Contextualization and the Insider Movement: A Local Church's Response

Collin Hansen interviewed John Piper last year regarding the “insider movement”: “Piper Responds to the Insider Movement.”

Hansen states the following about this six minute interview:

John Piper depends on many experienced missionaries and pastors at Bethlehem Baptist Church who help him discern the related issues: whether new followers of Jesus Christ can stay in the mosque, continue to call themselves Muslims, refer to Jesus as the "Son of God," and so on. In this interview, he tells me what he appreciates about the impulse behind the Insider Movement and why Westerners struggle to understand the consequences of belief among Muslim-background believers.

Piper also raises an important problem with the Insider Movement not always appreciated by its proponents: the staunch opposition of many Muslim-background believers who have sacrificed so much to follow Christ and reach their friends, family, and neighbors with the gospel.

Regarding contextualization, Piper believes that C4 is as far as one should go.

One of those involved/engaged in missionary outreach to which Piper refers in this interview is his former colleague at Bethlehem Baptist, Erik Hyatt. Hyatt served as Pastor for Global Outreach from 2002-2011, at which time he transitioned into Bethlehem’s Church Planting Residency as training to church plant this fall.

In this piece linked below, Hyatt shares how he and Bethlehem Baptist had to come to terms with contextualization among Muslims. Through this, they developed questions for missionary candidates, “Questions and Biblical Guidelines for Missionaries among Muslim Peoples.”