The Religion Report: 16 January??2002? - Christian Jihad
Since their return to the US, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer have admitted that they were, in fact, spreading Christianity among their Afghani hosts, and it appears that their efforts were part of a concerted push by American evangelical groups to wage "spiritual warfare" against the unconverted followers of Mohammed - a campaign that has acquired a whole new set of meanings since September 11th.
Deborah Caldwell is the Senior Religion Producer at Belief.net, and she's been documenting this phenomenon for some time. She calls this military-style campaign a "Christian jihad", and from New York she's speaking with David Rutledge.
Deborah Caldwell: I think these groups are all in touch with each other in some way or another, I think the Internet has absolutely accelerated that. There are discussion groups that they can get on to - I mean, I ran across one website in which one man was basically acting like a broker, to help people smuggle The Jesus Film into Muslim countries, and he had set up some kind of network in which to do that, and he was connected with all of these various Christian groups. So, is there some kind of "Command Central"? No, but do they all know each other? Absolutely, yes.
David Rutledge: And Shelter Now estimate that they've distributed Christian material to some 334 million Muslims. Do you credit that claim?
Deborah Caldwell: To be honest with you, the guy I interviewed who gave me that figure was somewhat disappointed that they didn't have more missionaries overseas in Muslims countries, and that they hadn't evangelised more. So I actually think that the figure is probably pretty accurate. When they say "evangelise", the thing to keep in mind is that it's the "carpet-bombing" approach to evangelism. Because they count when they've given out a tract, when they've shared the Jesus story, when they've shown The Jesus Film - and they're relentless about this, so I think it's possible that if they can trek it into somebody's house somewhere out in the middle of nowhere and get a group of villagers to watch it, then they can tally that up as part of their total.
David Rutledge: They're also saying that the number of missionaries in Muslims countries has quadrupled since 1990.
Deborah Caldwell: Exactly. And that's because of a concerted effort; it actually has a millenarian streak to it, aiming at the year 2000. In 1989, a group of people got together and decided that they were going to try to spread the Good News by the year 2000, and they gave themselves this 10-year window in which to do it. And the Southern Baptist Convention got involved in this - that's the largest Protestant group in the United States, with 15 million members - they completely reconfigured their international mission in service of this goal. But I think that towards the end of the 1990s, it got more intense toward Islam and Muslims, because they began to see them more as a political threat.
David Rutledge: I've heard that there are seminary programs in the US devoted to training specifically for ministry to Muslims, is that right?
Deborah Caldwell: That's exactly right; there's a seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, that has such a program. And they try to do two things: they are (they say) training evangelical Christians to "understand" their Muslim neighbours, and in the United States, the number of Muslims is estimated as between 3 million and 8 million. It's definitely a growing group of people, and before September
