Responses of Protestant Denominations and traditions
The Protestant church is much more fragmented than either the Roman Catholic or Orthodox explored in the previous blog (Blog #4). Consequently, there is a huge diversity in Protestant Christian responses to Islam which is much more difficult to describe, ranging from the conciliatory to extremely confrontational. For instance, in 2008 the then Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams caused uproar in the UK when he suggested on BBC radio that ‘recognition’ of the shari‘a is ‘unavoidable’ in the UK. He was seen by many Christians – including some within his own church – as being far too accommodating to Islam. At the other end of the scale, last Saturday (13th September 2025) Brian Tamaki, the pastor of Destiny Church in New Zealand – no I hadn’t heard of it either – told the crowd at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally in London, including many flag-waving Christians, that they were in ‘a religious war. It’s Jesus Christ versus Satan. Christianity versus the rest. Islam, Hinduism, Bahai, Buddhism, and whatever else you’re into, are all false religions. … Ban any type of public expression in our Christian nations from other religions. Ban halal, ban burkas, ban mosques, ban temples, ban shrines. We don’t want those in our countries.’
Whilst larger sacramental denominations, such as the Church of England, broadly follow the sorts of responses seen from the hierarchies of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, the smaller Protestant denominations and independent churches have no such settled policies. This absence of church oversight and collective action leaves plenty of scope for idiosyncratic responses.
The Reformation
The emergence of the Protestant churches in the sixteenth century Reformation, took place during the period in which the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith and its armies were threatening Europe having conquered the Balkans and laid siege to Vienna (1529). The churches in the West had had little or no contact with Muslims and Islam was generally seen as being a Jewish or Christian heresy. The Reformers, along with others of their time, saw Islam as a satanic deception, Muhammad as a degraded moral character (see Blog #2), often associated with the Antichrist, and Muslims as being a threat to Christendom. For John Calvin (1509-1564), an Ottoman invasion of Europe would have been “the end of Christianity as a power to be reckoned with” and for Martin Luther the Turks (i.e. Muslims) were a divine judgement on the waywardness of the Christian church.[1] For just a few, Islam was a lesser threat than Catholic Rome and Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) even hoped that Protestants would be able “to propagate their teachings faster under Islam than under Catholic rule".[2] All in all, given the negative views of most leaders, it was not surprising that early Protestant Christian responses to Islam were predominantly polemical.
Later, as Ottoman power waned and the threat of invasion receded as Western power grew, the responses became missional. Whilst the Protestant missionary movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mainly saw Christians travelling to Africa, Asia and the Americas, some did go to Muslim lands and there are some well-known examples. Henry Martyn (1781-1812), an Anglican chaplain, translated the New Testament into Persian and Urdu as he travelled through Persia and India engaging with Muslims. Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803–1865) was a Lutheran polemical preacher who lived in Central Asia, India and Istanbul. Later, Samuel Zwemer (1867–1952), a Reformed Church of America missionary known as ‘The Apostle to Islam’, spent his life in the Arabian Gulf and Egypt and also took a more confrontational approach to Islam. However, his contemporary, Temple Gairdner (1873-1928), went to Cairo with the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) and was rather more eirenic and appreciative of Islam, comparing the two faiths and looking for common ground whilst still being committed to evangelism. Despite all these efforts, none of these Protestant missionary efforts yielded much fruit until the late twentieth century. Today some (mainly) Protestant Christians are still involved in mission to Muslim-majority countries and communities which we will discuss in a later blog.
Anglican and Church of England
The Anglican Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the world, has a long history of engaging with Muslims from missionary work to more recent engagement in inter-faith dialogue. From the 1980s onwards, various documents have been published clarifying the importance of inter-faith work, including the church’s relationship with Muslims, and the Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON) has had responsibility for overseeing such relations.[3] The most important document published has probably been ‘Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue’ published in 2008. According to its foreword by Rowan Williams it ‘expresses commitment to both “the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue”’[4]. It comments, for instance, that ‘it can be a profoundly humbling and creative experience for (Christians) to read the Bible alongside Muslims who likewise believe themselves to be addressed by the one God through the text of the Qur’ān’.[5] In the UK, the 2005 Church of England report ‘Presence and Engagement’ (P&E) responded to the fact that a growing number of parishes in Britain have a large proportion of residents from other religions and diverse ethnic backgrounds. It led to the setting up of several P&E centres in multicultural cities around England with a focus on creating a ‘peaceable civil society’.[6]
Not all Anglicans find themselves in agreement with such sentiments. Whilst many engage in dialogue, there are contexts where Anglicans feel they need to take a more combative approach. For instance, Nigerian Bishop Peter Akinola has been very critical of Islam in the context of the violence in his nation. Australian Anglican Mark Durie is another who takes a more polemical, adversarial stance.
Other sacramental denominations
Denominations such as the Methodists and Congregationalists have tended to follow the established church approach in encouraging engagement and dialogue. For instance, the United Methodist Church, a US denomination, passed a resolution called ‘Our Muslim Neighbors’ advocating ‘better relationships between Christians and Muslims on the basis of informed understanding, critical appreciation, and balanced perspective of one another's basic beliefs’.[7] Similarly, the Methodist Church in the UK has partnered with the Christian-Muslim Forum in building community partnerships with Muslims.[8] The Presbyterian Church of the USA has also passed a resolution on Islam and maintains an Office of Interfaith Relations.[9]
Outside of these ‘mainline’ denominations, however, other Protestant denominations focus more on mission and evangelism amongst Muslims rather than dialogue. This is especially true of evangelicals, who by definition want to evangelise others. For instance, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical Protestant denomination in the USA, has been very involved in mission to Muslims over recent decades, yet some of its leaders have made extremely critical comments about Islam.[10]
Evangelicals and Pentecostals
Evangelical is a loosely used term to describe Christians in any denomination who take the Bible seriously, emphasise salvation through the cross, believe in the need for conversion and so are active in passing their faith on to others.[11] It might be modified by terms such as conservative-, open-, progressive- or liberal-. Some are even trying to move away from the term because of its current association with right-wing politics in the USA and use other phrases such as ‘red letter Christians’.[12] Pentecostals are usually evangelicals who particularly emphasise the importance of the Holy Spirit and may either be in denominations, such as the Assemblies of God (AoG), the Elim Pentecostal Church or the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), or may be independent churches.
My 2024 book particularly focuses on evangelical responses to Islam and finds an increasing polarization in attitudes and approaches with sometimes heated exchanges between Christians of different persuasions. In fact, it finds that even evangelicals within the same denomination or tradition may have different views. Missionary David Shenk (d. 2023) was a Mennonite pacifist with a warm relationship with Muslims, but Jay Smith, also a Mennonite, is more combative. Albert Mohler and John Piper are both Baptist pastors who are suspicious of Islam, while Martin Accad and Salim Munayer are also Baptists (and Arab) but much more irenic. Pentecostals are often known for their spiritual warfare approach to Islam, such as Brian Tamaki, mentioned above, yet Joseph Cumming and Miroslav Volf are both Pentecostals who are dove-like in their engagement.
Some evangelicals – including Pentecostals – are engaged in evangelism and mission to Muslim countries. Others have become extremely concerned about the growth of Muslim communities in the West. Some focus on the situation of Christians in Muslim-majority contexts, others engage Muslims in apologetical or polemical debate. In the last three decades, more evangelical Christians have engaged in dialogue (see later blog), although others see this as a disturbing slide towards liberal political correctness. All these tensions and attitudes will be appear again and again starting with Christian angst about ‘Islamization’ in the West in the next blog. Read on!
[1] Slomp, Jan. 1995. 'Calvin and the Turks', in Haddad, W. & Y. Haddad (eds.) Christian-Muslim Encounters (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida), 126-142 and Basset, Jean-Claude. 1998. 'New Wine in Old Wineskins: changing Protestant views of Islam', in Waardenburg, J. (ed.) Islam and Christianity: Mutual Perceptions since the Mid-20th Century (Leuven: Peeters), 79-96.
[2] Vehlow, Katya. 1995. 'The Swiss Reformers: Zwingli, Bullinger and Bibliander and their Attitude to Islam', Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 6/2: 229-253
[3] See a detailed summary of these documents in Sudworth, R. 2009. The Church of England and Islam: hospitality and embassy - theologies of religion in process Parts I, II, III, IV, Fulcrum.
[4] Quoted in Sudworth, The Church of England and Islam Part IV.
[5] Network for Inter Faith Concerns 2008. ‘Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue. An Anglican theology of interfaith relations’. London: Anglican Consultative Council, 6.
[6] See for instance, St. Philip’s Centre, Leicester.
[7] United Methodist Church, ‘Our Muslim Neighbors’, Book of Resolution #6006, 2016.
[8] The Methodist Church, ‘Muslims & Methodists’, 2017.
[9] PCUSA, Toward an Understanding of Christian-Muslim Relations, 2010.
[10] See Powell, C. 2024. Southern Baptists and Muslims: A Path to Dialogue through Narrative Empathy, Eugene, OR, Wipf & Stock, 5-7.
[11] This is based on Bebbington’s well-known definition in Bebbington, D. 1989. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: a history from the 1730s to the 1980s, London, Routledge. Note that Evangelical has a different meaning in the countries of continental Europe.
[12] See https://redletterchristians.org for an explanation.