Nov 11 2009
Targeting Islam for Evangelization
While reading though the myriad of postings over on Facebook, a link to the chapter “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed” in Hilaire Belloc’s The Great Heresies was posted.
In there, Belloc hypothesizes that Islam (Mohammedanism as he called it in some instances) was not a new and/or pagan religion, but really another heresy of Catholicism. He points out how Islam started out with many Catholic tenets and how it became a heresy.
What was that heresy? It was a full denial of the Incarnation. He explains it as follows:
Mohammed did not merely take the first steps toward that denial, as the Arians and their followers had done; he advanced a clear affirmation, full and complete, against the whole doctrine of an incarnate God. He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether.
With that denial of the Incarnation went the whole sacramental structure. He refused to know anything of the Eucharist, with its Real Presence; he stopped the sacrifice of Mass, and therefore the institution of a special priesthood. In other words, he, like so many other lesser heresiarchs, founded his heresy on simplification.
He goes on in a lengthy discourse on the history of Islam and it waxing and waning power, but that is not a subject for this post.
I have read reports where a great number (Somewhere around 15, 000) of Muslims in France convert every year, especially to Catholicism. I hear the number is even greater in Africa and numbers in the millions worldwide. Here in the United States, there is no real statistics that I can find on how many convert, but I have a feeling that it may not be that many (at least to Catholicism)
What I believe is that we may be able use what Hilary Belloc termed the “heresies” of Islam as an Evangelization tool for the conversion of Muslims. I also believe that we can use the recent events such as the massacre at Ft. Hood and how Islam seems to be controlled by the radical Imams to portray Christianity in general and Catholicism particular and as an attractive alternative to Islam.
As I have pointed out in previous posts is that this evangelization must not include:
- Forcing people to convert
- Providing physical benefits in hopes that recipients will be open to listening
- Providing physical benefits only to those willing to listen
- Providing physical benefits only who convert
Also, as I have stated in the past, these evangelization efforts will fail if we do not live our lives according to the teaching of Our Lord and his Church. You have heard of the quote: “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words”. This means we If we do not live by example, our message will fall on deaf ears and we will probably fall on the sword of Islam.
