, that is, hidden behind a banner of religion?

Wes: It is fair to say that, and it has roots in the fact that many people of the world believe that government should be God-government. We have North American Christians who speak that way, that consider the United States a chosen nation, that God is the governor of this nation. We have many Muslims who speak of a theocracy in which God is the ruler, similar to what Christians read in the Old Testament. So it's difficult to separate those, if you start out with the assumption that government is of God. That is different from democracy, and it is different from autocracy and other forms of government in the world. Christians, as I understand Christianity, believe that God rules in individual hearts, and that is where his kingdom is, not on Capital Hill or at the White House. People on Capital Hill or at the White House may also refuse to let God rule in their hearts, but God does not rule this nation through an office in Washington, DC. If he rules us at all, it is because we, individually, choose to let his kingdom prevail in our hearts.

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The Heart of Islam

Mike: Wes, we do want to get down to the heart of this matter. Some of our listeners may have wondered, if they have been with us the last couple of days, whether or not we were perhaps circling this subject without addressing it directly. Let's do that now, and if you would, please tell us a bit more about the Muslims and their belief structure.

Wes: The very heart of Islam, Mike, is their belief that there is one God. The Koran begins with the affirmation that there is one God and that Muhammad is his prophet. Now what one God means to Muslims is that those of us who believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God are practicing a form of idolatry, because it appears to men that we have two Gods, and if the Holy Spirit is one, then we have three Gods. So in Islam, there is a great deal of emphasis upon the transcendence of God. The fact that he is one is a very special, special sense, and that there can be none other that is equal to him. For the Muslims, this concept is to be repeated in the mind, in the heart, continually. It is to be the controlling influence, the source of unity.

Now, the fact of the matter is, in Islam, there are different Muslim groups. There is no point in Christians pointing to Muslims and saying, "You are divided among yourselves." or Muslims pointing to Christian and saying, "You have your denominations." because that is just a reality in both groups. For example, there are Sunnis and there are Suffis and so there are mystery cults in Islam just as there is variety in Christianity. If a Muslim speaks on this subject, he will appeal, "Please hear us when we say that there is one God, and that his prophets speak for him. That is the source of our unity. The transcendent God with a message that comes to us through the prophets, Muhammad being the last of these prophets is the source of unity, and Muhammad's word is the final revelation.

Mike: Wes. let's continue to narrow the focus a little bit and get more specific about these beliefs. Christians certainly have their key concepts, as building blocks of their faith. Is that true for Islam, as well?

Wes: There are five of these in Islam. But once again, let me emphasize that everything flows from the Shahada, which is, THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, AND MUHAMMAD IS HIS PROPHET.

By the way, let's not get hung up on whether we say God or Allah. This is largely a matter of language. For example, the Indonesian New Testament, such a vital document in Christianity, reads like this, and whether anybody knows that language or not, they could still hear the word: "Karena begitu Kasih Allah akan dunia ini..." That is, "God so loved the world..." from the gospel of John 3:16, and there's the word 'Allah' in the Christian New Testament. So let's not get hung up on whether we are going to say God or Allah. Most Muslims in North America will just say God, because they know that communicates with us.

But, back to those five pillars. First is the Shahada, repeating that affirmation. Another is alms-giving. A third is prayer, five times a day. I think it would be interesting for most Christians to answer the question, "If you were teaching a Muslim what you believe, would you teach them to pray less than five times a day in order to become a Christian?" Just a passing thought.

The fourth is fasting. That is concentrated in the month of Ramadan , which is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. And most people may notice that doesn't come at the same time each year. It just keeps moving around, and the reason for that is because the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar. And so every month is even in length, and therefore would move on our calendar throughout the year. But the fasting is concentrated in the ninth month, the month of Ramadan. Then the final pillar of Islam is the journey to Mecca for those who can make that journey.

Mike: Many Christians find that idea of taking this journey to Mecca fascinating. We really don't have anything like that in the Christian faith. Certainly many Christians look forward to an opportunity to travel to the Holy Land at some point in their lives, but nothing like this journey to Mecca.

Wes: The nearest parallel that we have is going to Bethlehem where we believe Jesus was born or the New Testament says that he was. The fact of the matter is that most Muslims of the world could never afford such a journey. One of the things that is candidly resented is that tax money is spent on those journeys, but remember as we were saying the other day, if you live in a theocracy, that is not a problem, because it is under God's rule, and whatever the taxes are, is God's money anyway. So this is perception Christians must understand. Mecca of course is the birthplace of Muhammad, and that's the reason why Muslims want to go there, and celebrate at the Kahaba in Mecca. It is the fifth of the pillars of Islam.

Mike: Anything you can tell us about that visit, what happens when they are there? Again, understanding each other certainly helps us destroy some of these misconceptions we have about each other.

Wes: One of the things that changed in the recent world, Mike, is that now you can pick up a magazine or a book and you can see photographs of the millions of Muslims marching round and round the Kahaba in Mecca, and repeating the Shahada, and camping in the fringes of Mecca. There was a time when it might have been regarded as almost a sacred right, but modern media has ended that concept altogether. Now we just see the Muslims gathering there in this march around the Kahaba and this repetition of the Shahada.

Mike: I know that must be a very remarkable experience for any of our Muslim friends who might get to make that journey. A journey of a lifetime. Let's continue to focus in on this idea of a core of beliefs. It certainly is possible for a Christian to be able to say, "Here is the core of my faith." and to be able to state that in just a very few sentences. Is that possible for Muslims?

Wes: It is, and once again, it is the Shahada. They would say to us, "If you don't know anything else about what we believe, please remember that this is the core of our faith: "There is but one God, and Muhammad is his prophet." Everything else revolves around that and we are taught, they would say, for this to go over and over in our minds continually in all of life.

Mike: If you would, then, give us a statement of your own faith and tell us what the core of your Christian faith would be.

Wes: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." It's the famous golden text of the New Testament, John 3:16. That has to be the heart of my faith. I respectfully try to learn about the Shahada, and I ask my Muslim friends to please listen as I speak the core of my faith from John 3:16.

Mike: Well, has that experience helped you find any common ground between the two? I guess that's the difficult question here. Wes: It is a difficult question, but there is a common ground. Both of us, for example, accept Biblical history down to Abraham. The difficulty comes when Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and Christians usually regard themselves in the tradition of Isaac, and Muslims regard themselves in the tradition of Ishmael. Things become very, very difficult from there on, and I guess one of the small pieces of advice, if I could respectfully give my Christian friends one piece of advice. If you want to understand the roots of those tensions, go back to the Old Testament, and read the Isaac and Ishmael story and see the tension that was in the family. Just imagine that magnified by centuries of history, and that is exactly what is between us.

Mike: Good advice. I know that our listening friends will want to do that.

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The Heart of Christianity

Mike: As we finished yesterday, we were talking about some of the differences between these two great faiths. Let's continue with that now, if you would please.

Wes: I think no one would be surprised to hear me speak from my own heart as a Christian, to say that the most important difference between, not only Christianity and Islam, Mike, but Christianity and any other world religion, is Jesus Christ himself. I have spoken some of Jesus during this series, his compassion, his affection, the way that he honored people, I would like people to remember that the harshest criticism directed toward Jesus Christ is that he spent his time with what the world calls sinners, what we all are, and that he did that with compassion and attention. If there is someone listening now who wants to catch a capsule of that, let him read the Gospel according to Luke, chapter fifteen, and see that criticism at the beginning of the chapter, and that picture of Jesus Christ himself. The most important difference, in my humble opinion, of Christianity and Islam is the person of Jesus.

Mike: Wes, why do you say that, not only because of the Christian faith, what he means to our faith, but what does that say about the differences between these two faiths?

Wes: There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and raised from the grave. Any unbeliever in Christianity, who really wants to know what Christians are about, must consider that evidence, must weigh that evidence. It is not simply that it is an opinion in our hearts, but there is solid historical evidence for the life of Christ, for the death of Christ, and for the fact that Christ rose again, and for the kind of person he was. And just as I feel a responsibility to study the literature of Islam, I invite Muslims and others in the world who are not Christians to consider the evidence for the life of Christ and what he means to Christians.

Mike: Having lived and worked for so many years in the world's largest Islamic nation, tell us why it is that Muslims have such a hard time accepting that, if there is this overwhelming amount of historical evidence, and certainly the claims that he made for himself, why do they have so much trouble accepting that.

Wes: There are at least two reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with family history. This is kind of personal with me, Mike. I was raised a Christian, but when I have gone to these other areas of the world, I have had to ask myself, "Is that the reason I am a Christian, because somebody taught me when I was a child to be a Christian?" So my conscience has compelled me to re-examine that. So I understand that Muslims are brought up Muslims, and that this is a difficulty to overcome that. But entirely aside from that, there are two reasons why Muslims have difficulty with this. Number one is the idea that when Christians speak of God, the son, meaning Christ, or God, the Holy Spirit, Muslims honestly feel that we are presenting three Gods to the world, and that God is one as the Shahada says and that we therefore are guilty of idolatry.

I would love for all of my Muslim friends to know that I reject idolatry, I reject it outright! Therefore that is not my intention. I think the problem here is, "What does the word ONE mean? In what sense can God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit be one and three at the same time?" We have other illustrations of that. Marriage is perceived by Christians to be two people who become one. In John 17, Jesus said, "May all believers become one, as you and I, Father, become one. So that is where we must struggle with that question.

The second problem for the Muslim is this: If a Christian says that God has a son, Muslims feel as bringing God down to human level and making a sexual being out of Him. How can God have a son if he does not participate in procreation, and therefore, be like other human males are? Of course, that is not the sense in which Christians use the word "Son" at all. God has many sons and daughters throughout the world, and it is because their hearts belong to Him. Jesus Christ had a heart that belonged wholly to his Father. If I were recommending a New Testament section for someone to read on that, it would be the gospel of John, chapter eight. in which Jesus says among other things, "Before Abraham was, I am." And of course, I am is one of the ways of affirming the eternal nature of God. Those are the two main problems.

Mike: Wesley, just to take a little bit of the responsibility for these misunderstanding, if you will between these two great faiths, taking a little bit of that responsibility for ourselves, and what I hear you saying is, we have failed to explain our concept of the trinity properly and we have failed to explain the nature of Jesus Christ properly. How do we address that now?

Wes: I would agree with that, maybe with just one addendum. Maybe there needs to be more lives like Jesus and less explaining. It's powerful to see Jesus live in people's lives. I am not saying that words do not have any place, because Jesus himself was called "The Word" in John 1. But there is also a place for us to do as in John 13, when he took the towel and washed the disciples' feet. One way to characterize that paragraph, John 13, beginning in verse one, is to say, "He served before saying." He took action before he had any words to offer to others at all, and Christianity needs to be lived out in people's lives, above all else.

Mike: What else can we do?

Wes: We can help our Muslim friends in studying the Koran with them, to see that the miracle of the virgin birth is in the Koran. It is not something exclusive to the Bible. In our conversation, we need to be saying to one another, "What does it mean that this marvelous miracle occurred in which Jesus was born of Mary in Bethlehem?"

Mike: What do you mean when you say that is in the Koran? Are you saying that there is a passage in the Koran?

Wes: Absolutely! In which the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is described. When you build the life of Christ on that testimony, it is powerful and it is one of the things that we ought to be doing.

Mike: With so many years and decades of misunderstanding between these two faiths, is there any hope that we can hear each other?

Wes: May I offer a personal testimony? I remember walking along the streets of Alexandria, Egypt with my friends. One of my Egyptian friends knew a shopkeeper, and he took us into that shop and introduced us to this gentleman. He had a table set up in the back of this shop, a neat little place, and the shop keeper sat there at this table. And Mike, his table was covered with books about the Christian\Islamic dialogue. He was a wonderfully quiet spirited, intelligent man who was just ready to talk about this subject. One of the regrets I would have about that is that there were not endless days available on my air ticket where we could have just sat down and done that, because I believe from sunrise to sunset that he would have been open to that. And I offer him, a shopkeeper in Alexandria, Egypt, as testimony of the fact that people will listen to each other, and that this dialogue can continue, and that we can pray that it will be elevated to greater prominence than the terrorism reports are.

Mike: Yes, but certainly a whole lot easier on the personal level than it is on the group or national level.

Wes: Yes, it is. I had the privilege of visiting Tashkent, Uzbekistan, just after Glasnost had begun to have its way. There were five republics of the former Soviet Union that were organized in the Muslim manner with a general secretary. In Tashkent, I had the privilege of interviewing the general secretary. The interview, by the way, was in Uzbek, Russian and in English, so it a somewhat tedious process. I asked this question at the end. "What would you feel, sir, if Christians came to this area, and began broadcasting on radio from Tashkent?" And he smiled and said, "Christians have always treated us better that Communists." So I felt there was golden opportunity there, and I offer it as evidence today, that the dialogue can continue, and let us pray that it does.

Mike: What a wonderful story. What a wonderful set of discussions, Wesley. We appreciate you taking time to do this and sharing your many years of experience with us.

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