The Muslim Spiritual Progress Scale: Aiding Muslims in Coming to Christ

Abstract

No person with any knowledge of the facts can deny that coming to Christ and accepting him as one’s personal Savior from the religion of Islam is an enterprise fraught with difficulty. Societal expectations, family roles and pressure, religious dogma, inherent systemic prejudice, misapprehension of what Christianity is, a parallel holy book that often contradicts the Bible, a works-based approach to salvation, an exclusivist selfunderstanding that replaces the concept of the biblical remnant with the Ummah (the community of Muslims), a generalized misapprehension of the essence of Islam by Westerners, a confusion (on the part of Christians and Muslims alike) between Western commercialism and true Christianity, an often corrupt and poorly representative church, radicalization of some elements in the Islamic community, and strong punitive measures for those who convert out of Islam are just some of the major barriers that discourage serious investigation by Muslims of the gospel of Jesus Christ as presented in the Scriptures. In spite of these challenges, there is a steady stream of conversions to Christ occurring from the ranks of those from a Muslim background. The numbers, although not a torrent, do represent an upsurge of individuals who are leaving the mosque and joining the church. Jeune Afrique, the French journal on Africa, estimated that in 2004, there were 500 converts to Christianity from Islam in Tunisia. They converted chiefly to three churches. A report on the website Islam al-Yawm estimated that in 2004 about 1,000 left Islam for Christianity in Morocco (Madany 2010). Al-Majalla, a journal estimated that there were at least 7,000 Christians in Morocco at that time. In 1992, according to estimates by the French Journal Le Monde, anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 individuals converted from Islam to Christianity in Algeria. The numbers are not exact and one source said that the