Seminary to Offer One Week Intensive on Islam
In the upcoming January 2015 term, the Pentecostal Theological Seminary will offer a one week intensive about Islamic culture and the Muslim religion taught by Professor Jerry McNabb. The 40 hour course will cover history, theology, culture and how to share faith with Muslim neighbors.
“Christendom as a whole is not prepared to share their faith,” McNabb says. “You can’t win Muslim’s to the Lord with the four spiritual laws. It’s a different type of evangelism; it’s about relationship.”
There are approximately four to six million Muslims living in the United States today, and McNabb says that the Church needs to have more dialogue on how to present the Gospel of Christ to Islam. The course will address questions and scenarios like what to do if a Muslim moves next door to a Christian and they are both operating under a spiritual mandate to convert the other person to their faith.
“How do we live side by side under the Constitution, and both be true to our faith?” McNabb asks. “… The point is we need to know about the Muslim faith so that when God opens up the door of opportunity to share our faith, we will know how to communicate Christ to our Muslim neighbor. ”
The course will feature guest speakers including a missionary to Muslims in the Detroit area, and a current student at the seminary who is a former Muslim Imam who will speak about Sharia law.
“I believe that it is very important for us to see what’s going on within the United States and outside … we need to prepare ourselves to share with those of the Islamic faith,” the former Imam said.
In total there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, which makes them 23 percent of the population. Because of this, McNabb believes every minister, missionary and person in the Church should have at least one course about this faith that makes up a quarter of the world’s population.
“It’s imperative that ministers get this course,” he expresses, “… this 23 percent are God’s prodigal sons and daughters, who are simply locked behind the veil of Islam. They need the gospel of Christ, and if we as Christendom don’t take it to them, no one else will. (We need to) make people aware of this.”
Along with taking part in the dialogue, students will be assigned three books and two papers during the 40-hour course.
“I think it’s a course that’s worthwhile and would highly recommend it to everybody from our state overseers to every minister in the field,” McNabb also shared.
McNabb first became interested in the Muslim faith in 1986 when as a Navy Chaplain, he was sent to Emory University to study cross-cultural studies with an emphasis in Islam. He and his family were then assigned to the Middle East to an island near Saudi Arabia for two years during the Iran-Iraq war.
“Since there was no military housing we lived in the Muslim community. It was there that God began to develop an interest in my heart, and where I learned a great deal about how to stay true to my faith, while at the same time sharing the presence of Christ.”
After retiring from the United States Navy, McNabb began working for the Pentecostal Theological Seminary as a part of the adjunct faculty. He is in the process of launching the Global Institute for Ministry and Training, an organization dedicated to making Christians aware of Islam and training them how to be a good neighbor and minister to Muslims.
“The question [God] put in my spirit was, ‘do you think I don’t love one fourth of the world’s population?’” the professor discloses. “Muslims are not coming to America, they are here. Now, how are we as Christendom going to interact with them?”
Registration for the course will take place during the J-term from January 5-9, 2015. Application must be made to the Seminary by December 5 to take the course for credit. Special provision is being made for those who would like to take this course as a non-credit course for enrichment for only $99 (must register by December 12). For further information, contact Shea Hughes at 423-478-1131 (between 8:00 and 5:00 EST) or email [email protected].
