Shane Bennett

My high school junior daughter is wrapping up her first set of dual credit courses at our local community college, including a history class called The World: Antiquity to 1500. (Yeah, that’s a wide swath of time!) Her final assignment intrigues me: She’s to write a paper talking about how empires have helped both Christianity and Islam survive and grow and how both Christianity and Islam have helped empires grow and consolidate power. 

The past is fairly murky, at least to me, but worth looking at. Maybe the present even more so. History daughter is sad that history prof made her limit her investigation to the timeframe of the class. She was hoping to bring in some super-recent historical thinking to these questions. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this: How have Christianity and Islam both helped and been helped by the empires they’ve overlapped with over the years?

Seems that Christianity got off to a good start even against the wishes of the empire. Islam got going by using the sword to become the empire!

We got a boost when Constantine declared Christians officially cool in 313 AD. Then a few hundred years later we’re teaming up with the king to go get Jerusalem back for our side. 

Crosses and Crescents collided at Tours in 732 and Vienna in 1683. 

Later on, the discovery of black gold under the sands of the Middle East propelled an austere and demanding form of Wahhabism outward to many parts of the planet. And now my beloved country makes me cry with our new blending of the Church and Empire. 

That wee babe in Bethlehem had no idea what he would stir up. Even so, I’m glad he came. May all his dreams be fulfilled in my heart, in yours and all over the world.

PS: In case you’re wondering, I just found out history daughter got a 96% on her paper! 

“The truth, as usual, is complicated.” (Now, there’s an observation with broad application.) So begins Abdu Murray’s recent reflections on the growth of Islam in the West. 

Murray is a Muslim-background Christian with an extensive apologetics ministry and a law degree! He encourages us to discern the real concerns from the exaggerations when considering the growth of Islam in our midst. 

Islam is growing in the West, certainly. Much of it by immigration and birth rate. Murray points to an additional factor, the appeal of Islam.

He says, “Islam offers what secularism can’t: a clear message and a sense of belonging. It calls them [young men] to discipline, duty, and identity.” He also contends that “Islam’s stridency looks refreshing” in the midst of churches who’ve “grown timid.” (Yeah, I got a little defensive at that, too! Now I’m trying to think it through.)

In response to this appeal and growth, Murray believes, “None of this justifies hostility or paranoia. But neither does it allow for naïveté. 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.”

When Muslims look at how we personally, and our churches collectively, live out the Gospel, do they see “a faith that is intellectually credible, morally grounded, and compassionately lived?” Are we willing to go beyond the headlines and engage in the messy truth of our interconnected cultures? 

Murray calls us not to panic, but to preach. I love that. May God give us opportunity and courage and may the Holy Spirit go before us to prepare open hearts and thoughtful minds. 

With Thanksgiving now behind, we begin the full-on avalanche to Christmas. My hope for you (and me) is quiet Advent moments when we mourn a messy world and look for hope in the coming of a good God. Those will be a challenge to find and the hope is sometimes hard to believe. Grace to you. 

Idea One
Invite a Muslim to your Christmas Eve service. This is a good time when Jesus and culture overlap, cute kids sing and the sermon is usually brief. If there will be dessert afterwards, be sure to bring something obviously halal. 

Idea Two
Our good buds at Crescent Project are looking ahead to Ramadan (February 17 – March 18, 2026) and helping us with a new Ramadan Prayer Night Experience. It is “a free, ready-to-use event kit designed to help churches gather for prayer for Muslims during Ramadan.” RPNE includes a 60-minute video with testimony, teaching, and guided prayer topics, along with a Leader’s Guide and promotional materials. Use it at church with 100 or in your living room with ten. Join me in checking it out. 

Rich Advent blessings of hope, peace, joy and love to you. 

On September 12th of this year, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed into law legislation “Banning Sharia Compounds In Texas” (his words). 

You’ll be forgiven if you didn’t realize how big a problem “Sharia Compounds” have become in Texas. Here’s the lowdown: Developers are working on a Muslim oriented planned community outside of Dallas, TX. Initially called EPIC City (East Plano Islamic Center), the name is being changed to The Meadow. There will be housing, retail, a religious school, parks, a mosque and a hospital.

The state of Texas has launched a slew of investigations to stop the plan. They may have finally found a securities violation. The federal investigation ended over the summer with no charges being filed. 

Further, on November 18th, Governor Abbott officially declared Both CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and the Muslim Brotherhood as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” The U.S. State Department has not made this designation. 

On November 9, 2025, Abbott announced his candidacy for reelection to a fourth term.

I’m confident Governor Abbott has done many good things in his lengthy tenure as a public servant. And we’ve all been around the block enough to realize that often politicians do what they deem necessary to attain and hold power. 

But if he’s bloviating against Muslims, who make up less than 2% of his state, and in doing so is bolstering his chances of re-election, what does that say about his constituents? Are Texans (67% of whom identify as Christian) really concerned with what is being legislated against, or does it just feel a little safer to be against Muslims? Better safe, than sorry? 

Quick closing thoughts:

1. What if one of the main reasons God is bringing Muslims to the U.S. is to find Jesus?! 
2. Dig deeper by reading this thoughtful article on Sharia in the U.S. and beyond.
3. I struggled to find a curated list of public concerns with EPIC City. If you’re interested, watch this news report, but maybe skip the comments.

I met with a pastor this week who followed God’s leading to a hugely challenging church planting assignment. While there must be 100 distinct communities in Colorado that are growing (Welcome Californians, Arizonans and other foreigners!), he and his wife went to Walsenburg, a town in near uninterrupted decline since the mines closed after WW 2. But God called, they went and prayed their heads off. Now, by the grace of God, they’re seeing some harvest. 

Outreach to Muslims is the Walsenburg of missions. 

It comes with some of the same questions: “Do I want to move there?” “Will my kids be safe?” “Will I be able to feed them?” “Will we ever see any fruit?”

While we all agree we need to move forward by faith, not sight, some occasional “sight” can be encouraging. Here’s two:

Juman Al Qawasmi
When you’ve got a couple of minutes, watch this amazing video. (It’s 17 minutes long, but once you start you’ll be hooked!) Juman is a Palestinian woman, born in Qatar and raised in Gaza. Her dad was a leader in Hamas. Her story of Jesus reaching out to her is wonderful and the way she shares it is winsome. You might not agree with her on everything, but I appreciated the reminder that God is still at work, that Jesus loves Muslims and the Holy Spirit still surprises us. 

Ali Boualou
I met Ali a few weeks ago. He’s a Muslim background guy who’s now following Jesus. Ali served in the Moroccan Special Forces, spent time in a Moroccan prison and lived in Indiana (A hat trick of hard times!). His story is one of divine provision, personal resilience and goodness of God’s grace flowing into one’s life. 

If Ali’s book, The Apostate, is half as good as the personal testimony I heard him share, you’ll be amply encouraged and strongly challenged. 

Take heart, Muslim Connect tribe: God is at work. Jesus’s prayer in Matthew 6.10 is being answered by God with a resounding yes! His Kingdom is coming! 

Surely one of the great gifts of God is the possibility of learning new things. Thank you for opening this email. I think you may learn something new in the next couple of minutes.

Many Muslims have a soft spot in their hearts for spiders. I didn’t know this until very recently. 

The story goes that when Muhammad was making the move from Mecca to Medina he hid from his pursuers overnight in a cave. When the would-be assassins came by the next morning, they saw a spider web built over the mouth of the cave and assumed no one could be inside. 

Although the story comes from a Hadith that is not considered reliable, it carries a lot of cultural cache throughout the Muslim world. Can’t you just imagine a Muslim mom encouraging her child not to fear harmless spiders with this story? 

Protecting the prophet not withstanding, it seems most scholars agree we are allowed to kill poisonous spiders before they kill us!

Now get this: The Talmud, roughly the Jewish equivalent of the Islamic Hadith, written a few hundred years before Muhammad was crashing in caves, records a similar story in David’s life! 

Apparently he’d asked God as a young shepherd boy about the purpose for spiders. God told him the day would come when he’d understand. Later on, while fleeing King Saul, the king-to-be hid in a cave, but expected to be discovered. Out of nowhere a spider showed up, webbed up the mouth of the cave, tricked Saul’s soldiers and saved David. The spider also presumably justified the existence of arachnids to the future king.

Finally, there’s even a story floating around about a spider with a similar “cover the cave” web saving the holy family en route to Egypt. Its origins are the least reliable of the three. 

Just to be safe, should we maybe agree not to kill them?

It seemed like it would be weird to publish Muslim Connect on Halloween and not make mention of it. So I began composing in my head and quickly realized I was rewriting a post from seven years ago! Here it is, if you’re interested. I will say the asterisk reference in the title still makes me laugh! (Fair warning: You might not share my sense of humor.)

In much sadder news, a tactical shift in the two and a half year war in Sudan has resulted in an increase in atrocities. (“How long, O Lord?”) A retreat by the government military made way for the dominating paramilitary to move into the last key holdout city in the west part of the country. They (the Rapid Support Forces or RSF) celebrated the end of their 18 month siege of El Fashur with a fresh rampage of death and destruction. 

The near term outlook is not good and the stats are devastating: Perhaps as many as 150,000 killed, 12,000,000 displaced (including 4,000,000 refugees), 30,000,000 require urgent humanitarian aid, half of whom are children. 

Silver linings are few and hard to find. But there is this: The other guys who didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize this year are the Sudanese Emergency Response Rooms. They are “a grassroots, community-led network that has become the backbone of the country’s humanitarian response amid war, displacement and state collapse. Building on local traditions of mutual aid, ERRs operate in all 18 states, providing healthcare, food assistance, education, civilian protection and psychosocial support where many international aid organizations cannot reach. Their work has sustained millions and champions a model of decolonized humanitarian aid that restores dignity and decision-making power to local communities.”

I suspect the Church has much to learn from ERRs and encourage you to look into their efforts and successes as we continue to pray for all of God’s truth and goodness to grow in Sudan, this land that he loves so much. (Here’s a link to a chatgpt overview with links to sources.)

I’m writing this morning on the seventh anniversary of rock star Eugene Peterson’s death. I love the fresh way he rendered the first chapter of John: 

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

These words resonate in my mind as we wrap up our Guatemala trip. Thank you to those who prayed. God heard and answered. 

As you probably know, whenever you venture outside your home culture, certain things, both good and bad, catch your eye. For me, coming from the beige, high desert of Colorado where you pretty much have to beg the ground to grow anything, I’m struck by the verdant splendor of this country. 

It seems grass will grow on any surface not washed weekly, the mountains are lush with life and, though Guatemalans are the second shortest people on earth, their corn is the tallest I’ve ever seen! (Which is something, coming from an Indiana boy!)

 And here’s the life that I love: Guatemalans are receiving and sharing the light that “darkness couldn’t put out.” In response to last week’s Muslim Connect, I learned of a Guatemalan student in the US taking steps to serve Muslims and of an international organization setting up a recruiting and sending office here to help Guatemalans move into Muslim neighborhoods around the world. Such good news. 

Remember back in the good old days, when all the cool missionaries came from England and the U.S.? We are now clearly in the “better now” days when workers go from all over to all over and God is continuing his good work of calling laborers into Muslim harvest fields. 

If you have moved into a Muslim neighborhood, if you’re sending others, if you’re praying Luke 10.2 prayers for laborers, good for you! We’re partnering in God’s “yes” to Jesus’s prayer request that God’s “kingdom come, [his] will be done on Earth as in Heaven.”

I’m writing this afternoon from the colossal IAH airport in Houston! Our family, some church friends and I are en route to a week of medical outreach, earthquake rebuilding and elderly care. We’ve been resourced on our way by the kind and generous gifts of many Muslim Connect readers. For this I’m very grateful. 

The dozen of us are joined in the gate area by at least two other mission teams (judging by the folks with matching Christian t-shirts!) and a couple of LDS missionaries (judging by the name tags that say “Elder Braden” and “Elder Jayden”) 

I’m confident we’re all doing God-ordained, helpful work (Well, maybe not Braden and Jayden!). But get this: If there are 20 of us on this flight, that puts the missionary to Guatemala resident ratio at roughly one to a million! If you’ve been around the mobilization world for a while, you’ll remember that was for a time the ratio of any workers among all Muslims globally. Of course there are additional scads of full time workers in Guatemala, as well as a vibrant healthy church. 

I believe with all my heart that God calls who he wants where he wants to do what he wants done. 

That said, we need more laborers to the Muslim world where the ratios are not so hopeful. Tons more! Maybe some Guatemalans! In fact, I’ll miss two of the favorite medicos from the place we’re going because they’re off in the Middle East scouting long term opportunities! May God connect them and use them as a vanguard of growing numbers of workers from Central America. And may some from somewhere find God leading them to the remaining 1500 unengaged peoples who still wait for the first ambassadors to arrive. 

As God brings us to mind, I’d value your prayers for God’s success for our group, for good health and good attitudes. 

Have you ever wracked your brain for the next thing to say, the next question to ask? You know, you’re trying to impress a young lady or guy. Or maybe, “If I asked the right insightful question right now, I will kill this interview!”

If you love Muslims, want them to find life in Jesus and have been nurturing some good friendships, you might find yourself thinking, “There’s a helpful, spiritual conversation waiting to happen with this friend, if I could just figure out how to turn the corner.”

For starters: That’s a good thing to keep wondering about. It’s possible to plateau in friendship and fail to ever get to an invitation to meet Jesus. 

For seconds: I’ve never been good at this. While you’re looking for experts to learn from, I’ll share some ideas and things I’ve tried.

1. Ask your friend, “How can I pray for you?” Then do so.
   If you stick around long enough in someone’s life, there will be days when they’re sad, hurt, broken or confused. Jesus seemed happy to minister to people like that, so we’re on good ground asking a friend if we can ask Jesus to help them. When Jesus comes through (and I know he doesn’t always do so just as we’d like), your friend will likely be more open.
2. Question the Quran
   You can use the Quran to deepen the conversation. One, emphasize and discuss the overlap between it and the Bible. Or, if your tastes tend toward the polemic, you can kick around some of the challenges found in the Quran. For instance, “The Quran affirms the inspiration, authority, and preservation of the New Testament Gospels; yet the Quran also contradicts the Gospels on major theological and historical points. Therefore, the Quran cannot be reliable.”
3. Ask if you can tell a story Jesus told.
   Many Muslims are from cultures with a blend of values that incline them to like stories and make them loathe to tell a friend no! Plus, after one or two, you’ll remember and they’ll discover the guy told some amazing stories. Here are a couple dozen to get you started.