| A significant number of Muslim communities throughout the world reflect varying degrees of involvement in Islamic mysticism. What bridges are present which will facilitate not only evangelism, but also discipleship and community formation? What can be gleaned from the experience of the early Christians in their interaction within contexts which included ancient Jewish and Hellenic mysticism? How might the interaction and appropriation of the ethos of union with God found in these traditions by John Wesley and his colleagues help us in developing a theology of mission which can then be fruitfully applied in specific Sufi communities?;In the first chapter of this study, we analyze the context of ascension, vision and transformation mysticism of ancient Judaism, according to the contextualizing principles elucidated by Andrew Walls: the indigenizing and pilgrim principles. Within this analysis, we examine how the ancient Jewish community, particularly Philo of Alexandria, sought to apply something much like Walls' principles as they interacted within the Hellenic context. In the second chapter, we then examine the manner in which the New Testament writings, especially the Johannine writings, interacted contextually, yet critically, with these streams of mystical thought and practices, again utilizing Walls' the indigenizing and pilgrim principles. The third chapter focuses on the writings of the fourth-century Syrian writer, Macarius-Symeon, once again observing the manner in which he uses these same indigenizing and pilgrim principles in further interaction with both Jewish and Hellenic ascension, vision and transformation mysticism, with an increasing focus on the theme of union with God. In the fourth chapter, we examine how John Wesley and his colleagues appropriated this heritage of interaction, both from early Christian writers such as Macarius-Symeon, as well as via the Anglican and Pietist traditions which had also been developing a theme of union with God. We will particularly focus on the manner in which this is expressed in the four intertwined themes of prevenient grace, humankind created in God's image, salvation as healing, and sanctification. In the fifth chapter, we introduce the classical Sufi writings which sought to apply a similar ethos vis-à-vis their own Islamic milieu, seeking to legitimate their mystical tradition's grounding in the sources of Muslim orthodoxy. From here we move into the sixth chapter, where the focus remains on the Sufi context. We will narrow our focus to an examination of the writings of `Alī ibn `Uthmān al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī and Sharaf al-Dīn Manerī, examining them in accordance with these same Walls' principles of contextualization. Moreover, we will seek parallels between the mysticism of union with and abiding in God in Sufism and in the writings of the early Christians as well as of John Wesley. Finally, in the concluding seventh chapter, we offer a model based on the foregoing analysis for contextualizing Christianity in Sufi communities, to be applied in the development of a theology of mission, and concluding with a brief narrative describing the life of such a community. |
