Converting Muslims to Jesus with "Emotional Calvinism"

Over at CT, there is an excellent article on Jesus in Turkey which talks about the re-emergence of Christianity in Turkey since the 1960s. I loved this quote:

Ucal's congregation moved toward a charismatic, Vineyard-style form of Christianity. Meanwhile, Ucal served in the army for eight months and received training in ministry in the Philippines and South Korea. After that, Ucal decided to plant a different kind of church based on systematic theological teaching. While in South Korea, he had noticed the parallels between systematic theology and the disciplined Islamic lifestyle and mindset. He wondered if other Muslim-background Turks might respond to a more structured approach than the informal evangelicalism of which he was a part. Ucal found that his Muslim neighbors are attracted to systematic approaches to religious instruction, and are also easily touched emotionally. So Ucal began approaching them with an "emotional Calvinism."

A Definition of Mission

Later in the year I'm returing to the topic of mission or proselytism in the ancient world. I think that alot of the arguments about whether or not second-temple Judaism was a missionary religion or not comes down to a matter of the definition of mission and the differences between conversion and adherence - balancing sociological and theological factors also contributes to the definition. For example James C. Paget defines a missionary religion as ‘one which, in a variety of ways, makes it clear that conversion to that religion is a good thing’. Based on his work on mission-commitment in Judaism, John Dickson defines mission as ‘the range of activities by which members of a religious community desirous of the conversion of outsiders seek to promote their religion to non-adherents’. Martin Goodman identifies different types of missionary activity including: information, education, apologetic and proselytization. For him the latter consists of: 'Those who approved of proselytizing mission believed that, as members of a defined group, they should approve of those within their number who might choose to encourage outsiders not only to change their way of life but also to be incorporated within their group'. What started me thinking on this subject was Scot McKnight's much under read book Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (1991) which is well worth checking out.