Review of Miraculous Movements by Jerry Trousdale

 This is a story that more Christians need to know.  Even though the church has always interacted with Islam since the 7^th century, our interactions have rarely resulted in anything even remotely resembling a Jesus movement within that group.  But today, this is beginning to change in a small but not insignificant way.

  Despite the atrocities of a few, the chaos in the Middle-East, the “sabre rattling” rhetoric of unbalanced leaders, and the retrogressive policies of the Taliban, God’s Son Jesus Christ is reaching out to Muslims and drawing them in to a relationship with Himself.  So reports Jerry Trousdale, a pastor and Christian disciple-maker, in his book Miraculous Movements.  Admittedly, the majority of the stories in this book occur in sub-Saharan Africa as opposed to the heartlands of Islamic culture in the Middle East, but there is a significant movement happening in the world today where Muslims are being touched by Jesus and are leaving Islam to form their own communities of Christian faith.  This book outlines the experiences of many different missionaries (usually African) who have been called to reach out to Muslims.  Though the stories are diverse, they often start with key people in the Muslim community encountering Jesus in a dream and receiving instructions from Him to study more closely the Qu’ran’s passages about who He is, or sometimes a direct command to listen to a Christian teacher’s message.  Other stories feature a “power encounter” where the Gospel is preached and then confirmed with a undeniable miracle which opens the heart of the community to learn more about the Gospel.

The stories of this book are quite riveting and the claim is made that over 500,000 Muslim background believers have come to faith in this movement of God.  That might seem like an exaggerated claim, but in comparison to the world total of Muslims, this is a calling forth of holy remnant more than religious conquest.  Beyond the testimonies, I greatly appreciate the style of mission work that is being advocated in this work.  Instead of Gospel messages and a call to immediate conversion, missioners go out and tell stories to their listeners over a period of time that include the entire scope of the Bible from Creation to Christ.  The Bible is studied and discussed with an eye to the principle that “if this is a book from God, how should I respond and live by what I am learning?”  It is a longer, more holistic approach, but it results in disciples as opposed to merely converts.  While I’m not certain such an approach would work as well in our fast-paced, media saturated, and secularized culture, it seems to be well suited and bearing fruit in the regions it is being practiced in.  The author does advocate that Christians in the west not indulge in hatred of Muslims (even though the specter of terrorism is real) but rather devote themselves to intercessory prayer that this movement would increase and the Lord would call out more laborers into the harvest.  An exciting and informative read and truly an invitation to pray that is compelling.

Bombs in Boston and the Judgment of God by Chris White

The bombing of the Boston Marathon has once again brought up the discussion among Christians as to whether America is under the judgment of God and whether we should declare a call to prayer and fasting as found in the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles 7:14 “ if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  Such an idea was discussed recently in a column by Joseph Farah of World Net Daily and has been well received by many (read the article here: http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/day-of-prayer-earns-congressional-endorsement/?cat_orig=faith).  As a pastor and someone who preaches the Bible, I often struggle when this verse is rolled out in regards to America because it is definitely being used out of context and while the precept holds true, to the best of my knowledge our country does not have a covenant with God as Israel did and thus is not a promise.  In Chronicles there is only one time where the people actually did humble themselves and pray as prescribed here and God did relent in His judgment of them. But within a couple of generations the entire nation was taken into captivity by another nation (an ancient war technique in the near east) because God said the evil had gone too far and the repentance was too little.  So the very people with whom God directly made this promise were not spared the consequences of their actions at a certain point.

Despite my longstanding tradition of being a contrarian whenever I see an American flag and Cross get too close (it’s more of a knee-jerk reaction), I actually want to go on the record as endorsing a national day of prayer and fasting on 9/11/2013.  While I harbor no illusions or even wishes that America is God’s new chosen nation, there is no reason to believe God doesn’t specifically judge Gentile nations when they spin out of control with evil.  More important is that often God judges the real gods of these nations.  The great example of this is when God called the Ten Plagues on Egypt, each plague (flies, sores, frog, river turning to blood, darkened sun, etc) was actually a judgment on a different god in the Egyptian pantheon.

Our dear nation has too long abandoned the true God and has largely followed after the gods of Mars (war and power), Mammon (money), Mercury (merchandising), and Venus (beauty and sex).  What do we see before us in the headlines?  Our gods being destroyed by some unseen hand.  Despite the most advanced military we are bombed from within.  Our wealth is evaporating and can never keep up with our spending.  Even though we all have more stuff than we can ever use, we are all trained from childhood to consume to our full capacity and to be insatiable about it.  Personally, the very fact that Christmas decorations start appearing in stores right after 4^th of July is a judgment all its own!  We have gone from permitting sodomy in the privacy of one’s bedroom (as if that was ever a virtue to begin with) to making it an issue of marriage equity and civil justice.  We may not be under God’s judgment in a cataclysmic sense with the proverbial lightning bolts and earthquakes, but if within every sin there is the seed of its own punishment, we have sown to the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind and who knows where this will end.  Do we need to repent, pray and turn from our wicked ways as a nation?  Absolutely.  Will I be praying on 9/11? Ditto.  Will God heal our land if we do?  I honestly can’t say.  But I would hope “we the people” would be open to praying more and often for our nation.  Perhaps if we did that, flying the flag at half-mast would be a little less common.