My name is Billy Hutchinson, head of the Colson Educators Program. I'm excited to announce a special educator's edition of Truth Rising the Study. If you work with students, you know this is a challenging time in culture. From AI and social media to identity and the basic questions of meaning and purpose, The classroom can be a confusing place right now. But what if you had clarity to understand this cultural moment in light of God's story?
Know how to live in light of truth and equip your students to do the same? That's where Truth Rising the Study Educators Edition can help. In this free digital course available for CEUs in partnerships with ACSI, John Stone Street summarizes God's game plan for this civilizational moment using four essential concepts. Hope, truth, identity, and calling. Then, I follow up each lesson with practical tips for classroom application.
Through the study, you'll be grounded in the authentic hope of Christ's resurrection and understand God's grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. You'll learn how our identity is anchored in the relationships we have as image bearers. and you'll learn what questions to ask to discern your calling where God has placed you, including your classroom, and then go and help your students do the same. You can access Truth Rising the Study Educators Edition and the full course library at colsoneducators.org. That's Colsoneducators.org.
Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center on John Stone Street. Less than 25 years after Muslim terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people on 9-11, New York City, home of Ground Zero, just elected a Muslim as its next mayor.
Some European cities are already majority Muslim.
So what does this mean for America?
Well today on Breakpoint, speaker and author Abdou Murray takes a closer look at Islam in America and how Christians should respond. The truth, as usual, is complicated. There are legitimate concerns about Islam's growing influence in Western life. but there are also exaggerations or flat-out falsehoods. Take the rumor that Dearborn, Michigan has implemented anti-Christian missionary laws.
It hasn't. I read the ordinances and confirmed with Christian friends who live there that they can still share the gospel in Dearborn's parks and streets. Still, there are real tensions. When Dearborn's mayor Abdullah Hamoud told the Christian Dearborn resident and street preacher Ted Barham that he wasn't welcome in Dearborn, The backlash was swift. In response, Hamoud issued a sorry, not sorry statement that Dearborn is open to people of all faiths.
but he didn't apologize or even address Barham. With a population that's roughly 55% Muslim, Hamoud likely feels no need. His base will keep him in office. That's what makes the situation interesting and instructive. Islam's growth in the West isn't hypothetical.
It's real. and it's reshaping local cultures and politics. Considered that the FBI announced on October 31 that it thwarted an alleged terror plot in Dearborn. And now the largest city in the US, New York. has for the first time a Muslim mayor.
Some wonder, if a mayor of a mid-sized city could try to socially silence Christians, what might happen in the nation's cultural capital? But contrary to some fears, Sharia law isn't taking over Western legal systems. Islam spread in America isn't primarily legally coercive. but it is cultural, demographic. and deeply spiritual.
Despite its global PR problems, association with extremism, restrictions on women, authoritarian regimes, Islam continues to grow in the U.S. Yes, that's partly due to immigration and birthrights, but it's also because Islam offers what secularism can't, a clear message and a sense of belonging. For young men especially, Islam presents masculinity as virtuous, not toxic. It calls them to discipline, duty, and identity. In a culture that sneers at male strength and a mainline church that too often avoids moral rigor, Islam's convictions can look like courage.
Islam also carries an underdog appeal. In the Western imagination, Islam is often the David facing a secular, or Western colonialist, Goliath. A minority religion maligned by elites. For younger generations trained to root for the oppressed, that story resonates. It resonates so strongly that some Western youth support Hamas, despite knowing that Hamas would not return the favor.
Meanwhile, many churches have grown timid. We've replaced persuasive proclamation with emotional appeal. In that void, Islam's stridency looks refreshing. It's important to remember that Islam is not just a religion. It's a total worldview that encompasses politics.
Many Muslims envision a world submitted to Allah's laws. Muslims differ in how they think that should happen. Most believe in persuasion, service, and exemplary living. Others rely on demographic growth and immigration. and a smaller, but concerning, minority openly speaks of Islam's global dominance and rejects religious pluralism altogether.
Even secular observers have taken notice. Years ago, atheist Richard Dawkins remarked that, quote, I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse, end quote. That's a remarkable admission, and it underscores that gospel proclamation to Muslims and serious Christian discipleship are not only spiritually vital, they're essential to preserving the moral foundations of the West. None of this justifies hostility or paranoia, but neither does it allow for naivete. As Muslim populations grow in key Western cities, the temptation to use social or political leverage to silence criticism or limit evangelism is real.
Dearborn's situation reminds us that political pressure to self-censor can emerge even in democratic societies. History shows that when fear of backlash overrides justice or truth, victims suffer and wrongdoing fasters. moral clarity must outrank cultural sensitivity. But the greater danger isn't that Muslims are gaining power, it's that they're gaining people. Islam is winning some hearts that long for meaning, conviction, and community, hearts that should be hearing the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The tragedy isn't that Islam is advancing, it's that the church has been retreating. Islam's growth doesn't prove that the religion is true. It proves its followers take their faith seriously. and that should wake us up. The Christian response must be urgency, not alarm.
We need to recognize what makes Islam appealing, its conviction, its courage, its sense of mission, and rekindle our sense of those same virtues. but undergirded by the truth of Christ. Our witness must be both persuasive and personal. Muslims and secular seekers alike should see in Christians a faith that is intellectually credible, morally grounded, and compassionately lived. The gospel doesn't offer dominance.
but deliverance, not control, but communion with the living God.
So let's engage our Muslim neighbors, not avoid them. Let's support those ministering in Muslim-majority communities. Let's disciple men and women who embody truth with humility and conviction. Islam's rise in the West is not a reason to panic, it's a reason to preach. Our Muslim neighbors aren't the enemy.
They are people made in the image of God, searching for what only Christ can give. For Breakpoint, I'm Abdu Murray. Thanks Abdu. If you're a fan of these daily breakpoint commentaries, please leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for a version of today's commentary that you can download and share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
