"The most serious charge sociology can make against theologians is that they have failed

to provide the cultural means of generating religious commitment".

[Keiran Flanagan, 1996; 183, The Enchantment of Sociology, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press]

RESOCIALISATION OF CONVERTS FROM ISLAM

IN THE PAKISTANI CONTEXT

The concept of the UMMAH, the Islamic community in a religio-political sense, both in
theory and practice, the common adherence to a sacred culture based on QURAN, the
Muslim scripture, and the SUNNAH, the example of the prophet Muhammad, and a total
allegiance to a political ideology of the KHALAFAH, the Islamic theocracy, makes it a
more tenacious community than any other. The tolerance in Islam, historically, has met a
freedom of continuity what one have been, if born outside it, in a MILLAH, an ethnic
community. Or it meant a freedom to migrate into Islam. There was no liberty for the born
Muslim to migrate out of it. Conversion from Islam termed as IRTIDDAD meaning
apostasy, might almost be phrased as "treason" and "dis-identity". According to
SHARIAH, the Islamic legal system, apostasy is punishable by decapitation, though,
presently it has not been incorporated in the penal codes of any of the Muslim Countries.
The converts have to face heavy handed ostracisation from the immediate family and the
community as a result of excommunication from the Muslim UMMAH.

Because of this harsh attitude taken towards converts by the Muslim community, the
convert has to find a new family, a new community, a new social and economic life along
with the new spiritual life he has adopted. Therefore, in a Muslim context the decision to
become or not to become a Christian may be influenced by the desires or non-desire to
become the part of a community. People may articulate the positive attitude to become a
Christian on the bases of views abut communities, it is more likely that individuals who
have progressed to the point of having a "Grasp of Personal Implications of the Gospel''
will be held back from further progress because of local social interpretations of what it
means to become part of the Christian community, which in many Muslim context is an
integral part of thinking through what being a Christian is. As Colin Blair wrote, back in
1980, many churches in Asia are homogeneous and belong to the people of one culture or
communal or ethnic group: "Their language is different and their customs other, anyone
from Islamic background finds it extremely difficult to integrate into let alone be
accepted by this group. He is foreigner and like a transplanted body organ may be
rejected".

The Christian communities in Muslim lands has also succumbed to MILLAH-thinking, by-
passing the spiritual nature of the church and making it but a birth ascribed kinship group.
A great majority of Christians think of the church as a get-gather of like minded people
for in unity there is strength, but if need be you can get along without it. Therefore a
congregation can cold-shouldered a convert and not have a bad conscience.

Muslim converts would face serious problems in their resocialisation into the Christian
community if "the new" open to them in conversation is not confirmed by the community. A
convert facing an identity crisis and social insecurity, creates an impression among the
Christian community that all converts have become Christians with an ulterior motive.
Thus a vicious cycle is set into process resulting in alienation of the convert. The
formation of ''the new'' in a re socialisation process, also makes requirements on the
Church as a socialising agent. There has to be an "ongoing church", a church that is able
to establish the "community" necessary for socialisation and for social control to function.

THE LOCAL CHURCH AND THE CONVERT:

The Social "Bondage":

In Islamic societies individuals relate themselves to each other in a highly complex system
of blood relationships, a kinship group, larger than the extended family. Halbelian portrays
a typical practice:
"Generally speaking, the family lives either in one big house, or in several adjoining
houses. Income and expenditures is shared by all members of the family, but controlled by
"its head," property is also held in common by the extended family structure characteristic
of the West , the extended families enjoy a great measure of security and solidarity in
events of economic hardship, physical illness or death, there are other members of the
family to take over responsibilities. The extended family guides and assists the young
married couples in child rearing, cooking and other household chores." [Parshall, 1980:68]

The Church in Pakistan is essentially a Punjabi church. Some 80% of Pakistani Christians
reside in the Punjab, and many of those who live in other parts of the country have
migrated from the villages of that provinces. The Pakistani church is, therefore, strongly
influenced by the world view, belief, values, social institutions, and patterns of behaviour
of Punjabi Society. Indeed, any national church that is dominated by a single ethnic group
inevitably reflects many aspects of that ethnic group's culture. While much of the
theology, liturgies, and structures of the church government in Pakistan are based on Western
models, every day lives of individual Christians and their families, and even the power
struggles and politics within the church itself, are largely shaped by the Punjabi social
context.
The essence of the Punjabi vale system is its "deeply relational or familial world view"
[Francis,
1985:19]

In Pakistan, Muslim and Christian communities, both follow the same social pattern, called
"biradari", which is a term derived from a Persian word ("biradar" manes brother) and
means "brotherhood". "Within in the bosom of their families and biradari, Punjabis find

2
security and shelter from a hostile world, from infancy, they learn that they must always
operates with in the context of their kinship relationships. Members of the biradari define
their duties, rights, sentiments, and norms of social behaviour. Allegiance to these kinship
relationships is permanent. Their social identity is so enmeshed in this web of relationships
that other duties and responsibilities -- to friends, patrons, employers, religious sects, and
the state --- become subject to the interests of the biradari." [McClintock, 1992:349]

In Pakistani context when an individual or a family is converted from Islam to Christianity

though there is no law prohibiting conversion from Islam, like "death sentence for
apostasy" in some of the middle Eastern Islamic states, even then they are harshly
ostracised by their respective biradaries. After conversion they automatically loose their
biradari membership and stripped off their social security, house, property, business,
sometimes job, they even loose their wives/husbands and children along with the extended
family and friends. After being rejected by the biradari they find themselves like fish
taken out of the water!

On the other hand when they look towards Christians for rescue and help -- these converts
are not normally pushed into "mission compounds" or dumped into a biradari and
consequently into a Christian community.

Because of this rigid biradari system a large number of believers from Islam wants to stay
in secret. Those who dare to step out of their biradaries, when face resistance from
Christian biradaries while seeking integration into the community, most of them, turn
back to Islam and very few survived!

The Social Dislocation:

How a Muslim convert is incorporated into the local Church? What is the usual practice
and what are the various stages in this process? I can not relate this process more vividly
and honestly then Bishop Jens Christensen has done in his masterful The Practical
Approach to Muslims:
"Now let us be painfully honest. Just what does happen, or at least usually? A seeker
comes to a missionary, either by himself or with the aid of some keen national Christian. If
the seeker is destitute (as is often the case) the missionary let him earn his food by wiping
dust off the legs of the table or by probably by doing a little digging in the compound
garden in the shade of a tree. Or if it is a woman, she is put to work washing the white
baby's soiled clothing. Of course the 'work' is easy, and the seeker spends a lot of time
with the missionary getting instruction. When the seeker is not destitute, the missionary
arranges to spare time to have fellowship with him and instruct him in the truth. In either
case the seeker (or convert) very quickly gets the status of being Mr. So and So's convert
Probably when the Mr. So and So is dead and buried, his convert still belongs to this or
that mission". [1977:66]
Then he goes on to relate the next stage in this process:
"Let us go on and see what happens when the missionary's finished product is dumped
onto the church through baptism. Rightly or wrongly, but almost invariably the church
gives him a cold shoulder. 'Here comes the missionary's pet his Joseph. What's he after?

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A wife? A job? A meal ticket? Or is he genuine? Probably not. How well did he succeeded
in fleecing the missionary'? All these questions are in the mind of the congregation".

[p. 165]
The convert, feeling this cold shoulder, normally slips to another congregation, where, in
the beginning, he is given a warm welcome at the church pulpit and the dinner tables of the
church members. He is treated as a VIP But before he can eat up his Christmas cake, he,
usually, gets into some kind of trouble. So he picks up and moves himself to some other
congregation of a different denomination which is prepared to look favourably on him.
With infinite variations in detail, that is just what is happening in Pakistan.

The Social "Transfiguration", the KOINONIA:

In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer vividly depicts why congregating believers
is so much a part of God's plan: "Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and
in Christ....Whether it be a brief, single, encounter or the daily fellowship of the years,
Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus
Christ."
In like manner, Jankins echoed the same conviction:
"Indeed, I am increasingly of the view that 'the individual' is a myth and a dangerously
dehumanising myth We are not individuals, we are persons. (The only individual thing
about us would be a dead body as distinct from a living and a conscious.) The process
of the development of the potentialities of image of God which is the process of benign
becoming human is the process of the development of community. Relationship require
and imply community. But a truly human community is not a collective. It must be a
pattern of mutual relationship which both permits and enables each of the persons
involved to exercise and enjoy the fulfilment of their relationship in a manner which
permits and enables the same fulfilment for all."

The church is both an organism and an organisation, but the NT. emphasis is on the
former, pronouncing the Church's first responsibility to be nurture and fellowship -- even
before witness and evangelism. It is this concept of a body that seems so vital to
strengthening and building up of converts into a brotherhood.

In 1982 a bunch of committed TEE students, in my tutorial group, from a local church,
while we were studying book of Acts, we marvelled at the KOINONIA fellowship model of
the early believers at Jerusalem and the house church structures of the Pauline churches
and their role in caring for new believers from Jewish or Gentile backgrounds and their
integration then into the community life of the church. The household structure was
fundamental to the recruitment of new Christians in Pauline missions. (Acts. 11:14, 16:
15:31, 34; 18:8; 1-Cor. 1:16)

Barclay explains that, "in secular Greek, 'KOINONIA' was used to express a close and
intimate relationship into which people enter". [1977:173] Therefore, NT church was
not only a worshipping group, it was a close-knit community, and more than that: in
modern terms we would call it a 'commune'. Because, "All the believers were together

4
and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone
as he had need... They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere
heart" (Acts 2:44-46). This was not communism in any modern sense. On the other hand,
it was not simple charity, it was a sharing between Christian brothers, a sharing so intense
that nothing was excluded.
A careful study of Acts 2:42-47 shows that apart from their daily gatherings in the temple
courts for worship services, they used to get together "in their homes" as well. And
'KOINONIA' was practised in small groups. The converts were constantly being added to
the 'KOINONIA' (Acts 2:47).

The Christian CHURCH in a multi-cultural - cultural-Mystical "communion of saints" as

compared to the Muslim UMMAH which is a religio-political "brotherhood of believers".
The Church is a mystical 'Body of Christ' manifests itself, locally at two levels,
contextually as a household and institutionally as a local church (Eph. 2:19-22; 1-Cor.
16:19; Col.4:15,16).

UMMAH Nationality Ethnicity Clan Family

Church Nationality Local Church Koinnonia Family

5
A KOINONIA is fellowship at a local church level should have the following characteristics
and functions to mediate and facilitate a gradual integration of a convert into a local
church community:

1. Within a local church there need to be small 'KOINONIA' groups showing a great
interest and consideration for Muslim converts. Any genuine seeker from Islam should be
introduced into these groups. It is much better if, at this stage, he not be brought to the
"spiritual club" functions.
2. Each convert should be immediately integrated into the appropriate "KOINONIA"
groups in his area. Through this group he should be introduced into the higher group, the
congregation.
3. If the convert is a single person, he should be absorbed into one of the families in the
"KOINONIA" group, thus minimising the possibility of his running into some kind of
trouble.
4. The whole of "KOINONIA" group should make it a practice to bear one another's
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Thus they will naturally take care of the material
and spiritual needs of the converts in their group'
5. The group shows solidarity with each other and the converts as a spiritual 'KINSHIP' in
a pattern of a blood 'KINSHIP'. They regard themselves a family who calls upon God as
"abba" father as the spirit of Christ urges them to do so.

This KOINONIA model exposes a convert from Islam to a new dimension of relationships
in the "communion of the saints" which transcends all cultural, social and political systems
of human existence.

It requires no further comments that the converts led into "KOINONIA" will definitely
merge as a living, stable Christian, a member of the body of Christ. Moreover this is the
only way through which he can experience the love of God, poured into the hearts of his
children by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As Bishop Hassan Dehqani Tafti has
exquisitely expressed it in his autobiography, Design of my world:

......". Christians must show in their lives how Christianity is in truth the incarnation of the
love of God. Most of the Muslims I know who have followed Christ have done so because
of the sacrificial life and sustained love of some Christian friend. You cannot bring the
Muslim to Christ unless you love him personally.....No individual, however saintly, shows
the love of God in Christ fully. Its interpretation needs the community of the faithful the
people of God. The church where two or three are gathered in His name this is the core of
the matter. What a tremendous role is theirs, not least when they gathering together is in
the midst of the world where Islam has prevailed!" [1962:79, 80]

Zafar Ismail
December 1997

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barclay, William New Testament Words, London: SCM

1964
Chsritensen, Jens
1977 The Practical Approach to Muslims, France: NAM
Francis, Andrew
1985 "Goans in Lahore: A Study in Ethnic Identity."
Anthropology in Pakistan: Recent Socio-cultural
and Archaeological Perspectives.
Stephen Pastner and Louis Flam, eds. Pp 103-113
Karachi: Indus Publications
McClintock, Wayne
1992 "A sociological Profile of the Christian Minority in Pakistan"
Missiology: An International Review, Vol. XX, No 3, July 1992
Pp. 343-353
Phil Parshall
1980 New Paths in Muslim Evangelism,
Grand rapids: Baker Book House
Dehqani-Tafti, Hassen
1963 Design of my World, London: Lutterworth Press