discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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42 Christian Mission
of Christianity disappeared from that country, except for one limestone monument.
At about the same time devastating losses occurred in North Africa and
the Middle East, causing historian Kenneth Scott Latourette to note that by
950, “Christianity was far less prominent in the total human scene than it had
been in A.D. 500.” 6 Two events caused this loss of prominence: One was the
sapping of the vitality of the Christian movement by repercussions from the
Roman Empire’s collapse and the other was the rise of Islam whose militancy
dealt Christianity some hard blows.
Filling the Power Vacuum
When the Roman Empire disintegrated under the weight of repeated Barbarian
invasions, the consequent collapse of civil institutions created a power
vacuum. The part of Christianity led by the bishop of Rome moved to fill that
vacuum. The church thus began wielding political as well as religious authority.
Sadly, in assuming political power, the church traded its prophetic voice for the
tasks of administering cities, collecting taxes, running prisons, defending borders,
and maintaining armies.
The Rise of Islam
In the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., Christians and Jews could be found
in trading caravans that traversed the Arabian peninsula. Through these travelers,
fragmentary information about the gospel reached a man in Mecca named
Muhammad. Muhammad was born in A.D. 570 and began having visions at the
age of 40. His “revelations,” which included snatches of biblical stories, were
eventually written down, becoming what is called the Qur’an. While the holy
books of Islam and Christianity appear to contain some of the same stories, the
narratives common to the Bible and the Qur’an differ in fundamental details.
For instance, in the Qur’an, Abraham’s chosen offspring is Ishmael rather than
Isaac. The Qur’an says it was Pharaoh’s wife who adopted Moses rather than
Pharaoh’s daughter (Sura 28:7-9). The Qur’an says that the Hebrews made a
golden calf at Mount Sinai at the suggestion of a mysterious Samaritan rather
than Aaron (Sura 20:85-87, 95-97). In the Qur’anic Sodom and Gomorrah
narrative, Abraham does not bargain with God about the number of righteous
people in the city; God simply tells Abraham what He is going to do (al-Hijr
15:15-60; Hud 11:74-75; al-’Ankabut 29:31-32). While the Qur’an calls Jesus a
prophet born of a virgin, it emphatically states that Jesus (or Isa) is not God incarnate
who is the Savior of the world (Sura 5:75-76; 4:171).
When Muhammad began preaching his new ideas to the animistic people
of Mecca, persecution broke out against him and those who had accepted him
as a prophet. In what Muslims call the Hijra (withdrawal), Muhammad escaped
to nearby Medina. After accumulating converts in Medina, Muhammad