Clarity concerning the Triune God of Scripture as the Christian foundation would not automatically clear up all of these issues.  However, lack of clarity on the Trinity necessarily leads to lack of clarity in any number of other areas, including those related to the mission of the Church among Muslims.  The Minority Report 2014 is instructive to the PCA and to the global church in this regard.  It demonstrates how ambiguity in the foundation can distort the entire structure even while Reformed doctrines, heritage, and confessions may appear to be operative in the text of the Minority Reports.

“A Common Word Between Us and You” is the title of an open letter from a group of Muslim scholars, representing a broad base of Islamic sects, to Christian leaders around the world written in October 2007.  It is an appeal for world peace based on, “the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour.”  The following month a group of Christian scholars from Yale Divinity School wrote a response.  A professor at Fuller Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies solicited signatures from Evangelical leaders[1] and the document, “Loving God and Neighbor Together”, was published in the New York Times.  This document became known as The Yale Declaration.  In July 2008, the Yale Center for Faith and Culture convened a conference, “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’”, in which a number of notable Evangelicals participated.  The stated purpose of this conference was to build on the two documents mentioned above.[2]

Later in 2008, building on this initiative, a conference “A Common Word and Future Muslim-Christian Engagement,” was hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Since then “A Common Word” has become perhaps the most significant touchstone for contemporary dialogue between Islam and Christianity.  Last year the fifth anniversary of this initiative was recognized with the premiering of a film that documents its accomplishments.

The purpose of this essay is to explore in cursory fashion the connections between “Common Word” and the SCIM Minority Reports.  Of particular interest is the Yale Declaration mentioned above, written by Miroslav Volf, Joseph Cumming, Harold Attridge, and Emilie Townes.  This document was signed[3] by a large number of Evangelical notables including John Stott, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Richard Mouw, and Leith Anderson.[4]  It was also signed by a number of prominent Evangelical missiologists, mission leaders,[5] and field practitioners.  Among this company of signatories is Dr. Nabeel Jabbour, author of the SCIM’s Minority Report 2013 and co-author of the SCIM’s Minority Report 2014.  Common Word is discussed in Appendix 2 of the SCIM Committee Report 2013 but the fact that TE Jabbour is a signatory of the Yale Declaration is not mentioned.

A number of critiques of Common Word and of the Yale Declaration in particular have been written and these efforts will not be replicated here.[6]  However, it may be instructive for the context of American Presbyterianism to note commonalities with a document published in 1932 which contributed significantly to splitting the northern Presbyterian denomination and the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The mission of today should make a positive effort, first of all to know and understand the religions around it, then to recognize and associate itself with whatever kindred elements there are. It is not what is weak or corrupt but what is strong and sound in non-Christian religions that offers the best hearing for whatever Christianity has to say.

It is clearly not the duty of the Christian missionary to attack the non-Christian systems of religion – it is his primary duty to present in positive form his conception of the way of life and let it speak for itself. The road is long, and a new patience is needed; but we can desire no variety of religious experience to perish until it has yielded up to the rest of its own ingredient truth. The Christian will therefore regard himself as a co-worker with the forces within each such religious system which are making for righteousness.[7]

This same ethos is carried forward in the Yale Declaration. Some quotes from this document speak for themselves [the bracketed comments are my own]:

“In the name of the Infinitely Good God whom we should love with all our Being.”  [The Declaration opens with a decidedly Islamic flare and the document continues to avoid the Trinity as it repeatedly makes reference to God.]

“’A Common Word Between Us and You’ identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths . . .”

“That so much common ground exists – common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith – gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us cannot overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together.”

“The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that ‘our eternal souls’ are at stake as well” [emphasis added].

“. . . we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose.” [The Declaration closes with language of the Shema (Mk. 12:30) but that totalizing imperative is directed towards harmony with Islam rather than love for “Yahweh your God”.]

Presumed throughout the document is that the referent of God for Muslims is the same as for Christians.  God as Trinity is never brought into the discussion and it is simply assumed that while details about God may differ between the religions, it is the same God to which both religions refer.  Never mind that love of God is love for the Lord Jesus for “if anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Cor. 16:22).  No Muslim can accept the deity of Christ as articulated in the creeds.  Never mind that obedience to the Great Commandment is unthinkable outside of Christ’s obedience and the work of the Spirit personally in the believer.  Thus for Christians to accept a Muslim understanding of “love for God and neighbor” without qualification has devastating consequences. Such assumption of core theological commonality is the basis for the continuing ecumenical initiative known today as Common Word.[8]  To what extent does this same assumption color the PCA SCIM Minority Reports?

During General Assembly 2013 a relevant section of the Minority Report 2013 was highlighted during speeches on the floor and in subsequent discussion on-line.[9]  The section of the Minority Report 2013 which came under scrutiny is:

“Are Allah of Muslims and Yahweh the same God? Yes, when the veil is lifted from their eyes and Muslims see Him as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fine-tuning to see Yahweh as He truly is takes place through Christ. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (2397 lines 26-28).[10]

The comments which follow this quotation are conflicting.  On the one hand the author states that “people in all religions . . . are worshipping their own creations.”  On the other hand, “Muslims are trying to connect with and worship the only true God.”

The Minority Report 2014 omits this section.  In fact it removes the entire Minority Report 2013 from the “table of discussion” (2298 lines 16-17).  Significantly, there is no retraction offered nor is the issue raised again in the 2014 document.  TE Jabbour’s position on the matter remains opaque.

Given TE Jabbour’s endorsement of the Yale Declaration it is unwise to simply dismiss the above quotation as an issue of semantics.  A thorough reading of his other publications lends no further clarity.[11]  Nor is this an isolated problem suddenly appearing at the end of the Minority Report 2013.  Both that report and the 2014 upgrade are fraught with confusion characterized as the messiness of ministry in on-the-ground reality.[12]  However, divine revelation is perspicuous and sufficient.  Its light exposes truth and falsehood and is not relativized by any condition that may seem messy in human experience.  The imperative of the Yale Declaration should not be glossed over.  While Christian theology is everywhere relativized there is one absolute conclusion: failure to “come together in harmony” with Islam is a damnable offense.

Clarity concerning the Triune God of Scripture as the Christian foundation would not automatically clear up all of these issues.  However, lack of clarity on the Trinity necessarily leads to lack of clarity in any number of other areas, including those related to the mission of the Church among Muslims.  The Minority Report 2014 is instructive to the PCA and to the global church in this regard.  It demonstrates how ambiguity in the foundation can distort the entire structure even while Reformed doctrines, heritage, and confessions may appear to be operative in the text of the Minority Reports.

I first encountered the idea of an ecumenism that includes Islam in a conversation with a Franciscan activist in Karachi, Pakistan.  In his view there was no theological barrier between Christianity and Islam; only a historical and social one.  Common Word is moving resolutely in the same direction and it has become increasingly evident that Insider Movements (IM) promotes a similar view.[13]  Trinitarian Christianity, however, cannot tolerate on its foundation an Islamic notion of god.  Equivocation on this fundamental point will inevitably lead to ambiguity at best.  There is no messiness in God’s Word or in God’s providence.

Philip DeHart is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a member of Philadelphia Metro-West Presbytery called to teaching and preaching internationally. 

[1] http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/143-42.0.html and http://www.acommonword.com/speaking-out-the-peacemaking-process/

[2] Event Schedule, http://www.yale.edu/divinity/commonword/

[3] http://faith.yale.edu/common-word/common-word-christian-response

[4] Some other leaders later removed their names.  http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2008/february/wheaton-college-administrators-remove-names-from-christian.html

[5] Included are the signatures of the Founder and of the International Director of Frontiers, one of the agencies identified in the first SCIM report, “A Call to Faithful Witness: Like Father, Like Son”, as being involved in IM Bible translations. (Page 11 line 4 and 30 line 7)  The Founder’s comments on this decision can be accessed here http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/livingstone-on-a-common-word

[6] Notably http://barnabasfund.org/UK/News/Archives/Reflections-by-Barnabas-Fund-on-the-Final-Declaration-of-the-Yale-Common-Word-Conference-July-2008.html?method=PDF, http://www.stfrancismagazine.info/ja/pdf/2008/links/Notes%20on%20’A%20Common%20Word%20Between%20Us%20and%20You’.pdf,  http://www.desiringgod.org/conference-messages/evangelicals-and-a-common-word ,[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

and http://answering-islam.org/fileadmin/authors/solomon/truth_about_common_word

[7]Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry, Re-Thinking Missions; a Laymen’s Inquiry after One Hundred Years, ed. William Ernest Hocking (New York, London: Harper & Brothers, 1932), 326–327.

[8] See also Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response (New York: HarperOne, 2011).

[9] https://theaquilareport.com/the-insider-movement-and-the-word-concept-fallacy/ and https://theaquilareport.com/the-pca-insider-movement-report-a-different-view/ Unfortunately that discussion got mired in the connected but separate debate over whether the name “Allah” should be used for the Christian God.

[10] All page numbers refer to the Commissioners Handbook 2014 even though some of the documents first appeared in the Commissioners Handbook 2013.

[11] These publications are problematic from a number of different angles.  For example, Jabbour suggests that a convert can avoid the “high treason” of becoming a Christian by not leaving Islam.  Rather, the convert can become a part of the “hidden ekklesia”, a purely relational network.  Nabeel T. Jabbour, The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross: Insights from an Arab Christian (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2008), 214ff.  See also the related comments in the Minority Report 2014, 2305.

[12] See “SCIM Minority Report 2014 – Concrete or Abstract?” http://www.reformation21.org/

[13] “Can’t we affirm their desire to worship the one true God, even though they “do not know” whom it is they worship, helping them move toward understanding that Jesus is also their Savior, not just ours . . .” Rebecca Lewis, “Responding to ‘A Common Word’: WWJD?,” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 25, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 44–45.