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With Mark Durie
266 Plays3 months ago
Today on PEP Talk we look at some of the cultural and spiritual dimensions of Islam that can often be hidden from our Western perspectives. If you want to share your faith with Muslim friends or colleagues, these insights can be so helpful! Our guest today shares his experience across church planting ministry, working with immigrants and linguistic studies, especially drawing on his book, Liberty to the Captives.
Rev Dr Mark Durie was born in Papua to missionary parents and grew up in Canberra. His PhD in linguistics studied the language of the Acehnese people in Indonesia. Mark spent ten years on the Linguistics faculty at the University of Melbourne, but was ordained in 1999, serving in three Melbourne Anglican parishes over the next two decades. Now at Melbourne School of Theology, Mark teaches in Islamic studies and pastoral theology. The author of many articles and books, which have been translated into numerous languages, Mark’s research interests include missions to Muslims, discipleship, Islamic origins, human rights, religious freedom, and deliverance ministry.
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:10
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another edition of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast from Solas. I'm Andy Bannister and I'm joined as ever by my co-host, Christy Mayer. Christy, how are you doing there? Hey, Andy, you're doing very well. Thank you. How about yourself?
00:00:25
Speaker
Oh, I'm enjoying the summer. Summer has arrived in ah in in the UK, hasn't it? And to go three days, it's it's been fantastic. It won't last, but it's all it's all good. Well, talking of sunshine, we are joined by someone today from the land of sunshine, all the way from Australia.
Mark Dury's Journey from Academia to Ministry
00:00:40
Speaker
We are joined today by Mark Dury. Mark, welcome to pep talk. It's great to be with you, Andy and Christy. I've been looking forward to it.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, us too. Now, um by way of intro, I mean, I've known Mark, or we were working out before the show began, I think 2006 we met. And so Mark, you've worn a whole variety of hats. You started life as as an academic, well, missionary parents, grown up on Missionfield, then Australia, then an academic career.
00:01:05
Speaker
Then you came into the Anglican church and you were a vicar, of several churches for some years. Then you got involved in in outreach and engagement with Islam, and got yourself a second PhD in Islamic studies. Calisthen fire goes on and on and on. Now we're tired, but still doing all kinds of things. So that doesn't do it justice by a long way. That just sounds like bullet points. So why don't you kick us off by giving us a bit of your your story? Because that's quite a journey you've been on from academia into church staff, into missions and all kinds of bits and pieces. So tell us more of that journey. Sure. I've been a Christian all my life and um I went into academic linguistics and spent about 20 years doing that.
00:01:49
Speaker
But I never felt it was the end end station. I that felt that God had something more for me. But anyway, I felt called to to um offer for for ordination in the Anglican priesthood. And I served for 21 years as ah as an Anglican pastor in Melbourne, in Australia. We saw a lot of people come to faith. It was exciting times. and um And fairly early on in that, I became awakened to the global challenge of Islam. I'd done my PhD on the language of Aceh in Indonesia, which is the most Islamist-sized part or ethnic group in Indonesia. So I have a had a background there, something behind me. But after 9-11, I was really awakened to the pressing need to equip the church and to learn more.
00:02:30
Speaker
So that led to various books and also the PhD on the origins of Islam. um And then in 2020, I've decided to focus just on writing and teaching and speaking about Islam. Along the way, in the middle of all that journey, um I was involved in planting a church amongst Muslim background believers in Melbourne in Australia. So That was a really exciting journey. And the way it still continues was on coaching the leaders that we raced up to to a pastor that church. So, yeah, lots of different things. The Lord has given me three careers, I think, at least.
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, there's so much that we'd love to ask you about, Mark. So I think maybe just to start off with, we'd love to hear more about your experience with um Muslim background believers and your experience in the mission field as well of engaging with with
Challenges of Iranian Believers in Australia
00:03:21
Speaker
Muslims. What have been some of the the big things that you've noticed as you've, um I guess as you've established relationships and friendships with them, what what sort of things have come to the surface in your conversations and and in your interactions with them?
00:03:36
Speaker
Yes, I've mainly worked with Iranian believers. um There was a time when a lot of Iranians were coming into Australia by boat. They'd come from Indonesia and ah there was a day in 2013 when about 60 recent converts and a whole lot of people still Muslims.
00:03:55
Speaker
came to me and asked if I'd be their pastor in Melbourne. And so I found myself leading a church plant. it Actually, it was a revival meeting for about six months, which became a church plant. And um it's developed and grown and they they've now got their own leadership and they've planted another congregation. But I learnt a lot from that time. One of the things that struck me was um the the issues that that these people who just escaped from Iran The issues that they brought forward that were most pressing to them were not necessarily the ones that Western people might think of. So many of them, if you ask them why did they become a Christian, they'd say, I wanted peace. I was looking for peace within. We can think that's quite trite.
00:04:41
Speaker
I remember one government official who was assessing whether one of our believers was genuine, and he just found it a very empty answer, but it's actually profoundly true that many of them have a lot of trauma, relational trauma, trauma from the government, trauma from family.
00:04:56
Speaker
a lot of fear, um physical abuse, sexual abuse, all sorts of different issues, drug abuse. And the trauma is so great that they just they're desperate for peace. and And often just the experience of coming to church and sensing the peace of Christ in the body of believers was profoundly moving for them and and life changing.
00:05:16
Speaker
um So, I mean, often when we, you know, I was trained to think you evangelize someone by convicting them of the the reality of sin and their need for a savior. But what I saw in the Iranians, although they do need a savior from sin, and that's part of their journey, but very often it was healing.
00:05:34
Speaker
that they were looking for. It was it was that that sense of peace and also love between people. They'd been so used to being ripped off and experiencing abusive relationships ah to enter a church where people seem to care for each other and related to each other in a completely different way for Iranians.
00:05:50
Speaker
um That was transformative. I've met a lot of Iranians who will never go to an Iranian church because they have such a high level of triggering around Iranians. So don't trust them and so they'll go to an English speaking church. But anyway, the ones i I was working with had enough courage to stick together and we we had some wonderful experiences. It's
Fear in Islam: Cultural and Spiritual Aspects
00:06:09
Speaker
been a great joy. I think we've baptized a couple of hundred people over the last decade.
00:06:14
Speaker
That's an amazing story. And I'm also struck mark as you as you say that, that I also wonder sometimes that, you know, things that we, as perhaps as Western Christians, we might take for granted, that we would we would acknowledge, right? Peace is is what comes through our relationship with Christ. But maybe maybe we haven't sort of fully appreciated how far some of the like the folks example the folks that you're describing, this is a central This is a central theme, but talk about the fear thing too. For a moment, because one of the things I've noticed in my engagement with with Muslims fear is a big part to within Islam itself, isn't it? Because in one sense, you know, I think as one reads that the Quran.
00:06:50
Speaker
you know There's no image imagery there of Allah being a kind of loving father. There's there's almost a distant austere figure that you fear and and relate to in in that kind of dynamic. There's other dynamics too. So how does how does fear work through Islam? And is that something we need to be aware of when folks come to faith from a Muslim background? Yeah, the the word for piety ah in the Qur'an or kind of righteous faithfulness actually means being afraid of God and taking steps to avoid the negative consequences that would result from displeasing Him. right So the essence of Islamic kind of pious behavior is the avoidance of harm through fear of God, um and it's deeply embedded. and I mean, this is there's also the very real ah punishments in islamic in the Sharia for leaving Islam, which is which is death.
00:07:39
Speaker
um and At a deeper level, um because Islam is not a faith based on covenant, on faithfulness, on on love between God and the Creator, but ah a religion based on the master slave, on an obedience system and a punishment system.
00:07:58
Speaker
um Because of that, so so Islamic societies um can generate high levels of insecurity in people. People ah don't feel safe with other people. and And so the fear is also a way of life. I've had some fascinating conversations. I was speaking once with the couple who were leading um the church that we planted, and they said we were just talking about the weather. And they said, oh, we just love it in Australia that that Australians talk about the weather.
00:08:25
Speaker
And enough for that story that's a very peculiar thing. said We don't have any space in Iran to talk about the weather. oh Life is so difficult and so threatened and precarious that we don't have small talk like that. And so for us, when people say, you know, how's the weather? We just think that's wonderful. We love it. We just love speaking about it. You were here to thwart it, you know. um That's what freedom means, the privilege of being able to talk about the weather. yeah You also mentioned, Mark, in addition to the longing of the soul for peace, you also mentioned a desire for freedom from evil. I just wondered if you could share a little bit more on that.
00:09:15
Speaker
I think everywhere throughout the Islamic world, um people have experience of evil. ah Islam teaches in the but existence of the jinn, who are spirits, and many, many people um have been involved in the occult, ah and and the fear of ah of evil is very is very real.
00:09:38
Speaker
and i um I had already, we had already had these really amazing experiences in the church ministry leading people to faith and many of them had come out of witchcraft and the occult and the new age. So we had a baptism of fire with Anglo-Australians over some
Spiritual Bondage and Liberty in Islam
00:09:56
Speaker
years. And then um as I was studying Islam quite deeply to understand it, I began to realize that the way Islam was structured was itself projecting ah quite a significant spiritual bondage And so I developed tools for setting people free from those bonds. and Just to explain very simply, um many Muslim background believers, having left Islam, struggle with the idea of superiority. That is, people want to be superior to others. It's an Islamic characteristic. it's Sometimes people speak of the honor-shame culture, but I think of it more as a will to be superior. And Islam says that Muslims are the best people.
00:10:36
Speaker
that they are superior to others, and that's why they should rule. But this can spill over into the church for new believers, so each everyone wants to be the leader. and when we When I first appointed um a young man as the leader of the church we were working with, others came and said, you've offended me, you know, you've hurt my feelings. so How did I hurt you?
00:10:57
Speaker
Oh, you've heard me because you pointed him and and why didn't you point me? And they actually felt they felt distressed that somebody else had been raised up. ah And I remember I was preaching once and I spoke to them and I did the Iranians and said, you know, tell me about this. And they said, you know, if someone falls over in the street, we feel happy because we're not on the ground.
00:11:20
Speaker
Or if we hear that someone else's son has failed their exam, it makes you feel happy because your son has passed. And your whole life is built in around this will and desire for superiority. it it It breaks churches apart. If you have three Iranian churches in a city, they'll each say that they're the best and better than the others. You'll get a group of Iranians together and then they'll split off. So I identified this, having studied Islam deeply, I inden identified this as one of the legacies of Muhammad.
00:11:47
Speaker
But part of Islam is a declaration that there's no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. And that's really a commitment to be like Muhammad, to own his character. But his character was riven with this desire to dominate and to be superior. And so I took the view that this enduring character issue, we might think of it a character issue, was not so much a character issue, but a spiritual bondage.
00:12:13
Speaker
And to be really free from that will to be superior, which is a whole way of life, a whole way of thinking, someone needs to actually renounce Muhammad's example, that that's the, as it were, the linchpin of that whole system. That's just given you one example, but there's many other fruits of Islam. And so I think Islam is ah as a system, it's designed to take the characteristics of Muhammad and replicate them in people's lives. yeah Christianity is exactly the same.
00:12:41
Speaker
um We seem to be like Jesus, and he's our example of what it means to be a complete, healthy, healed human being, is to um to follow his ways. And Islam teaches the same message, but it's Muhammad that should be followed. And sadly, there is a lot of dysfunction there. So that gets spiritually woven into culture. and So one of the things we did when leading um Muslims to faith and before baptism, we would take them through ah some prayers renouncing Islam, which means renouncing, fight finding Muhammad as your best example, renouncing rituals that express that bondage or that that kind of submission to his example. You know, when when a baby is born, one of the first things they hear is the words of the shahada being spoken into their ear.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's a ritual which um really projects this idea that Muhammad is the person who should be followed for the for the whole of this person's life. So one of the renunciations of that prayer before baptism is to renounce the recitation of this these words when you were born. you know so But we what we found was that um I had just written this book in 2012, 13 with which had resources for being set free.
00:13:55
Speaker
And it was just after that that the Iranians arrived and said, we we we had a welcome lunch for 20 people and 80 people turned up and 60 were these lost Iranians. So we immediately applied this whole approach that I developed in in building the churches. but It was like God gave us this little laboratory mark, you've written the book, here's some people to to experiment on. And so we did that and God has blessed this that church. It's ah it's a For Iranian standards, even for Australian standards, it's a pretty healthy group of people and they've had a lot of healing. ah there was yeah There's also just need for healing in a lot of genres as well well. I was going to ask about of yeah that in terms of books and and so forth, obviously this is re this is a liberty to the captives.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yes ah that we're talking about it's gonna ask you so to tell folks a little bit about that because because i think what's fascinating is the story that as you and you describe what what led to you writing that but i've also been you know quite interesting watching that how widely that's now spread it seems that you tap into something i also love by the fact we didn't say at the start of the show we've got three anglicans.
00:15:00
Speaker
on this, you're a retired Anglican vicar. Christie is a sort of miscellaneous Anglican there at Oak Hill College, and I'm a reluctant Anglican. But I love the fact very seriously that actually, sometimes, you know, I think one of the strengths that that tradition can bring is the, you know, the idea of some sort of set pre-written prayers, liturgy, structure, which can help people through those significant points. And and I like the the sort of thinking that went into liberty of the captives of actually giving those resources to help people go through, as you say, the renouncing of things, the breaking the chains. So just talk a little bit about more about the book and and and and how it's done, and and and I suppose how folks can get hold of it too. We'll give the web link at the end. but
00:15:40
Speaker
Yes, it's available in more than 30 languages now. um And it it it introduces the essence of Islam, how Islam works, and the importance of the example and the life of Muhammad. And then it explains how that works out ah for Christians living in Islamic context. So the the older churches of the Middle East, it explains the impact that that has on them spiritually. And at the heart of the book, I contrast the example of Jesus and Muhammad and how they responded to rejection.
00:16:10
Speaker
Rejection is a really big issue in Islam and um and the dysfunctional responses to rejection ah that are part of Muhammad's life get replicated throughout the Islamic world. So violence is an example, the will to be superior is another, but deception is another.
00:16:27
Speaker
So I sort of contrast, both Muhammad and Jesus had experienced very intense rejection, but their responses to rejection were completely the opposite. and And Jesus' example, which leads us to the cross, is just so life-giving. And so I came to view the life of Christ and the cross of Christ as the key to overcome the power of rejection in in the structure of Islam as a system. So there are prayers for not only choosing to follow Christ, but also for announcing this um descriptive rejection and its effects ah for for breaking the ties of curses and and lies and the will to be superior.
00:17:08
Speaker
So the book, in a way, ah it it teaches about what freedom in Christ looks like, and it it lays open the structure of Islam, the spiritual structure. um It's as almost as if Muhammad was coming for prayer ministry and you sort of dealt with all his issues and sought them all. So the book tries to give that give a profile of of those issues. And then it has prayers for announcing Islam. And we've been getting wonderful, wonderful testimonies from people who've left Islam. Amazing.
00:17:36
Speaker
and going through this ministry and yeah people being set free. Fantastic. Mark, I think one of the things that ah really strikes me about what you're sharing with us and something that I've been thinking about in my own um mission and teaching is just how overlooked the spiritual dimension and everything is spiritual and we tend to kind of separate things out into the material and immaterial, but how the unseen world around us is so often um Neglected, minimised, marginalised in our discipleship and in our church um practices and rhythms and litters. Well, not so much in the liturgies actually, but in our and our practices and rhythms. And I just wondered, what do you think
00:18:22
Speaker
Why do you think that is? I mean, of course, there's the enlightenment. Of course, there's all these things going on. But why do you think in the in the day to day life of the average person of which I am one, that we are slow to think about there the unseen world, as you've mentioned, you know, that the need to be free from these curses and spiritual spiritual kind of bondages? Why why are we slow to look to those things?
Western Christianity and Spiritual Neglect
00:18:46
Speaker
Well, I think the effect of the Enlightenment is great. And the Reformers made some mistakes, like they saw the Catholic exorcists, the Romish exorcists, and didn't like what they were doing, and they rejected deliverance ministry altogether. They also had this cessationist doctrine that the miracles had ceased. And if you're dealing with the supernatural, you need the supernatural.
00:19:08
Speaker
And if you say the supernatural is past in a sense, or some manifestations of it, it makes it kind of makes you weaponless. So that's that's that's a factor. um I think that church has been captivated by the spirit of the age, who made captive. And and we we've banished you know these studies from our curriculum for for training people as well.
00:19:30
Speaker
and Then, we we put ourselves in this really impossible position where there's a fear barrier. like We don't want to deal with this because it feels too hard. I don't know what to do, so I won't think about it at all. um ah There's been a huge change, I think, in the West. ah People are reconsidering various reasons. One is the re-occultization, the repaganization of the re-enchantment of the West.
00:19:53
Speaker
um In every Western country, there's many people following all sorts of spiritual paths, and they're turning up in churches with their demons that they picked up along the way, so that's been a big change. um and I think the Enlightenment worldview is obviously weakened a lot in the West um too. Another thing is globalization, and people are coming from all over the world to all over the world. And so, you know, I have students in my classes that when one woman was from Malaysia, she said, I just can't believe these Western people don't know the reality of the spiritual realm. It's so obvious to us, you know. um So those those sorts of influences are causing a challenging um the West's approach, but we're still recovering. We're still we're still struggling with that. But
00:20:37
Speaker
I think one of the main reasons why Jesus came was to defeat the power of evil and to set us free from Satan, and that needs to be reclaimed. that's That's a core part of the gospel in my understanding, and it needs to be integrated into our witness and our worship. and As you you mentioned liturgy, the baptism liturgy in the Anglican Church still has a renunciation of Satan, which is a yeah ah relic of a deliverance session um that the bishop used to perform with the catechumens.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, the the bones are still there, but they need to they need life breathed back into them. I love that. ah Yeah, the bones are still there. um Final question from from me, Mark. We've covered all kinds of stuff in the last 20 minutes, but to sort of bring it down to so land. Some people listening to this may be looking at this thinking, well, you know gosh, Mark's had all this experience of engaging with Iranians. He's got a PhD in Islam. you know No wonder he's good at this stuff. um But I think far you know more and more Christians are living with Muslims on our, in our neighborhoods, on our streets and our workplaces, as Islam has come here to the west. What would you be your advice for somebody who's sitting here thinking, how do I begin? I don't even know how to begin engaging Islam. What are just some lessons that perhaps you've learned over the years? Because you began somewhere, um you know, how do you start reaching the Muslims that God brings across your path and you kind of sort of take away tips?
Engaging with Muslims: Friendship and Understanding
00:21:58
Speaker
Someone did a study of the reasons why Muslims become Christians, and the biggest reason is they they knew a Christian who loved them, and they could see the love of God at working the lives of Christians. So make friends with your Muslim neighbors, reach out to them. At the same time, equip yourself ah about Islam. There are some great resources out there.
00:22:19
Speaker
um and ah and understand how Islam works, understand who the Islamic Jesus is, how God works in Islam. So it's it's not it's you can get you can kind of go in with a love track, but without enough truth. And you need you need both. So the other thing is pray that God will show up. but A lot of Muslims come to Christ through miracles, dreams, visions.
00:22:42
Speaker
um And you know expect that. I offer to pray for your Muslim friend. You know, God might answer your prayer. That's been my experience. And if you don't pray, you'll never see an answered prayer in that context. And that's very powerful. People are looking for spiritual power and and healing. So yeah reach out, engage, equip yourself. And there are some wonderful resources for that. But um get started with with making friends, I think.
00:23:07
Speaker
Thank you so much, Mark. I'm literally just writing down notes. This is fantastic. There's so much... I love it. yeah She's you' so engaged, she's busy.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, amen. Thank you ever so much, Mark.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:23:20
Speaker
And and this brings us to the end of our of our episode. um I think the notes to um everything that we've just mentioned in terms of books and resources will be posted um as this as this. Yeah, but let we'll put a link to Mark's website in the show notes, yeah. Great.
00:23:35
Speaker
um Thank you ever so much for joining us, Mark. We've really, really enjoyed this conversation. Oh, thanks for having me. It's been lovely to chat with you both. Oh, it's us a pleasure. Well, this is a good bye for me and a good bye from Andy. Bye. And we'll see you in a couple of weeks time as we get to listen from the heart of another brother and sister as they share with us their experiences of life in this world. Thanks so much for joining us and we look forward to being with you again sometime soon. Take care. Bye.