Exploring the mission of two communities. David W. Shenk examines Islam and Christianity at their deepest spiritual, cultural, and communal levels. Shenk explores the similarities and differences found in Isaac and Ishmael, Jesus and Muhammad, the Bible and the Qur'an, Jersusalem and Medina, and the Eucharist and the Hajj. 284 pages.

Islam and Christianity seem to be at opposite and unbridgeable poles, both committed to world mission. Given the political tension and violent acts that sometimes surround these two major world religions, it is essential for both sides to understand the other—its history, beliefs, traditions, and vision for the future.This invaluable resource from David W. Shenk, an expert in comparative religious studies, examines Islam and Christianity at their deepest spiritual, cultural, and communal levels. It explores the similarities, and yet unavoidable differences found in Isaac and Ishmael, Jesus and Muhammad, the Bible and the Qur’an, Jerusalem and Medina, the Eucharist and the Hajj, the Church and the Ummah. Reflecting years of conversations and dialogue with Muslim friends, this is narrative theology, full of anecdote and personal experience that bridges the poles and builds understanding. Part of the Christians Meeting Muslims series

Winner 2016 “Christianity Today Book Award” for Mission/Global Church catelogry. Can Christians and Muslims be friends? Real friends? Even in an era of intense religious conflict, David Shenk says yes. In Christian. Muslim. Friend., Shenk lays out twelve ways that Christians can form authentic relationships with Muslims—characterized by respect, hospitality, and candid dialogue—while still bearing witness to the Christ-centered commitments of their faith. Rooted in fifty years of friendship with Muslims in Somalia, Kenya, and the United States, this book will inspire readers with astounding stories of the author’s animated conversations with Muslim clerics, visits to countless mosques around the globe, and the pastors and imams who are working for peace. These tried and true paths offer a compelling resource with practical application for mission personnel, Sunday school classes, and Christians who meet people of Islamic faith in their communities. For a radio interview with David Shenk, which aired originally by Paul Ridgeway of KKMC Christian Talk radio, Twin Cities, Minn., click here and scroll to the bottom of the post

The Old Testament Roots of Nonviolence brings together a number of issues, showing how they fit together in one exciting story. These issues are: 1. War and Peace 2. The Great Commission (being missional) 3. Social justice and social change over time in the biblical setting This book reveals the continuity of the Old and New Testaments in the development of these three major themes over millenniums of time in the unfolding biblical story of God's creation, tough love, and redemption of the social order. It presents biblical faith as a providentially guided process in the community of faith resulting in global social change that can be observed and described as yeast in bread or seeds in soil as Jesus taught.

Discover God's Heart for Muslims: Investigate Islam through this positive and hopeful 640-page book. Encountering the World of Islam explores the Muslim world and God's plan for Muslims. Read from a collection of writings about the life of Muhammad, the history of Islamic civilization, Islamic beliefs, Muslims today, and the everyday lives of Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. Gain insight from 80 different practitioners into diverse Muslim cultures and worldviews as well as Christian outreach toward Muslims, our response to Islam, and prayer for the Muslim world. This book is used as the textbook for the Encountering the World of Islam course. Revised, updated, and expanded for 2014.Fifty-seven new articles, highlights, maps, and tables.Fully indexed and cross-referenced.Over 100 additional pages of free online articles at the companion website.Features: Reading Assignments: Each lesson includes an average of 35 pages of reading, plus additional articles online (available after free registration for access). Highlights: Brief readings focusing on specific topics of interest to the reader are found throughout the book, including: Concepts: Important biblical or cultural concepts the student should know.Outreach: Appropriate ways for reaching out to Muslims.People Groups: Overviews of the major ethnic Muslim affinity blocks, illustrated with descriptions of characteristic people groups from each block.Pray Now: Guides to praying for Muslims within each lesson.Quotes: Quotations from "the experts" illustrating important lesson points.Qur'an: Important verses and concepts from the Qur'an.Stories: Narrative accounts from the lives of Muslims and Muslim-background believers.Women: Specific issues that affect the lives of Muslim women.Ponder This: Introductory questions help set the mental stage for entering each lesson. Explore: Recommendations for deeper exploration of lesson topics. Discussion Questions: Application questions to use in class activities, provide ideas for forum postings, or simply serve as points for individual reflection. Learn More: Additional activities which may be assigned by your professor or completed just for fun, including reading, watching, praying, visiting, eating, listening, meeting, shopping, and browsing the internet. Glossary: Unfamiliar terms or concepts are cross-referenced and included in the 40-page glossary. Pronunciation Guide: Help with pronouncing non-English words found throughout the text. Common Word List: Key words that occur frequently throughout the book. Illustrations: 110 illustrations, maps, and tables. Index: Comprehensive and extensively cross-referenced topical index, as well as separate Bible and Qur'an indices. Bibliography: Complete, scholarly collection of the authors, readings, and highlights that appear in the book. Resources for teaching: Example lectures and PowerPoint presentations for the materials in Encountering the World of Islam are available in the Instructor Resources area of our companion website.

Islam, Peace and Social Justice examines the ways in which Islamic cultures have dealt with issues of social justice historically and culturally. With unwavering objectivity, the author helps readers of any faith to gain a nuanced and accurate understanding of the challenges that we face in contemporary multifaith engagements. Dr van Gorder offers a comprehensive and sympathetic Christian insight into Islam. The contentious issues of social justice that are encountered in this broad, yet intricate, studyinclude the concept of Jihad, poverty, political oppression, human rights, genocide, racism, sexual injustice, homophobia, and environmental degradation. The challenges are real and the problems are vast; partnerships and solutions must be found - peopleof faith, Muslim, Jewish and Christian, must find ways to work together to address these shared challenges. This work exposes misrepresentations and stereotypes about Islamic views of social justice that abound in Europe and North America. The author encourages a deeper appreciation of how themes of social justice resound through Islamic texts and have been expressed both in the contemporary and historical life of various and diverse Islamic communities worldwide.

The keystone of Christianity is Jesus's physical, bodily resurrection. Present-day scholars can be significantly challenged as they forage through voluminous documents on the resurrection of Jesus. The literature measures well over seven thousand sources in English-language books alone. This makes finding specific sources that are most relevant for specific scholarly purposes an arduous task. Even when a specific book is relevant, finding the parts of the book that are most relevant to the resurrection rather than other topics often requires additional effort. A Thematic Access-Oriented Bibliography of Jesus's Resurrection addresses these challenges in several ways. First, the bibliography organizes more than seven thousand English sources into twelve main categories and then thirty-four subcategories, which are designed to help you find the most relevant literature quickly and efficiently. Embedded are pro and con arguments which support efficient access through brief annotations and then annotate the diversity and complexity of the field of religion by including sources that represent a diverse range of views: theistic (e.g., Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.), agnostic, and nontheistic. The objective of this bibliography is to provide convenient access to relevant sources from a variety of perspectives, allowing you to browse or find the one source accurately and with ease.

This book examines the evolution of post-colonial African Studies through the eyes of Africanists from the Anabaptist (Mennonite and Church of the Brethren) community. The book chronicles the lives of twenty-two academics and practitioners whose work spans from the immediate post-colonial period in the 1960s to the present day, a period in which decolonization and development have dominated scholarly and practitioner debate. Reflecting the values and perspectives they shared with the Mennonite Central Committee and other church-sponsored organizations, the authors consider their own personal journeys and professional careers, the power of the prevailing scholarly paradigms they encountered, and the realities of post-colonial Africa. Coming initially from Anabaptist service programs, the authors ultimately made wider contributions to comparative religion, church leadership, literature, music, political science, history, anthropology, economics and banking, health and healing, public health, extension education, and community development. The personal histories and reflections of the authors provide an important glimpse into the intellectual and cultural perspectives that shaped the work of Africanist scholars and practitioners in the post-colonial period. The book reminds us that the work of every Africanist is shaped by their own life stories.

With the majority of the world's Christians now living in the non-Western world, Christian mission has become a global movement. The mission of Western Christianity now faces the challenge of laying aside the preeminence and privilege it has long enjoyed in global Christian mission, and embracing a new role of servanthood in weakness alongside its sisters and brothers from Asia, South America, and Africa. Such a transformation in historic patterns in mission requires not just new strategies and techniques, but a renewal of its spirituality. How can the spirituality of Western mission be renewed? By learning from those non-Western Christians whose lives on the margins reveal anew the One who emptied himself of the prerogatives of glory on the cross to serve humanity out of utter weakness. Learning from the Least invites you to a journey among Palestinian Christians to meet radical peacemakers who are making courageous decisions to reconcile with those who are customarily reckoned as enemies. Their radical servanthood out of weakness is a prophetic challenge to Western Christians, a call to lay aside the prerogatives of power and wealth, to question triumphal theologies, and to discover again the vulnerability of the way of the cross.

As experiences of suffering continue to influence the responses of identity groups in the midst of violent conflict, a way to harness their narratives, stories, memories, and myths in transformative and non-violent ways is needed. From Suffering to Solidarity explores the historical seeds of Mennonite peacebuilding approaches and their application in violent conflicts around the world. The authors in this book first draw out the experiences of Anabaptists and Mennonites from the sixteenth-century originsthrough to the present that have shaped their approaches to conflict transformation and inspired new generations of Mennonites to engage in relief, development, and peacebuilding to alleviate the suffering of others whose experiences today reflect those of their ancestors. Authors then explore the various peacebuilding approaches, methods, and initiatives that have emerged from this Mennonite narrative and its preservation and dissemination in subsequent generations. Finally, the book examines how this combined historical sensitivity and resulting peacebuilding theory and practice have been applied in violent conflicts around the world, noting both successes and challenges. Ultimately, From Suffering to Solidarity attempts to answer a question: How can arobust historical infrastructure be used to inspire empathetic solidarity with the Other and shape nonviolent ways of transforming conflict to thrust a stick in the spokes of the cycle of violence?