Islam and North America offers a missionary engagement with Islam in North America. Most books on Islam approach it appropriately as a World Religion, centering on its medieval origin as a Middle Eastern religion that emerged under the inspiration of their final Prophet Muhammad, its distinctive religious beliefs and practice, and its contemporary resurgence as a World Religion and geopolitical movement. The attention of this book focuses on the presence of Islam in North America. Globalization, Muslim migration to the West, growing terrorist activity and other concerns makes this book timely resource for the Christian church in NorthAmerican.
The book seeks to accomplish three purposes. (1) Equip North American Christians to think about Islam theologically and missionally. Two-thirds of the book is designed to help prepare Christians to live in a multi-faith context, with particular attention given to living with Muslim neighbors. An overview of Muslim migration explains the development of Islam as a contemporary World Religion, sketching out what takes place when Islam embeds in North American culture and informing readers on what migration patterns are anticipated in the future. In addition, the second section of the book answers some of the big theological and socio-political questions surrounding growth of Islam in the West. Do we worship the same God? Should Christians defend the right of Muslims to worship inNorth America? What does the Quran say about violence? Do Muslims aspire for Sharia law to overtake our political systems? The final section of the book prepares the Christian church to (2) engage their Muslim neighbor with hospitality and without fear and (3) encourage North American Christians to love Muslims with the love of Christ. These chapters help Christians discover places of common ground between themselves and Muslims, helping us identify challenges Muslims face when they immigrate to NorthAmerica, approach our multi-faith context missionally, and prepare to have cross-cultural gospel conversations. The last chapter reminds us that a missionary encounter with Islam in North America is both the calling of the church and is best pursued in community.
