What is an "Insider Movement?"

This is a paper I recently worked on in my English class. The topic was one very close to my heart, and I found my research to be very fascinating. I think every Christian should be aware of this issue and have an idea on where they stand.

This paper attempts to present the ideas at either end of the controversy without taking either side.

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Insider Movements

       Among Christian missionaries today, there is a topic that has caused much controversy. This is the issue of insider movements. The term refers to “. . . any movement to faith in Christ that remains integrated with or inside its natural community” (Higgins, 2009, p. 75). Specifically, a group of people within a highly religious culture who, although confessing faith in Christ, still identify with their original religion. Most commonly, this refers to the occurrence among Muslim people groups. The issue is regarding syncretism and heresy — how much of Christianity as it is today is necessary to be saved? And how much is simply Western culture being imposed unnecessarily on these peoples? The answer could change the way Christians do missions (and even who is defined as a Christ-follower) forever. While some people are unrelentingly supportive of insider movements, others are overwhelmingly wary of them. 

       Insider movements can seem to be the answer to many missiological issues, but they can also seem to be the cause. In many parts of the world, it can be hard to define a line between religion and culture. "The term 'double conversion' has been used by missionaries in high-religious contexts to describe the type of evangelism that required converts to forsake their culture and join the 'Christian' community. Double conversion required converts to turn away from their culture and most of its forms in addition to turning away from sin" (Wolfe, 2015, para. 4). How does a missionary know if they are imposing Western culture on the people they are trying to minister to? "For many Muslims, being a Muslim is an inseparable part of their self-identity, their background, their family, their community, and their cultural heritage, regardless of what they actually believe about God" (Brown, 2007, p.65). 

       Insider movements provide a way around this issue. Individuals remain inside their cultures and communities while they accept Jesus as Messiah. But, missionaries often have a strong fear of syncretism. They do not want to teach unbiblical concepts and participate in heretical activities. "In high-religious cultures, community events are religious events and even political realities are validated by, and tied into, religious structures. Therefore, in these cultures, missionaries believed that double conversion was the only possible option for converts" (Wolfe, 2015, para. 4) and understandably so. But if a person has grown up with a language and culture and a way of expressing themselves, why would they want to accept an unknown religion with unknown words and practices? Contextualization is always a necessary part of missions, and "Insider methodology is primarily focused on removing the cultural barrier so that people can hear a contextually appropriate gospel message" (Wolfe, 2015, para. 7). But do insider movements go too far?

       One man (referred to by the name “Abu Jaz” to hide his real identity), is a leader of an insider movement ministry and was interviewed about his experiences and life. Being a former Muslim, he came to Christ through a supernatural experience. Being connected with the church left him unsettled because he felt that he could not express himself fully. He found himself crying out to God, “You like the Orthodox culture, you like the traditional African culture, you like Jewish culture, you like the European culture, you like cultures of other people groups, but you dislike the Muslims. So you are not just” (Daniels, 2013, para. 14). After struggling for two years, Abu Jaz finally gave in, removed himself from a Muslim identity, and sacrificed valuable relationships in the process. He then attended Bible college. “While I studied there, I learned the difference between the supracultural substance of the Word of God and the cultural form that expresses it” (Daniels, 2013, para. 17). He felt God’s love for his culture, and it changed the way he thought about his salvation. Abu Jaz went back to having a Muslim identity and yet lived for Christ. But, he states that “even if I had theological and cultural challenges in the Christian community, I experienced love there, a love that was alive” (Daniels, 2013, para. 19). 

       This is a story that can be interpreted different ways depending upon specific theological ideas or convictions. When learning about this man’s experiences and beliefs, it causes a reaction. Some people come to the conclusion that this is a more effective way of spreading the gospel and fits God’s purpose for humanity more fully than other strategies. After all, "In their own opinion. . . they are simply being better Muslims by submitting to the Messiah whom God sent to guide and save them" (Brown, 2007, p. 67). If a Muslim is excommunicated from their community because of their new faith, this could be a problem for the spread of the gospel. H. J. Wolfe describes this when he states, “Conversions that result in extraction retard the growth of the Kingdom because the leaven of the gospel does not have a chance to saturate the dough before it is cut away” (Wolfe, 2015, para. 5). Others would argue that this behavior is sinful and full of compromise, saying “This Christianization of the Qur’an doesn’t create doors of opportunity for witness; it stirs emotions of hostility on the part of Muslims, and naturally so. Christians don’t appreciate it when Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims reinterpret the Bible’s original meaning. It’s offensive and deceitful to take a Muslim’s scripture and make it say what it does not.” (Lingel & Nikides, 2012, para. 3). The issue is in Biblical interpretation as well as personal definitions of “culture” and “religion.”

       Ayub Edward is a minister in Bangladesh (Garner, 2015, para. 1). Ayub’s ministry has faced many challenges in Bangladesh because of a new uprising of insider movement ideology in the country. When discussing a new Bible translation being introduced in the country, Ayub claims that “Since a key principle of the Insider Movement is to give Muslims what they want to hear, that means that if anything in the Bible is negative to a Muslim it should be left out.  One of the dominant factors is using the phrase ‘Son of God’ in reference to Jesus, which Muslims don’t believe and don’t accept” (Garner, 2015, para. 4). Ayub believes these insider movements go too far. “I believe in contextualization, but it should be under the warrant of Scripture. We must not apply or practice something that Scripture doesn’t support” (Garner, 2015, para. 7). Ayub’s Muslim history led him to a very different conclusion than that described in the former story of Abu Jaz. Ayub states that “When I was Muslim before my conversion to the Christian faith, I was ready to sacrifice my life for a single letter of the Quran. Now I’m a Christian, and when I see that the ‘Son’ and the ‘Father’ are changed in the New Testament, and are replaced with some words that are not so significant or not equivalent of those words, I am deeply hurt” (Garner, 2015, para. 21). 

       Ayub is just one example of someone who disagrees with the insider movement strategy. There are a number of reasons why people could view the movements negatively. One article refers to these Muslim insider movements very harshly. Calling them by the name “Chrislam” and acting as if it were almost a disease. Saying about the Insider Movement teaching that “It inoculates those who go through the teaching against a proper understanding of this inherently anti-Christian religion. The Qur’an becomes a tool for evangelism, lending it credibility, rather than understanding it as a book that denies the crucifixion, the Trinity, and Jesus as the Son of God. (Lingel & Nikides, 2012, para. 4).

       At the same time, there are many who support insider movements. Rebecca Lewis puts forth the idea that “Just as the Apostles freed the Gentiles from any perceived need to convert to the Jewish religion, today we should likewise free people groups from the counter-productive burden of socioreligious conversion and the constraints of affiliation with the term ‘Christianity’. . .” (Lewis, 2007, p. 76). Rick Brown (2007) says that “We would do well then to support them all, insofar as Jesus is guiding them in this way, and let Jesus lead them into the future he has for them, a future that we cannot yet see” (p. 73). It is believed by its proponents that “These believing families and their relational networks are valid local expressions of the Body of Christ, fulfilling all the ‘one another’ care seen in the book of Acts, and so they do not need to adopt the meeting and program structures common in Western aggregate churches” (Lewis, 2007, p. 76).

       This topic is vital to Christ-followers today. Determining how to interpret these things can lead to false doctrine if we are not careful. Understanding the varying approaches to other cultures impacts an individual’s effectiveness as Christ’s ambassador. Because of the weight of the issue, the tension surrounding it is strong. The argument about insider movements has been happening for years. 

References

Brown, R. (2007). Biblical Muslims. International Journal of Frontier Missions, 24(2), 65-74.

Coleman, D. (2014). The Jerusalem Council & the Insider Movement Paradigm. Global Missiology English, 1(12). Retrieved from http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/1714

Daniels, G. (2013). Worshiping Jesus in the Mosque. Christianity Today, 57, 1. Retrieved from http://www.missionriver.org/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Worshiping-Jesus-in-Mosque-CT-1-2013.pdf.

Garner, D. (2015, August 10). Inside the Insider Movement. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://faculty.wts.edu/posts/inside-the-insider-movement/

Higgins, K. (2009). Inside What? Church, Culture, Religion and Insider Movements in Biblical Perspective. St Francis Magazine, 5(4), 74-91.

Lewis, R. (2007). Promoting movements to Christ within natural communities. International Journal of Frontier Missiology, 24(2), 75-76.

Lingel, J. B., & Nikides, B. (2012). Chrislam: Insider Movements Moving in the Wrong Direction. Christian Research Journal, 35. Retrieved from http://www.equip.org/PDF/JAE352.pdf

Nikides, B. (2011). The Emergence of Insider Movements. St Francis Magazine, 7(4). 46-57

Richard, L. H. (2014). Religious syncretism as a syncretistic concept: The inadequacy of the “World

Religion” paradigm in cross-cultural encounter. International Journal of Frontier Missiology, 31(4), 209-215.

Wolfe, H. J. (2015). The Development of the Insider Movement Paradigm. Global Missiology
English, 4(12). Retrieved from http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/1813

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This is footage from an actual contextualized Christian service I was able to attend and observe in an area of Chicago nicknamed "Little India." This experience was very fascinating to me, and left me with a lot of questions.

God bless.

-Beccca