George Rebane

Christians are taught that one of their most important tasks in life is to win people over to Christ and the Gospel; it is called the Great Commission.  The preferred method to accomplish this has been for Christians to proselytize their religion as far and wide as possible.  Islam is among the few religions that also exhort their adherents to extend their belief system.  When expanding territorial hegemony is an added objective, this makes a lot of sense.  Today, most religions are satisfied to perpetuate their beliefs within the cultures and communities in which they arose.

After services today we picked up our church’s monthly bulletin and read about several of the missionary efforts that our church supports around the world.  I have had mixed feelings about sending Christian missionaries to distant lands, especially lands that are poor and hostile to Christianity, and hostile to western civilization in general.  In the bulletin we read about a couple from our church that is preparing to depart for Morocco this summer.  They will preach the Gospel to the Muslims, and attempt to win hearts and minds for Christ.

In preparation for their mission they are practicing (I don’t know another word for it) on local Sacramento area Muslims.  Our church membership is being asked to support their Moroccan sojourn through our wallets and prayers.  It will cost a lot more to save a soul in Morocco than in nearby Sacramento.

Being of the utilitarian bent, Jo Ann and I started reviewing again the plusses and minuses of such an undertaking as we munched on our after-church breakfast at Ihop.  What kind of utility is served by such an enterprise in Morocco?  It seems clear to us that the applicable utility in executing Great Commission programs is to maximize the expected number of people who will ‘die in Christ’ for the effort/resources expended.  For the non-Christian, ‘die in Christ’ means going to their reward while in their heart holding Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Well, if that’s the bang per buck you are trying to achieve, then a number of notions about Morocco and Islam immediately pop to the surface.  Islam is still a particularly violent religion – as once was Christianity – that does not tolerate apostasy.  Most interpretations of the Koran teach that the punishment for apostasy is death, and the execution of that sentence is the responsibility of every devout Muslim.  In the stronger sense, even incipient apostasy is punishable by death if that will prevent consummation.

It is also true today that Christianity in Islamic countries is the object of the most violent hatred imaginable.  The number of Christians brutally murdered every week for their beliefs at the hands of Muslims would astonish and anger even the western secular humanists whose media organs maintain a politically correct silence about such news.

So here we are as we consider sending another Christian couple overseas.  They will at best live in a hostile sea.  They will be looked at as another example of Christian imperialism which has a long and sordid history among African and Near Eastern Muslims.  If this couple is successful in converting a Muslim, they will put that person’s life into an existential danger.  If they demonstrate the ability to successfully convert an ongoing stream of Muslims, they not only endanger the newly-minted Christians but also their own lives, for Islam will not tolerate such success within its lands.  They will simply be murdered by the nearest clutch of jihadist followers of Allah.

And in the final analysis, nothing they will do there will be sustainable.  When they go, the mission will be no more.  And in the interval, the whole affair will have cost much to support and will have provided the radical Muslims another propaganda example of ‘evil Christianity encroaching’.

Given this analysis, there is an obvious Plan B.  Stay here and convince California Muslims to follow Christ.  The effort will enjoy a lawful environment wherein Islamic harassment and murder is not tolerated, the prospective converts already live in surroundings that daily demonstrate the blessings of western civilization nurtured in Christianity (no matter the assault under which it currently is in America), and the whole affair will be more cost effective.

Plan B also provides a kind of divine counter to the considerable efforts that Islam has under way in America.  Such efforts attract to Allah new believers from our disaffected and disadvantaged young, especially those who see meaning in their lives through violence.  Perhaps if Muslims started losing more from their own …, you get the idea.

The careful reader will have kept in mind the assumed utility defined at the outset.  If one can stick the argument that Christ favors souls in certain countries, of certain ethnicities or races over other such souls, then, perhaps, going to places like Morocco would make sense.  However a careful perusal of Scripture does not support such a differential value placed on souls that depends on their mailing address.  The last I looked, Christ does not cherry pick, but wants to save souls wholesale – the more, the merrier.  Thoughts?