Remember several years ago when concerns were raised about how evangelical leaders, particularly those associated with ACTS 29 and The Village Church, were enabling radical Islamic groups? There has been a growing trend of interfaith dialogues facilitated by influential evangelical pastors like Matt Chandler. Alarmingly, Chandler and others formed alliances with Islamist groups like CAIR and ISNA—organizations that were founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Some experts on Islam warned at the time that these interfaith dialogues were not about evangelism but about compromising the integrity of the Christian faith. Chandler’s church, which has been supporting liberal political agendas like refugee resettlement, played right into the hands of these Islamists who have been relentlessly trying to undermine Christianity.
In 2020, Southern Baptist Convention president, JD Greear held an open dialog with Omar Suleiman, a radical Islamic leftist extremist who has been denounced by conservatives across the globe for his anti-semitic views and rhetoric. In 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Suleiman to give the opening prayer which was deemed a “terribly bad call” by Republicans. Suleiman has repeatedly called for the Third Intifada, an uprising of Palestinians against Israel and has cursed “Zionists” as the “enemies of God,” compared “apartheid Israel” to the “Nazis,” claimed that Gaza was enduring “a Holocaust,” denounced the “Israeli regime” as “terrorist,” and compared the Israeli army to the Taliban.
Just a quick perusal of Suleiman’s Twitter account will demonstrate just how radicalized and anti-semitic he is. But here’s just one example:
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And here he is complaining about Israel’s response to the unprovoked killing of thousands of their citizens:
During the meeting between Greear and Suleiman, which was sponsored by the Veritas Forum and Neighborly Faith—ecumenical organizations that serve the purpose of seeking common ground between Christianity and paganism—and hosted at NC State, the two discussed issues such as “mutual suspicion” between Christians and Muslims. It was clear that Greear was highly uneducated on Islam and especially the history of Suleiman himself.
Greear insisted that Christians should be fighting for the rights of Islamics to spread their false religion because, according to Greear, that’s what the parable of the Good Samaritan was about and that’s what Jesus “would do.”
And David Platt along with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have been ardently pushing the pro-Islamic “refugee” programs around the nation. According to an article at SBTS, “Christians should view the refugee crisis through the lens of God’s posture of mercy and compassion to the foreigner demonstrated in the story of Ruth, said David Platt, president of the International Mission Board, during a March 31 chapel message at Southern Seminary.”
“Our God seeks, shelters, serves, and showers the refugee with his grace,” Platt said, pointing out Boaz’s response to learning that Ruth, a Moabite woman, was working in his field. Boaz’s actions in the Old Testament book did not just demonstrate godly kindness, but also functioned as a critical moment in redemptive history, building a lineage that would “lead to the quintessential kinsman redeemer, Jesus the Christ.”
Platt said the world has never before faced such a significant refugee crisis, with 60 million refugees leaving war-torn and impoverished countries. The American church needs to look beyond its own country’s political troubles and see the needs of millions of destitute people worldwide, he said.
“I fear that most people in our churches and maybe even in this room are paying very little to no attention to this — or if we are paying attention to it, we are looking at it through political punditry and partisan debates regarding whether or not we should allow relatively few refugees into our land,” Platt said. “It is a sure sign of American self-centeredness that we would take the suffering of millions of people and turn it into an issue that is all about us.
Fast forward to October, 2023, and Hamas—the very same radical Islamists that men like Platt, Greear, and Chandler have been building bridges with and calling on Christians to “listen to” and “understand”—launched an unprovoked attack on Israel killing thousands. As it stands today, these men still stand behind what they have advocated for—mutual understanding. On Matt Chandler’s church website, there is an article calling on Christians to never criticize Islam or speak ill of their false prophet, Mohammed.
The article from Matt Chandler’s church promotes an approach towards Muslims that, while claiming to be grounded in Christian love and openness, is nothing more than an act of submission to radical Islam. It stresses entering into relationships with Muslims with a level of deference that stifles the Christian message, even going so far as to encourage Christians to “dress modestly”—which, in Islam, means women covering their faces and hair—and avoid criticizing anything about Islam.
This begs the question: where is the line drawn between magnifying Christ and compromising the truth? To engage with Muslims by essentially agreeing to play by their radical rules of Sharia is to undermine the uncompromising proclamation of the Gospel.
Further, the article portrays those who question this overly accommodating stance as people motivated by fear or hate, labeling any reservations as manifestations of “Islamophobia.” We should be asking the questions to these “Christian” leaders now: should we have given them the benefit of the doubt? Do you stand behind your position of “mutual understanding”? How many more terror attacks will it take, how many more innocent people have to die, before you realize that there is no compromise with these radicals?
Rather than acting as ambassadors for Christ, these men and their approach to Islam turns Christians into appeasers, undermining the very truth they claim to uphold. They have enabled this radical extremism by diverting attention away from it, even while they gather en masse in this nation through the open borders “refugee” programs these men push for.
