My Journal

I received this book from Rev. Lin. I've just finished speed skimming the entire book, about 250 pages, within 1 hour.

Side note: Knowing Rev. Lin, I was expecting to find more faults in the book, which I will discard shortly (If I need the book in the far future, I shall buy one on kindle). Rev. Lin has only brought this book to me because she thought I would be a missionary to the Middle Eastern countries or something. This is the result of her poor understanding of the Holy Spirit, which has been obvious on many occasions. Which is perhaps why I don't see much work from her church. Imported teachers, imported volunteers, etc. Like another pastor, she had asked me to attend some workshops on similar subject before. Regarding the latter case, I've told her that I have suspected these workshops and most Western view of mission to the Muslims are very shallow in that they think they are preaching to Muslims when they converted "moderate" Muslims (I would just call these pagans from or influenced by Islamic cultures, not really Muslims. They don't usually know they Quran very well). Therefore, I have no interest in such topics where the word "Muslim" is used in the titles. Not to mention that I doubt, based on experience, that Rev. Lin has ever read this book. It is probably recommended by someone or something else to her. This reminds me of Dr. Tong's criticism of pastors today, especially in the West, that they are nothing but "theological immigration officers", transporting theological resources from one place to another. I thought of using a new term for people like Rev. Lin. That she's like those karaoke machines, attempting to equip themselves with all kinds of songs for all types of people, but she has no vision (she was even ready to make me who never has any association with the church, the next pastor of her church), no conviction (she's showed me she bought Paul Washer's book, I hardly think she even cares about the material except that she imagined I favored Paul Washer much because I talked about him). Now, she even paid me $2000 (a 67% "raise" - how pathetic for those who do not raise their own but outsource help from elsewhere) for 2015 in my service as IT to the church (it is basically nothing more than weekly web updates and some email sending, which takes no more than 30 minutes each time. Well, if not counting Dr. Tong's Expository on Romans subtitle making, but that is a strategy of mine and a test for her and the church for any foreseeable improvement in the future). As for the money, I was reminded by another statement Dr. Tong made: When a church has so much money that causes her to make excuses to spend it, disaster will come.

Alright, enough said about Rev. Lin. The point of this entry is the book, though I had intended to lay my criticism on Rev. Lin from the beginning. This is to alert myself to steer clear of those who like to show off their supports for others as a cover for their own impiety.

The book, on the other hand, despite certain common problem resulting from a shallow view of evangelization (I do note that this book is not about how to preach to Muslims as the author had already claimed), of making the distinction of "extreme" and "moderate" Muslims at an Islamic theological level, which creates more contradictions for the author's book, as a good reviewer on Amazon has also pointed out, the book actually shows that the author is quite informed of the state of the Islamic West of today. Lutzer appears to be quite accomplished in his Islamic study. He correctly noted that the Islamic Allah is not the same as God of the Bible (pg. 35), against the critique of the same reviewer who either skipped this page or tried to nitpick semantic problems the author had made on page 38. The book also presented lots of historical and examples that concern with the movement of Islam to the Western civilizations, along with the call for awareness for parents to not let their children be indoctrinated in the Islam-friendly education system, and other hidden Islamic tactics, that is the whole point of the book and I commend it.

Nevertheless, as someone from a Muslim country (I'd be surprised if Rev. Lin, who's from Indonesia, didn't know better, had she read the book), I agree with another online reviewer that this book is for Westerners only. Not that I have nothing to learn from it (the historical facts the author put together are very informative, though a tad unorganized, and I have no idea why he would cite quotes regarding "PUNISHING SMYRNA" (Chapter 3) pg. 88-89 from Milton's Paradise Lost (pg. 315-317). I'll say it's a typo for now.

As I see it, the author's true intention is to prepare American Christians to face the worse. He spent the other pages to merely observations and descriptions of church or national problems without much solutions. I am a pessimist, but not that pessimistic. My vision is to disassociate all patriotism in America when it comes to evangelizing to the Muslims, so that Christians here will see no pride in themselves but the true regenerated lives after true repentance. That the Muslims see only the glory of God. So in a way, I do invite and welcome what the author feared. I shall end with a quote from the author: Even when a church is in the Devil's hands, it is still in God's hands.