Understanding Judaism and Ministering to Jews (Resources)

A few links that might be helpful:

A BBC Religions and Ethics page on Judaism.

The Talmud and other Jewish texts are available on-line.

Chosen People Ministries offers practical suggestions on How to Present Messiah to Your Jewish Friend.

Ministering to Buddhists

At NAMB's World Religions Apologetics' site, they say this about witnessing to Buddhists:

1. Remember that Buddhists have several special interests:

• attempting to live according to the principles of the Eightfold Path
• escape from the suffering of endless life
• finding peace through meditation (common in American Buddhism)

2. Avoid terms such as "new birth," "rebirth," "regeneration," or "born again." Use alternatives such as "endless freedom from suffering, guilt, and sin," "new power for living a holy life," "promise of eternal good life without suffering," or "gift of unlimited merit."

3. Emphasize the uniqueness of Christ.

4. Focus on the gospel message and do not get distracted by details of Buddhist doctrine.

5. Understand Buddhist beliefs enough to discern weaknesses that can be used to make the gospel appealing (see "Bridges for Evangelizing Buddhists" and "Jesus and the Eightfold Path").

6. While using bridge concepts, be careful not to reduce Christian truth to a form of Buddhism. Buddhism has been good at accommodating other religions. Do not say "Buddhism is good, but Christianity is easier."

7. Share your own testimony, especially your freedom from guilt, assurance of heaven (no more pain), and personal relationship with Christ.

8. Prepare with prayer. Do not witness in your own strength.

OMF International also has some videos on Tibetan Buddhism and One Billion Wait (includes Buddhism Prayer Focus).

Understanding Buddhism (Resources)

From a January 2006 ReligionLink article:

Buddha, from the Sanskrit language, means "awakened" -- and in the United States today, Buddhism has come wide awake. Originally spread from Asia, Buddhism is now considered the fourth-largest religion in the United States. The ever-growing number of U.S. practitioners is estimated at 1.5 million or more. That growth is bringing awareness, influence and some contentious issues.

Some links to learn more about Buddhism:

• About Buddhism at The BigView.
• A BBC Religions and Ethics page on Buddhism.
• The United States Center for World Mission recommends OMF International's One Billion Wait website to understand Buddhism.
• A World Religions Index article on Buddhism by Pat Zukeran.

According to the Famous Adherents page, these are some "famous Buddhists": Orlando Bloom, Leonard Cohen, Richard Gere, Frank Herbert, Phil Jackson, George Lucas, Oliver Stone.

Perhaps this episode of the Simpsons explains something of its appeal. The "whatever makes you happy" approach is also noted by So You Wanna Convert to Buddhism:

There's a story told in Buddhist lore about a follower of another religion who went to the Buddha to try to convert him. The man was so impressed by the words of the Buddha that he decided to become a follower of the Buddha. Buddha said to him, "Make a proper investigation first." Notice that the Buddha did not proselytize aggressively, but suggested that people should take it or leave it according to their own personal assessment without relying on hearsay or mere tradition. So study as broadly as you need to and make up your own mind. Keep this story in mind as you read about Buddhism; it strongly exemplifies its core values of achieving your own internal happiness instead of blindly following the words of others.

World Religions and Heaven

Tonight ABC is airing Barbara Walters Special Heaven -- Where Is It? How Do We Get There? Here are a few quotes from the different views of heaven:

Catholic
"I always think of heaven as being a place where we won't have any troubles anymore. Heaven is a place where there will be peace and tranquility." - Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Buddhist
"[Heaven] is [the] best place to further develop the spiritual practice … for Buddhists the final goal is not just to reach there, but to become Buddha. [It's] not the end." - Dalai Lama

Muslim
"The real life is the next life … and based upon how we live this life, it determines where we shall be in the next. We are told we will be in comfortable homes, reclining on silk couches … so we're given the delights of sex, the delights of wine, the delights of food with all of their positive things without their negative aspects." - Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement

Jew
"For the past 2,000 years, most Jews believed that at death, the body and the soul separate, the body is interred and disintegrates in the earth, the soul goes off to be with God.... "At the end of days, God will resurrect bodies, will reunite body and soul, and the individual will come before God to account for his or her life." - Rabbi Neil Gillman, a professor of philosophy at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary

Atheist
"Heaven doesn't exist, hell doesn't exist. We weren't alive before we were born and we're not going to exist after we die. I'm not happy about the fact that that's the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more fulfilling now, because this is the only chance I have." - Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists.


Note: For those who want to know what the Bible says about heaven, I recommend Randy Alcorn's book Heaven as a resource guide. Here is also an article by Alcorn on Heaven: Our Certain Hope.

America's Number 1 Religion: Football

If College Football had a playoff system, might it look something like this (rankings are based on BCS standings):

Elite Eight
Tostitos FIESTA BOWL (Glendale, AZ - Jan. 1, 2007)
#1 Ohio State vs. #8 Boise State

AT&T COTTON BOWL (Dallas - Jan. 1, 2007)
#2 Florida vs. #7 Wisconsin

THE ROSE BOWL GAME, presented by Citi (Pasadena, CA - Jan. 1, 2007)
#3 Michigan vs. #6 Louisville

CAPITAL ONE BOWL (Orlando - Jan. 1, 2007)
#4 LSU vs. #5 USC

Final Four
FedEx ORANGE BOWL (Miami)
Winner of Tostitos Bowl vs. Winner of Capital One Bowl

Allstate SUGAR BOWL (New Orleans, LA)
Winner of Cotton Bowl vs. Winner of Rose Bowl

Championship
TOSTITOS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (Glendale, AZ)
Winner of Orange Bowl vs. Winner of Sugar Bowl

If they had this kind of setup, I think OSU, Florida, Michigan and USC would advance, with a OSU vs. Michigan final. What do you think?

Ministering to Hindus

Came across these Pointers on Witnessing to Hindus.

My Blog Collection: Book Feature

A few recent posts on John Owen's book Overcoming Sin and Temptation, edited by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic:

• Between Two Worlds: Reviews of "Overcoming Sin and Temptation"
• The Blue Fish Project: Say to Your Soul
• Reformation 21: Overcoming Sin and Temptation . . .
• Worship Matters: Sin and Temptation
• For His Renown: Overcoming Sin and Temptation: A Suggestion for Pastors
• Girl Talk: CJ's Gift Ideas for Guys
• NA Blog: John Owen and Justin Taylor
• NA Blog: Be killing sin or it will be killing you
• Kerux Noemata: How to Read John Owen – You Must Read Out Loud!

"Death of a Guru"

Tim Bahula is a missionary in Trinidad and Tobago, where there is a significant Hindu population. He posts an excerpt from Death of a Guru: The Story of Rabi Maharaj. Here's a very small excerpt of his excerpt:

During my third year in high school I experienced an increasingly deep inner conflict. My growing awareness of God as the Creator, separate and distinct from the universe He had made, contradicted the Hindu concept that god was everything, that the Creator and the Creation were one and the same. If there was only One Reality, then Brahman was evil as well as good, death as well as life, hatred as well as love. That made everything meaningless, life an absurdity. It was not easy to maintain both one's sanity and the view that good and evil, love and hate, life and death were One Reality.

Understanding Hinduism (Resources)

Hinduism is the world's third largest religion. Here are a few of the many resources on the Internet to help you to understand what Hinduism believes and teaches:

A World Religions Index article at LeaderU on Hinduism: A Christian Perspective by Rick Rood.

A BBC Religions and Ethics page on Hinduism.

For those who are interested in reading the Vedas, here is the text on-line.

There are four Vedas, the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. The Vedas are the primary texts of Hinduism. They also had a vast influence on Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, was composed about 1500 B.C., and codified about 600 B.C. It is unknown when it was finally committed to writing, but this probably was at some point after 300 B.C.

Sacred Texts of World Religions

The Internet Sacred Text Archive is "a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language."

Some Resources on Ministering to Muslims

Bethinking.org has three levels of material on Islamic studies. It includes seminar material on Outreach to Muslims.

Bruce Thomas has some thoughts on The Gospel for shame cultures: a paradigm shift. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not familiar with the so-called Camel method of outreach. Tom Ascol shares some concerns about it at the Founders Ministries Blog. If there are those familiar with it, please share your perspective.

A Pro-Life Editorial

It was an STR blog article where I first learned about the Carlton University Student Association's move to deny funding to a pro-life club (as an aside: I have to admit I was a bit irked by the broadly-brushed "Canada's Free Speech Phobia"). Anyway, there is an editorial in today's Windsor Star by Andrea Mrozek, "A pro-life stand is a pro-woman stand" (originally written for the Ottawa Citizen).

Here are the opening few paragraphs of what she wrote:

After a heated debate on campus and in the media, Carleton University's student association decided last week to limit the activity of pro-life groups on campus. Students spoke out in favour of freedom of speech or in favour of women's rights, but this is a false opposition.

There's no battle between feminists and freedom. Being pro-life is a distinctly pro-woman stand; it is only for a lack of freedom of speech in Canada today that the debate is rarely framed this way.

The abortion debate is only partly a question of rights. It is, more often, a question of life. With each repetition of "my body, my choice," women's rights to complete information, to intellectual integrity, to the scientific roots of life, furthermore to her own physical and mental health, are denied.

Without consideration for the status of the unborn fetus, there simply is no abortion debate. If the fetus is not a person, who cares? But if it is, then the Constitution applies, we are faced with competing rights and there are a number of other considerations that are admissible, one of which is the fetus's right to life, liberty and security of the person. But how many of us frame the debate this way?

Not many. In high school and university, in the media and the movies, almost everywhere a woman turns, women's rights are pitted against the pro-life position.

Witnessing to Muslims

Thabiti Anyabwile's profile says, "I was once a Muslim, and by God's grace I have been saved through faith in Jesus Christ." He has a series on things to do/say/etc. "when witnessing to Muslims."

• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Know the Gospel.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Renounce Fear.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Defend the Bible.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Get Personal.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Get to Jesus, part 1.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Get to Jesus, part 2.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Be Hospitable.
• When Witnessing to Muslims ... Remember...

Thabiti Anyabwile has also done an interview on The Gospel and Islam.

John Piper summarizes an illustration from that interview. The illustration concerns whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God under different names.

He said that we should picture two old classmates from college discussing a common friend from thirty years ago. They begin to wonder if they are talking about the same person. One of them is convinced they are, and the other keeps thinking this is not quite the way he remembers the friend. Finally, they decide to dig out an old yearbook and settle the issue. They open the book, and as soon as they see the picture of their classmate, one says, “No, that’s not who I am talking about.” So it was not the same person after all.

Mark said that Jesus, as he is revealed in the Bible, is the picture in the yearbook. When a Muslim and a Christian, who have been discussing whether they are worshiping the same God, look at God in the yearbook, it settles the matter: “No,” says the Muslim, “that’s not who I am talking about.”

But that is who the Christian is talking about. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” Jesus makes known the invisible God for us to see. In John 14:8, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” To this Jesus responded, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’” And Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

In other words, Jesus is the yearbook picture that settles the issue of who is worshiping the true God and who is not. If a worshiper of God does not see in Jesus Christ the person of his God, he does not worship God.

Understanding Islam (Resources)

Here are just a few of the many resources on the Internet to help you to understand what Muslims believe and teach:

A World Religions Index study of Islam by Parveen Singh.

Apologetics Index entry on Islam and Muslims.

A PBS-Frontline look at Muslims.

For those who are interested in reading the Qu'ran, here is an on-line version.

Islam and Islamic Study Resources is a comprehensive academic website on Islam.

Update: Thanks to Tim Bahula for pointing me to Joe Carter's Know Your Muslims: How to Distinguish Between Shia and Sunni.

Comparing World Religions

Here is a table from LeadershipU showing how six world religions view God, man, salvation, morals and worship.

What Are the World's Religions?

According to the website ReligiousTolerance.org there are twelve major world religions (each with over three million followers): Baha'i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Vodun (Voodoo). Of these, the five largest North American religions are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism.

Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, in their Handbook of Today's Religions, deal with Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism in their list of non-Christians religions.

They define religion as "that aspect of one's experience in which he attempts to live harmoniously with the power or powers he believes are controlling the world" (p. 11).

Are All Religions the Same?

Later this month I'll spend time looking at some of the distinctives of a few major religions. But for now here are several links that provide brief overviews of some differences between world religions. The basic point: All religions are not the same, and they cannot be all true.

Can All Religions Be True? (video clip) by William Lane Craig at LeeStrobel.com.

Connecting with the Divine by Marilyn Adamson at EveryStudent.com.

Aren’t all religions basically the same? at ChristianAnswers.net.

Religious Pluralism by Greg Koukl at STR.org.

World Religions and Inclusivism

Paul R. House, in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology article Biblical Theology and the Inclusivist Challenge, defines inclusivism as the belief "that there may be a second chance after death for those who have never heard the gospel, that salvation may be mediated through non-Christian religions, and that God’s loving nature precludes the possibility that a majority of the human race is headed for an eternal hell."

He goes on to argue:

If anything, Jesus’ preaching mission to his fellow Jews, the early church’s missionary efforts among Jews and gentiles alike, and the picture of final judgment offered in Revelation and other books necessitate the doctrine of salvation through specific faith in Christ alone while in this life. Whether ministering to polytheists or monotheists, the early church claimed that specific, cognizant, scriptural faith in Christ is the only way to eternal life. As for other religions, the New Testament uniformly considers continuing adherence to these faiths after hearing the gospel a serious barrier to a saving commitment to Christ.

Other articles in that issue are:
- Timothy K. Beougher, "Are All Doomed to Be Saved? The Rise of Modern Universalism."
- "'Misgivings' and 'Openness': A Dialog on Inclusivism Between R. Douglas Geivett and Clark Pinnock.
- Winfried Corduan, "Buddha, Shiva, and Mohammad: Theist Faith in Other Religions."
- The SBJT Forum, "Responses to the Inclusivist Challenge."

December Topic of the Month: World Religions

Every year our city hosts a "Carrousel of Nations." It reflects the wonderful ethnic diversity of Windsor. The same kind of multiculturalism exists through much of Canada. In many respects the nations have come to us. With this diversity comes many of the world's religions. What do we know about their beliefs? How can we effective share the gospel? The plan this month is to link to resources on some world religions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.

To start, here's a brief post I did last year about the different paradigms that govern people's lives. "If we are going to explain the gospel powerfully to other cultures, we have to learn to speak in the language of their paradigm."

Wasting Some Time

Michael Bells links to a set of tabs.

Which led me to make a joke about having the entire alphabet as tabs on the bar.

Which led to actually trying to do it. So far I have:

A - AeonsEdge (our church plant website)
B - Bloglines
G - Google
L- LibraryThing
M - Monergism
W - Wikipedia
Y - Yahoo

Any suggestions for the other letters of the alphabet? (they should be links that are useful)

Update:
I now have D (Directory of Open Access Journals), E (ESPN), I (Investopedia), N (9 Marks), P (Plaxo), R (Riverside Baptist Church), T (New York Times), U (Urbana), X (Xenos).

I still need: C, F, H, J, K, O, Q, S, V, Z.