KJC Korea
Journal Central

This article provides a brief treatment of the doctrine of taqiyya, or dissimulation, in Islam. Concerned primarily with current accusations raised rather brashly against Muslims, according to which the taqiyya is supposed to be a common daily practice that they implement in their lives, making them largely unworthy of trust, the present article seeks to bring some clarification into the matter. Given the brevity required for this article, we will content ourselves with a brief survey of the concept in the Qur’an and in Islamic Tafsir, followed with a short exploration of the way that taqiyya has been understood by a few major authorities in Shiite Islam, the group most often associated with the doctrine. The article will close with a brief missiological reflection on some implications of a proper understanding of the doctrine for the church today.

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This paper examines the validity of the claim that in the future Turkey will transmute itself into a fundamentalist Islamic country that makes missionary work become difficult in the country. In order to forecast this scenario, the paper examines a series of events that occurred in the past six months in the country since the failed coup d"état on July 15-16th, 2016. The military coup could be seen as a power struggle between the two main Islamist groups in Turkey: Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and Fetullah Gülen Cemaati because each one revolves around Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and Fetullah Gülen respectively. Since the military rebellion was decisively reduced to a stump, Erdoğan’s popularity surged, giving him opportunity to change the laws of the constitution to extend his presidency until 2029, and to transform the Turkish government from its current secular system into a Sharia-based Islamic nation. Based on various observations, current political changes may temporarily bolster Erdoğan and AKP’s power. On the other hand, ongoing armed conflicts against various Kurdish insurgent groups, Syrian civil war, and the complex relationship with the European Union are all powerful mechanisms that can favor Fetullah Gülen Cemaati and undermine the legitimacy of Erdoğan’s power. Hence it is conjectured that social tensions and worries may hinder the missional activities in Turkey for a while, but they will not be detrimental enough to warrant a change of trajectory of missions to Turkey under the current framework.

This article examines from a historical perspective the changing views of Islam and Islam’s relation to Christianity particularly according to the Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. For this purpose, the author examines several pre-Reformation theologians’views on Islam by analyzing the writings of Anastasios of Sinai, Theodore bar Koni, John of Damascus, and Raymond Lull, and notes that their views had a significant influence on both Martin Luther and John Calvin’s understanding of Islam. Between 7th-16th centuries Christianity made frequent contacts with Islam, and Christian perception of Islam underwent significant changes. In the early period of the Byzantine Empire (4th-15th centuries) Christians of the Eastern Church regarded the rising of Islam in the 6th Century Arabian Peninsula as either a Christian schism or a heresy. But with the Siege of Jerusalem by Muslims in the 7th century and the subsequent start of the First Crusades in the 11th century, the Church started to see Islam as an enemy to the Christian Church. By the time of the Fourth Crusade in the 13th century, a small number of positive views about Islam emerged among Christians; but by and large, the Church’s general view of Islam was negative until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Martin Luther and John Calvin, who lived during Ottoman Turks’further expansion into Central Europe, were quite familiar with the Islamic literature and understood Islam as God"s chastening rod or whip.

Islam like Buddhism and Christianity is a proselytizing religion, which has quickly expanded its religious boundaries since its beginning from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century to the rest of the world. By expanding to Africa, Europe, and Asia via the work of imams and merchants Islam became a world religion in a short time. Islam reached Korea at the end of the 9th century during the Shilla Dynasty, but its religious influence was insignificant back then. STATISTICS KOREA (2015) reported that Christianity and Buddhism have become two largest religious groups, each having 13,566,000 and 7,619,000 members respectively. Among Christians, Protestants (9,676,000) are about 2.5 times more numerous than Catholics (389,000). STATISTICS KOREA (2015) did not include Islam in its survey, but estimated that there are about 100,000 Muslims in Korea. Albeit small in number, Muslim population in South Korea has been steadily growing since 1950s, and numerous Koreans converted to Islam even after a flood of negative media coverage about Islam through the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS or Daesh) in 2014. I am concerned about Islam and its explosive growth of Muslim population in the 21st century around the world and particularly in South Korea. This paper suggests missiological approaches and reasons to better understand the Muslim community in Korea before sharing the message of the kingdom of God.

The‘Arab Spring’is a metaphor for Arab uprisings containing some Western-Centric prejudices. It began in 2010 in Tunisia and quickly spread to Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, and to other countries in the region. In this paper, the‘Arab Spring’metaphor is viewed not just as a desire for a western style democracy but as the legitimate and courageous voices of ordinary people demanding human rights and dignity against the neo-liberal monsters of the global capitalistic system. When Islamists had taken control over various regions during the chaotic unfolding of the‘Arab Spring’, the Arabs experienced first-hand their own incompetence to solve accumulated socio-economic-political problems. Furthermore, Islamists brought back a theocracy of Islam, forcefully subjugating people to conform to Sharia. The cruel acts of the Islamic State in the name of Sharia awakened the people to know the true identity of Islam. These negative experiences incited people to question their traditional value system, triggered a shift of paradigm and values beyond political spheres, thereby creating freedom to discuss faith and to reflect more openly than before on their values as well as about their future. This change brought about a new positive phase of Christian missions in the Middle East.