Muslim imams and evangelical pastors camping together on a dude ranch in Texas?? Some kind of bizarre reality show coming to cable this Fall? Nope! It’s the real life work of Texas megachurch pastor Bob Roberts – who joins us on the podcast to describe his unlikely and somewhat controversial role as a bridge between conservative Christian leaders and their Muslim counterparts.
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Excellent pod cast. Emailing the link to friends. Thank you!
This was a thought-provoking episode, and I’ll take an examination of my views toward others because of it.
However… Why all the push on “fear” being the factor that causes some of us to not be friendly with the religion/world view that is Islam? Living in a small town in a relatively quiet global neighborhood, I don’t even have a personal fear of any harm coming to myself from potential militants (of any stripe); it isn’t fear that motivates me. Rather, I’m a big fan of the truth. The Way, the Truth, and the Life, in particular. At the very least, Islam teaches falsehood about Jesus. That really makes it an antithetical philosophy to Christianity.
I have had severe anxiety and panic attacks for 32 years; I am intimately acquainted with fear. As such, I can say with absolute certainty that fear doesn’t come into the mix at all.
If someone was telling lies about your spouse or even local pastor, how friendly would you be with them? Would you encourage them, even help them to tell those lies? Especially if those lies keep the listeners from getting help they really need.
Now, I’m not saying we should go out of our way to increase animosity, or even be inhospitable. However, there is a certain amount of those things present that we can’t really just brush off by eating barbecue and pretending it doesn’t bother us. (And if it really doesn’t bother us, then how loyal are we truly being to He who is supposed to be our first love?)
Like I said, I’ll reexamine my views, and I have already come to the conclusion that service-based missions work is the better way to go. However, I can’t find the Reverend Doctor Bob Robert’s way to be the correct way to go about the business. Not the way he explains it himself, at least.