When James White recently did his interfaith non-debate dialogue with not-so-moderate Imam and advertised it as “fellowship,” many people rejected the notion as a clearly biblical departure from explicit instruction of Scriptures. Various “camps” developed in regards to this controversial event.
The first camp used the opportunity to bring all of White’s ministry to disrepute, in an unfortunate over-reaction to what they felt was clearly wrong. These include Brannon Howse, Brannon Howse’s second-string podcast team, and Steve Camp.
The second camp included those who said they were not comfortable with what White did and didn’t necessarily agree with it, but being that it was James White, they were confidant regarding his motivations and his stated goal of evangelism. These include, for example, good brothers like Phil Johnson and Justin Peters.
The third camp included those who were not necessarily arguing that White’s motivations were to be impugned, but still argued that it was a foolish and wrong thing to do, for both Biblical and practical reasons. These include Janet Mefferd, Paul Flynn, and although we were not overly-vocal, this has been the consistent position of Pulpit & Pen.
The fourth camp included those who had no reservations about interfaith dialogue and suggested there was no reason for caution or concern whatsoever. These include James White himself, and most of his followers.
As with all things, time will tell. Sadly, it seems that among the Young, Restless and Reformed or New Calvinism movement, interfaith dialogue (IFD) has become all the rage. Today, evidence presents itself that young Calvinists with far less acumen than James White have tread into a place where any reasonable or discerning Christian would know that they need not go. It would be hard to believe that anyone in camps 1, 2 or 3 would defend what you’re about to find out. It would be hard to believe that anyone in group four could defend it with any intellectual honesty.
Hunter Hall is the campus pastor of Village Church in Plano, Texas, a satellite campus of Matt Chandler’s Village Church headquartered in Flower Mound, Texas and situated around the Dallas-Forth Worth area.
As it says on the Village Church sub-page for the Plano campus, “Though our campus has its own distinct flavor, The Village is one church in five locations. That means we are committed to one mission: We exist to bring glory to God by making disciples through gospel-centered worship, gospel-centered community, gospel-centered service and gospel-centered multiplication. We invite you to come see what we are all about and to join us in this mission.”
As Pulpit & Pen has reported, the Village Church (commendably) has decided to make their satellite campuses their own, autonomous churches by 2022. And that’s a good thing.
Well, aside from preaching the Gospel and stuff (which we have no reason whatsoever to doubt that Pastor Hall does), we are greatly concerned that he’s taken an ecumenical approach to dealing with Islam. To specify very clearly, we are not upset that the Village Church pastor is trying to evangelize Muslims. We are not upset the Village Church pastor is trying to befriend Muslims. We are not upset the Village Church pastor is treating Muslims as neighbors. We are concerned that he has taken an unbiblical approach to unity with those whom the Scriptures very clearly teach we are not to be unified.
Combine our concerns, which you will see below, with the post we did, “Conservative Evangelical Leaders Enabling Radical Islamic Groups.” In that post we wrote:
“Therefore, as we will see in the case of Matt Chandler and the ministries he supports, two radical Islamic groups have been involved with ACTS 29 leaders, and even most recently within Chandler’s own church. Collaborating behind the scene are CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations and ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America–two groups very involved in Christian/Muslim bridge-building projects. It is well documented that both CAIR and ISNA were founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their objectives in America have been declared; destroy our society from within.
There, you’ll see that Matt Chandler has made repeated ecumenical overtures with dangerous Islamic groups, but none so bold as that recently taken part in by Pastor Hunter Hall at Plano’s Village Church location.
What is happening in the above photos is that Village Church’s Hunter Hall is taking part in what he calls a “multi-faith event” between Christian pastors and Islamic imams. The event was hosted by GloCal, a globalist organization that uses Christian jargon under the guise of “peace-making” and “bridge-building” and “fostering understanding” between the two diametrically opposed religions. The term, “glocal” is a new word coined in recent years and popularized by globalists, referring to a community that is more global than local, hence the conjoining of the two words into one.
GloCal seeks to combine Christians and Muslisms in partnership “without asking one another to compromise their spiritual beliefs” as you can see below from their website.
Of course, we Christians ARE to tell people to abandon their false religions and embrace the Gospel. The goal of this organization is to not to. Their strategy, according to the website, is four fold. First, to connect different religions. Secondly, that they should learn about each others’ religions. Third, they “leverage relationships” to make even bigger, city or region-size interfaith events, and fourth, multiplication (which is like wash, rinse, and repeat – do it all over again). The organization claims to use the “Global Collaborations Community” model, which you can read about yourself here. Notice that evangelism is nowhere mentioned as a goal of the model.
The “IACC” of which Hall speaks is the “Islamic Association of Collins County,” which is in Plano, Texas. You can find the IACC website here. Their facility cost 2 million dollars to build and is 12 thousand square feet. It boasts membership of over one thousand families. The constitution of the IACC has been uploaded to our servers here. What you’ll find there is the motivation for their participation in IFD with the Village Church.
Article 2.5 reads, “IACC shall strive to promote good relations and understandings between Muslims and non-Muslims and shall strive to propagate Islam and shall actively engage in Islamic Daw’ah work through all means of communication [emphasis ours].
“Daw’ah” is the Muslim form of evangelism, essentially. A Muslim who practices “Daw’ah” is called a “dai” and seeks to convert people to Islam chiefly through…”dialogue” (source).
While evangelicals gather with Muslims totally convinced that their well-intentioned dialogues are merely building friendships and finding common ground, Islamic faith teachings that it is their preferred methodology to win converts to Islam. May God help those men who think that they are wise as serpents and innocent as doves, but in reality suffer from extreme naivety.
