Hi Marilyn Gardner

Thank you for your comment at Provoketive Magazine (http://provoketive.com). We’re creating a space of rich conversation about life, faith, justice and culture without judgment. Our desire is to provoke the reader’s imagination through conversation and open up spaces of dialogue, learning, and hope.  We want to invite you to come back soon and continue to participate in the conversation. 

Thank you,
Jonathan Brink
Provoketive Magazine

You posted the following comment:
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Hi Jerry - thanks for the comment. It's precisely because there is often a "crusade" like mentality that we wrote the article. As someone raised in Pakistan I have no illusions. I could have chosen to write about my father being beaten up by Muslims when I was 6 years old, or  my mom and I being surrounded by a crowd of men three feet thick in a village in Pakistan. I (we) chose to not write those stories this time, but write  what we learned from the majority of our friends as we watched them work out a different faith.  It's not a matter of making it acceptable - whether we like it or not Islam is a major world religion, and there are things that are inexcusable in the Muslim world, things that horrify Muslims themselves. This article was from a perspective not often heard in the western church - a perspective that attempts to build bridges. Jesus was not afraid to engage or dialogue and this was an attempt to engage.