As readers, you have heard before that the library welcomes new materials.  This past month someone left some recent copies of two periodicals, Charisma, and Christianity Today (CT).  The first has a Pentecostal perspective on the Christian life, and the second appears to have a strong evangelical slant.  The April 2011 issue of CT especially caught my attention because of two feature articles on interfaith dialog.

The two feature articles are “Proselytizing in a Multi-faith World; why mutual respect and tolerance require us to witness for Christ,” by Ed Stetzer, and “Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?, an interview,” by Mark Galli with theologian Miroslav Volf, professor of theology at Yale Divinity School.  I like a lot of things in these articles, and that surprised me a bit since I have learned to be pretty guarded about supporting the language of witnessing used in many evangelical circles; evangelicals can seem awfully sure of themselves and quite disinterested in the other person’s faith story.  I like the emphasis on first confronting one’s own fear of witnessing, and then on using the interfaith dialog as a means to solidify what one thinks one believes.  There is a lot about the very nature of good dialog. 

Stetzer has things to say about dialog with people of quite a number of different faiths, pointing out that it is often tricky right from the start as the dialog encounters the two sets of quite different ideas about the supernatural.  Volf’s closing words are powerful:  “We’ve come up with this idea that Muslims are our enemy and that Muslim terrorism and extremism are the most important enemies we should be combating; I think this is bogus.  Terrorism is an important issue, but it pales in significance compared to the hedonistic character of the culture we inhabit.  To have Muslims as allies in combating de facto hedonism is a very important thing. . . .  Muslims can be our allies in struggles for a proper way to live in the world today.”

At this time, I don’t have a clue who gave these magazines to the library.  But I am interested in feedback of any kind related to these periodicals—preferably positive!

Rudy Dyck