This second blog continues a series on the development of spiritual identity for Muslim background believers in Christ (MBBs). The first blog addressed the question, “Who am I?” By the mercy of God, MBBs, like myself, can confess with joy, “I am in Christ!”
This second blog entry deals with our second question, “Who are we?” To refresh, here are the five questions in numerical and then graphic form:
1. Who am I?
2. Who are we?
3. Who are you?
4. Who is he/she?
5. Who are they?
The Self-Identity Questions: Who are we?
Most MBBs have a group-oriented worldview. Muslim societies tend to feature collective decision-making rather than individualist decision-making. Furthermore, the global Muslim community, or umma, decided long ago that those who worship Jesus Christ are no longer Muslims; they are apostates.
For these reasons, new MBBs need to obtain a new group identity. The Bible provides guidance to meet this need. Indeed, a synonym for “the church” is “the body of Christ.” God grafts MBBs into the global church, giving them a new collective identity: we are the church; we are part of the body of Christ. Jesus is the Head of the Church; we are connected to Him just as parts of the physical body are connected to the head.
Many MBBs take consolation that the global church has been around even longer than the Islamic umma—about 600 years longer. In worshipping Jesus with other believers, MBBs can experience His presence in that unique, collective way. The Spirit of God binds the body of Christ together.
Pioneer mission contexts exist where no such Christo-centric identity nor group of believers has been established in that ethnic context. In such cases, local Muslims will have never heard of a worshipper of Christ within their own ethnic group. While this may seem daunting in Muslim contexts, the same challenge has existed in planting the church in any ethno-linguistic context over the past two millennia. Fortunately, things are changing. Recently I was taking an Uber ride in which my driver was a Somali Muslim. I asked him if there were any Somalis who had become Christians. Well-informed, he stated matter-of-factly that there were about 200 of them, according to his internet research! A generation ago, this would not have been the case. Among other groups, such as Iranians, the existence of MBBs is better known. Glory to “The Lord of the Breakthrough.”
MBBs are developing a love for God’s ekklesia, the Church. One could compare this love for the church to Jesus’ zeal for the Temple, which He called His “Father’s House.” After He cleansed the temple for the first time, “His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume Me” (John 2:17). Today we do not refer to a physical temple or sanctuary. Though some MBBs may meet in a church building, others may meet “underground” in homes. The house of God is the Church, which is the Body of Christ. It is a house of prayer for all nations. That is, believers offer prayers for people from all nations to come to Christ, who will then take their places in that multi-ethnic body of Christ.
God is grafting MBBs, a subset of global believers, into the Body of Christ. This does not suggest MBBs are homogeneous, or even monolithic. MBBs are remarkably diverse, and the children of MBBs, who are being raised to be Christo-centric may retain little or none of “Muslim-background” identity.
According to researcher Duane A. Miller, the collective identity as part of the Body of Christ is important to MBBs:
Among the CMB’s [Christians of Muslim background] I met…there is a clear consensus that belonging to a local church, being baptized and, with only possible exceptions when faced with danger, using the label Christian and rejecting the label Muslim are indeed what God and the Bible require. That is their point of view—theology done by the ex-Muslim Christian. The centrality of the Church in this theology is not up for debate because for them, apparently, the Church is seen as part of the Good News of God revealed in his Messiah. (emphases in original)[1]
In His incarnation, Jesus was “real” in His body. Jesus’ disciples saw Him walking on the water and thought it was a ghost (Matt 14:26). Yet, it was really Jesus—God in the flesh. Likewise, the Body of Christ must be real, not a façade. Most people live on a self-centered, shallow plane of face-saving and sin-concealing, but MBBs seek real life in the Body of Christ. The requires a healthy level of transparency by self-effacing leaders. The Body belongs to Christ and to no other. Jesus was not faking it, nor was He “playing games.” Jesus’ early disciples focused on their mission to glorify their Lord. Now the Lord has passed the torch to those of us who serve in the Muslim world.
Paul states it so clearly: “So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19-20).
Welcome, MBBs, to the body of Christ!
[1] Duane A. Miller, Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-Making among Ex-Muslim Christians. (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), 222.
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