The rising tide of Muslim converts to Christianity
By WARREN COLE SMITH
If you spend any time keeping up with the news, you know that radical Islam is a significant and destructive force in the world.
David Garrison, does not disagree with that assessment, but he says it’s only part of the story. There is also a revival in the Muslim world, Garrison says. He believes between 2 and 7 million former Muslims have converted to Christianity in the past two decades, and he has impressive research to back up his claim. He documents his findings in his book A Wind in the House of Islam.
Garrison has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and spent more than 25 years as a missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Missions Board. I had this conversation with Garrison in Atlanta at the recent International Christian Retail Show.
Many people, when they think of the Muslim world, feel discouraged by radical Islam. Your book has kind of a more hopeful message. What is it? Someone asked me the other day, “How do you interpret what’s going on in the world today in light of the Word of God?”
I think Romans 8:22 is a good key for us to see, when Paul says that we know that all of creation groans as in the travail of childbirth. That painful upheaval, all the trials, the violence that we see in the Muslim world hopefully are forbearers of new life that is taking place.
That’s what my book focuses on, not on the things we see in the news every day, which are all very true and very valid. I wouldn't want to sugarcoat any of that. It’s horrific, the things that are happening.
But I also want to give testimony to the fact that God is at work in the Muslim world, and, frankly, in ways that we’ve never seen before. [There is] more turning of Muslims to Christ than at any time in history.
http://www.worldmag.com/2014/07/the_rising_tide_of_muslim_converts_to_christianity
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