Sermon Tone Analysis

Liberty University

 

 

Operation Afghanistan: A Strategy to Reach the Pashtun Muslim People in a Depraved Country with an Introduction Survey of the Demographics and History of the Peoples and Current Missionary Work within the Country

 

 

A paper submitted to Dr. Smith

In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for

the course ICST 500

 

 

Liberty Theological seminary

 

 

By

Christopher W. Myers

 

 

 

                                                                                  

Lynchburg, Virginia

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

 

Table of Contents

Introduction- 3

The Muslim National People Groups- 3

The Pashtuns- 7

History of the Islamic Insurrection: A Brief Survey- 8

Missions Work in the Country- 11

The Strategy to Reach Them-- 16

Conclusion- 20

Bibliography- 21

\\ !!! Introduction

 

       The power of two kingdoms and their fight for spiritual territory is best exemplified in the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

In May of that year according to the Julian calendar the Muslim Ottoman Empire overtook and defeated the capitol of the Christian Byzantine Empire.

Leading up to that time and following that time, Christians greatly embarrassed themselves by wielding the sword foolishly in the name of Jesus in the militant and Pope- sanctioned Crusades.

These violent Crusades are still in the minds of Muslims throughout the world and especially in the Middle East to this day.

The powers of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Darkness clash until this day.

The Enemy is crafty and smart by creating a religion that is similar to Yahweh's true way of salvation.

This religion is called Islam and it infects the majority of the Unreached Peoples of this world especially within the 10~/40 window.[1]

This paper will work toward a strategy to reach a Muslim national people group.

The history of the people group will be evaluated along with all pertinent information needed to strategize their evangelization.

A brief survey will evaluate the current missions work in the country and some solutions to the stumbling blocks presented before us in evangelization of these people.

And lastly, the proposed strategy will be laid out in a coherent framework.

!!!

The Muslim National People Groups

 

       It must be made clear that this strategy focuses on a geopolitical entity.

This is following the highly successful work of the Spirit through James Montgomery through his DAWN ministries.

[2]  This strategy shares DAWN ministries' convictions "to reach the goal of */seeing Christ become incarnate in every small group in every village and neighborhood and for every class, kind and condition of man./*

This means having at least one gathering of believers sharing Christ within easy access of every person in each country."[3]

The advantages to divide-and-conquer evangelization according to the saturation church planting principle pertains to the fact that the nations of this world maintain and uphold and produce the culture of its people.

Political nations give their people a national language, a national heritage, and a national history that allows these people to cohere and this only strengthens the spread and saturation of the gospel.

The major obstacle that a political nation may contribute is if they have adopted a national religion, especially an Islamic one, but our God can conquer the Enemy's devices, even on a national level!

Afghanistan is such a nation that is presently saturated with the Islamic religion.

Afghanistan is currently 99% Muslim.

80% of these Muslims are Sunni Muslims and 19% are Shiite Muslims.

The two national languages are Dari (also called Afghan Persian) spoken by 50% of the peoples and Pashto spoken by 35% of the peoples.

[4] These languages need their own Bible translation.

There is currently a completed Farsi Bible translation, but Dari and Pashtun are currently only available in the New Testament.[5]

Afghanistan is a like an ethnic group melting pot.

The ethnic group breakdowns are generally 42% Pashtun, 27% Tajik, 9% Hazara, 9% Uzbek, 4% Aima, 3% Turkmen, and 2% Baloch.[6]

You can see the same peoples of the surrounding nations residing in Afghanistan.

Figure 1 shows the political map of Afghanistan in relation to its neighboring countries and Figure 2 shows the various provinces within Afghanistan.

The ethnic influence of surrounding countries has caused many to think that it would be better to reach the Afghani neighbors first and then have them send missionaries into Afghanistan.[7]

And this is understandable if someone is pessimistic enough to think that the Afghanistan political landscape will fall back into Taliban hands.

But at the same time if the Afghanistan government does prosper under American support then this would be the ideal time to directly saturate this place with Jesus before it is too late.

This might be the last chance we have for this country to hear the good news and we need to shoot for the gold and look at all of the glasses half full.

It must be remembered that Afghanistan is in the same position that South Korea was after the Korean War and look at the prolific church established there because of shooting-for-the gold Christian missionaries.

Now we must reduplicate history in this instance and combat Satan's stronghold in Afghanistan.

If Christians are successful in establishing a reproducing church in Afghanistan it will establish a Christian church that is dearly close to the lost Islamic nations of the Middle East and Asia-Oceania peoples.

It would be the middle-ground base of operation for future generations fighting for the name of Christ Jesus.

This importance cannot be forgotten.

FIGURE 1: Afghanistan and surrounding countries

FIGURE 2: Map of Afghanistan showing national provinces

!!!  

!!!

The Pashtuns

 

       The Pashtun people group is the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan.

They mostly reside in the East and South side of the Afghan country.

These people will be concentrated on in the details of this strategy because they are the majority within Afghanistan as well as Pakistan!

Actually there are more Pashtun people in Pakistan than in Afghanistan.

See Figure 3 below for an estimated demarcation of their presence in the country.

It is estimated that there are 11.5 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan and more than twice that number in Pakistan.**[8]**

Entire Pakistan and 35% of the Afghan people speak the Pashtun language of Pashto.

The Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border comprise what has been called the largest Muslim tribal society in the world, approximately 27 million people in over 30 major sub-tribes.**[9]**

The challenges of this people group are that the majority of the people are Sunni Muslim and the Taliban is made up of Pashtun Sunni Muslims.

FIGURE 3: The Pashtun distribution within Afghanistan**[10]**

!!! History of the Islamic Insurrection: A Brief Survey

 

       In the seventh century AD the Arabs violently invaded the land forcing Islam on this region.

Arab rule gave way to the Persians, who controlled the area until conquered by the Turkic Ghaznavids in 998 AD.

The Ghaznavids consolidated rule until 1030 when their king Mahmud of Ghazni died.

The land was thrown into chaos and tribal rule until the accomplishments of Genghis Kahn and his Mongol invasion in 1219.

After Genghis Kahn's death in 1227 the country again fell into chaos and tribal chiefs and princes tallied for power until the late 14th century when Genghis Kahn's descendent Tamerlane incorporated the Afghan territory into his Asian empire.[11]

Various dynasty's rise and fall, but our next time of interest is in the 18th century, when in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, a Pashtun establishes his rule and unites various chieftainships under his rule to give Afghanistan the political boundaries similar to today.

In the 19th century, power games between the expanding British Empire in the subcontinent and czarist Russia influenced Afghanistan in what was termed "The Great Game."

Britain saw much resistance from the natives resulting in Anglo-Afghan wars, three of them in matter of fact, one in 1839 to1842, the second from 1878-1880, and the third in 1919.

The British were greatly beaten in the first Afghan war, but they succeeded in the second, bringing a new Afghan ruler to power under British headship.

And it was during this time at the turn of the twentieth century that the British and Russians officially established the boundaries of what would become modern Afghanistan through the demarcation of the Durand Line.

The British retained effective control over Kabul's foreign affairs.

However, World War 1 greatly weakened Britain and the assassination of the Britain-friendly king led to the third Anglo-Afghan War, which war-weary British quickly resolved by signing the Treaty of Rawalpindi in August 1919, freeing Afghanistan from colonial forces.

In commemoration of this event, Afghans celebrate August 19 as their Independence Day.[12]

The kingly family that maintained power after the Afghan Independence in 1919 ruled until 1973, when the rule was ended by a military coupe.

The resulting republic from the coupe failed and a second military coupe occurred in 1978.

The USSR took advantage of the coupe and sponsored the People's Democrat Party of Afghanistan to take control over the country.

The significance to this time is that the nationals greatly revolted against the Communist regime and the Afghan guerrilla warriors (the Mujahideen) were born in June of 1978.[13]

The violence and turmoil caused by the Mujahideen instigated the USSR to invade Afghanistan in December of 1978.

This started the long and bloody Russian-Afghanistan War that lasted until 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Soviet Union troops withdrew from Afghanistan.

After Soviet withdraws the country sank into even worse conditions and warlord and tribal rule was the constant conflict throughout the country.[14]

This would be the ideal time to mention a familiar figure in America today.

Osama Bin Laden fought with the Mojahideen to combat Russian forces in the mid-eighties.

Osama bin Laden, a wealthy and well-educated man from Saudi Arabia, split from the Nujahideen to form his own organization.

Osama bin Laden used the war-torn Afghanistan to form his Al-Qaeda worldwide organization, which was a network of Islamic radicals of the Sunni Muslim persuasion.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early nineties, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia urging the Shah not to rely on non-Muslim armies to defend Kuwait.

Osama Bin Laden was rebuked and Osama's disdain for the Shah led to Bin Laden's banishment from the country and eventually his own family renounced him.

Osama bin Laden fled Saudi Arabia to Sudan where he set up further Al-Qaeda networks.[15]

Back to Afghanistan Osama went, and the Taliban, which had gained power over the majority of the country by 1996, provided refuge for him, while planning his terrorist activities.