Muslims Demographics You Tube Video

The very popular Muslim Demographic video produced by an anonymous Christian was forwarded to me yet again today... (no offense Michelle!)  It has an unbelievable 9.6 million views currently... more than doubling in just the last month and a half!  I suppose this is the reason many have forwarded it, and real view #'s are actually only about 9,599,995, because I've watched it about 5 times myself .  No one really knows who produced it and the source statistics are rarely referenced in the video, so it is difficult to track things down. 

It brings up a number of issues that toast my bagels and make my case for the writing of The Outer Court even more urgent.  I'll summarize here:

1. The tone (read= "posture" as I call it in The Outer Court) is one of fear, intimidation and manipulation.  This is unbecoming believers in Christ and is far from a Godly "call to action" as the video claims to be.  Proper motivation for evangelism involves a balanced perspective of who we are, in light of who God is... being Jesus, demonstrating grace, offering hope, because of how we've been loved and shown mercy. 
2. The authors seem to equate a losing of Western culture, majority and influence with some kind of 'loss' for Christianity.  Western culture is certainly NOT to be identified with Christianity.  We could stand to lose more of our corrupt culture and gain some Near Eastern Biblical culture.  
3. The authors spend nearly 7 minutes making a case for fertility rates and population growth among Muslim vs. Christian nations, and then issue a couple second call to action to 'evangelize the Muslims.'  If anything the video has more likely made 9.6 million people (and counting) afraid, and want to further avoid anyone even closely resembling a Muslim, or want to go out and make lots more babies... my wife is sitting here chuckling... quite a funny, albeit unintended, 'call to action.' 
4. No mention was made that Christianity is significantly outpacing Islam in conversion growth on every continent in the world.  On average Christianity is growing via conversion at double the pace of Islam... in Asia it is outpacing Islam by 13x, or 1300%! (see David A. Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001, p 4, for some older data, and Click here to see some highly detailed, more recent statistics).
5. The authors seem to imply that Europe and America are "Christian nations" something I disagree with given readily available statistics, and personal experience.  America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, but it is indeed a secular representative republic, where freedom of religion is exercised, enforced and enjoyed.  Europe used to be Christian, but is clearly a post-Christian and mostly atheistic/agnostic bloc.
6. There are so many falsely used statistics and misinterpretations, it would take several pages to list them all.  Come on believers!  Why is it that we are so gullible and naive?!  Essentially, this constitutes lying. The authors, if tried in a court of law in any nation, would be guilty of misrepresentation, misleading and outright perjury.  Is this behavior befitting servants of God most high? Why do we put up with it? Click here to see another blogger analyze the stats.

A number of mission leaders have responded to this video in this post and I thought I’d pass it along.  Also, Joey Shaw posted a great response in his  blog on Middle East issues and Islam. 

Please, don't perpetuate fear, if you pass on the video, do so with a call to love, grace and proper motivation to love Muslims and the other unreached nations of the world.  A great idea would be to pass on my blog post, or one of the others I've mentioned along with the video.