Cotari - Christian Outreach Training and Research Institute

03/07/2022

Frank and Lisa attended the Ralph D. Winter Memorial Lectureship 2022-Homogeneity and Hybridity: Revisiting HUP on March 3, 4, and 5 by means of zoom. It was a good conference discussing Dr. McGavran´s theory of reaching people groups with the gospel through homogenous units, known as Hup….Homogenous Unit Principle. It was interesting to hear that some people consider that racist….that we want to keep each people-group separate, but that certainly was not McGavran´s purpose…he just pointed out that it is easier to evangelize if people can learn in their own language and retain their own traditions and customs. Those that oppose that approach teach that we should have an inclusive church, where there are people of all races and nationalities learning to accept one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. They urge all Christians to accept hybridity…a mixture of not only various races and nationalities, but also differing ages and classes of people. There were several speakers for each side, as well as panels dealing with these topics. We felt that the general consensus was that evangelism should take place in homogeneity, whereas the final goal of outreach is hybridity, even as some of the dissenters pointed out that if you plant a tomato you can´t expect it to turn into an apple tree. Obviously, this is an ongoing debate, but we all agreed that we love one another as Christians no matter which side of the debate we are on.

06/02/2021

Update on the progress on Writing Chapter 11 of Our Book How to Use the Qur'an to Reach Out to Muslims.

Chapter 11 discusses the attitude of Muslims regarding Islam and other religions. In order to have a proper discussion on this topic, we have to use many terminologies developed in Theology of Religions. In this introduction to Chapter 11, all the theological positions developed are discussed along with missiological positions we should have.

The following four positions were developed during the last several decades, primarily after the end of the second World War.
1. Exclusivism - It claims that one's own religion is the only one that has the full truth and only its followers will be saved. No other religion carries the full truth like their own religion and their followers would not be saved. This comes from the fact that all truths are exclusive in nature. This is similar to a child or a person claiming that his or her family is the best in the world. All major religions have a large number of followers who are exclusive.
2. Inclusivism - It has the same claim as Exclusivism above but admits that other religions could carry salvific truths outside one's own religion. This comes from the fact that no human being could have the full truth about God. This is similar to a child or a person realizing that his or her family is the best but there are other good families.
3. Pluralism - It believes that all the great religions of the world carry salvific truth and are equally valid. This comes from the fact that all the religions of the world have the same goal for truth and salvation of their followers. This is similar to a teenager who finally realizes that his or her family is not the only best but other families could the best as well. The catch phrase is "There are many roads that lead to the peak where God is."
4. Perennialism - It is considered a form of pluralism, but it is more selective in choosing the true religions. It emphasizes the principles in the religion instead of the outer rituals. It speculates that all the great religions of the world share a common metaphysical truth from which all religions have grown. This is similar to a man who realizes that all families came from Adam and Eve. It compares different religions to different shores that share one common ocean.
Besides the above four categories, Particularism and Universalism are often used to describe people's attitude.

In view of all these different attitudes toward religions, what kind of attitude should we have to be an agent of the salvific plan of God? Our research shows that we should have Nurturing Attitude which was the attitude of Jesus, Paul, and Peter (Matt. 23:37, 1 Thess. 2:7. 1 Pet. 2:2). It allows one to keep what he or she believes is true and at the same time to be tolerant towards other faiths. This is similar to parents, especially mothers, who patiently teach or nurture their children while correcting children's wrong behaviors. This attitude is not actively taught in Christian seminaries or to people on the way to overseas missions at the present time.

05/02/2021

Cotari News
1. On February 24th to 26th, Frank Choe and his wife Lisa attended the Ralph Winter Memorial Lecture by zoom on Buddhism. Ralph D. Winter was one of the 20th century's greatest missiologists, who was a missionary to Guatemala for 10 years, taught at Fuller Theological Seminary for 10 years as a tenured professor, and then founded the American Society of Missiology, US Center for World Mission, and William Carey University. He started the popular missiology class called Perspectives where many lay Christians and seminary students are learning about Christian missions. Frank attended some of these memorial lectures in the past.

During this lecture, we were especially interested in learning how Karl Ludvig Reichelt (1877-1952), a missionary to China, tried to reach out to Buddhist monks in China. The Lectures dealt mostly with the life of Reichelt. His approach was to use dialogue with the Buddhist monks, and he even provided a retreat house where they could live, similar to a monastery, and where they could engage in discussions, as well as prayer and meditation. These were interesting lectures, extending our knowledge on Buddhism.

2. On a more personal note, Catherine Kuo, the daughter of Frank Choe was tragically killed in an accident on March 24, on the parking lot of a middle school. She had been elected as trustee for the Dublin Unified School Board and serving the Board. At the time of the accident, she was volunteering for food distribution for the Covid Pandemic, to load cars with produce given by California farmers. As she was loading the trunk of a car, she was pinned between that car and the car behind. She was just 6 days away from her 49th birthday, and leaves her husband and two children.

03/14/2021

We are still working on Chapter 11 of the book, How to Use the Qur'an to Reach Out to Muslims. It has been delayed for several reasons. We had Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we celebrated these holidays in a limited way even though we were locked down. We had been preparing for the Board Meeting, and then we have been preparing the tax returns for COTARI to the US Federal Government as well as the California State Government. We would ask for your prayers for completing all these things quickly so that we may re-engage in writing the book.

03/02/2021

Cotari held the annual director´s meeting on February 5, 2021. This year, the meeting was held on Zoom because of the covid pandemic. It actually worked out well, because our board members are scattered out over the country, and we are contemplating having this kind of meeting each year from now on. After meditating on the hymn “So Send I you”, with a biography of the author, Margaret Clarkson, and the reading of the minutes of the last meeting, we talked about the progress which has been made this year on writing the book about reaching out to Muslims thru the Qur´an and other activities of those participating in Cotari. After a short break, we talked out our plans for this coming year. We will talk about these plans in another post.
Here are the inspiring words of “So Send I You”
So send I you, by grace made strong to triumph
O'er hosts of hell, o'er darkness, death, and sin,
My name to bear, and in that name to conquer-
So send I you, my victory to win.

So send I you, to take to souls in bo***ge
The word of truth that sets the captive free,
To break the bonds of sin, to loose death's fetters
So send I you, to bring the lost to me.

So send I you, my strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, my perfect peace in pain,
To prove My power, My grace, My promised presence
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.

So send I you, to bear My cross with patience,
And then one day with joy to lay it down,
To hear My voice, “well done, My faithful servant,
Come, share My throne, My kingdom, and My crown!”

"As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.“
(John 20:21)

12/08/2020

We are still working on Chapter 11, but if there are some out there who would like to see what the Qur´an seminar is like, we have posted the first four sessions on youtube. The link is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeg-ugH11YOlJhJWoSascbw

Frank Choe - YouTube
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10/24/2020

We are pleased to announce that we have finished chapter 10 of our book titled “The Qur´an Teaches Religious Tolerance.” We had many, many surprises!
(1) The Qur'an is more explicit on religious tolerance than the Bible. The Qur'an (Q. 2:256) says "no compulsion in religion." The Bible does not have an equivalent verse. Most muslims do not follow the Qur'an but follow sayings of Muhammad called the Hadith.
(2) Both Islam and Christianity failed the teaching of religious tolerance in their practices.
(3) Islam failed because it has followed its own traditions.
(4) Christianity failed because it put too much emphasis on orthodoxy of its theology. It tried to follow correct theology instead of loving each other.
(5) Before the Enlightenment, Islam was more tolerant than Christianity, as demonstrated in the treatment of the Jews in Spain.
(6) After the Enlightenment in the modern times, Christianity has become more tolerant than Islam.
(7) Surprisingly, the source of the religious tolerance in Christianity today such as "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state" came from the secular democratic movements, not from Christian theology.

As we were doing research for this topic, we became aware of so much intolerance exhibited by both Christianity and Islam down through the centuries. If we are ever to come to some kind of agreement in this modern world today, we must learn to be tolerant of each other, and especially to take Jesus´s words to heart to love our enemies. Christianity claims that Islam is an intolerant religion and Islam claims that Christianity is an intolerant religion. What does an intolerant religion mean? An intolerant religion in this context means the one that does not allow any other religion in their society. Nearly all religions claim that their own religion is the only true religion and all other religions are wrong. Therefore, they become exclusive and practice religious intolerance. Radical Muslims appear to practice religious intolerance in many situations as reported in the world news today. The review of Christian history also shows a number of cases of religious intolerance in the church, in particular during the Catholic Middle Age period.

10/11/2020

October 9 and 10.
Frank and Lisa just attended a two-day Zoom conference given by the Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) on missions where we were able to get new insights into the situation of world mission at this time, many statistics about how Christianity is getting along in this post-modern world, how to speak the gospel with our neighbors, as well as obtaining valuable information about publishing our book, after we finish writing it.
Frank was able to communicate with a few old friends and Lisa was able to get some interesting perspectives on many of the religions that we hope to research in the future, including the Hindu religion.
We are still working on writing the book, and some chapters take longer than others, as we research our subjects.

09/08/2020

We are finishing up chapter nine of our book! This chapter is titled: The Qur’an Never Says That the Bible Was Altered

Amazingly, the Qur’an never says that the Bible was altered by Jews and Christians when properly interpreted. The Islamic tradition, however, teaches that the Bible was altered and teaches Muslims not to read or believe what the Bible says contrary to the Qur’anic teachings.

The Qur’an places high respect on the Bible and demonstrates in several different ways that the Bible was never changed. On the other hand, most Muslims believe that they could trust the original Bible mentioned in the Qur’an, but it no longer exists in the world because it was changed in the past by the Jews and Christians. Most Muslims and Islam claim that they cannot trust today’s Bible. Islamic scholars spent significant effort to prove that the Bible was changed or altered and should be interpreted to fit the original unaltered Bible, in particular regarding the description of Muhammad in the Bible.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are probably the most faithfully preserved books in the world from ancient times. To claim that the Bible has been corrupted over the centuries is to ignore the manuscript evidence of the Old and New Testaments. A common-sense review of the several outstanding characteristics in the Bible demonstrates that the Bible is highly unlikely to have been altered or changed. There are several cases for a minor grammar or spelling changes in the manuscript, but the teaching points in the Bible have never been changed

08/18/2020

We have finished chapter 8! This chapter deals with whether the highest authority for Islam is the Qur´an or the prophet Muhammad. The Qur’an clearly states several times that the Qur’an is the highest authority over any angels, prophet or messenger. On the other hand, Islam has placed Muhammad and its traditions over the Qur’an. This may stem from the fact that the Qur’an is not easy to interpret and that it has been so much easier to use what Muhammad said and did (the Hadiths and the Sira) for the interpretation of the Qur’an. What Muhammad did and said was an application of the Qur’an in the 7th century Arabia and is not the interpretation of the Qur’an. ​Muslims still claim that the Qur'an is their highest authority but their practices put Muhammad as the highest authority. Islam today is in a similar position as Catholicism in 15th to 16th century Europe and needs a Reformation, and has enough talents in it to initiate such a movement. Islam places its tradition over the Qur'an.

07/27/2020

We have finished writing Chapter 7 of our book on How to reach Muslims with the Qur´an. This chapter deals with the death of Jesus, which is a controversial subject between Islam and Christianity. Islam claims that Jesus did not die, because they believe that man is born without sin without inheriting a sin nature from Adam, and therefore, man does not need a savior to atone for their sin. We talk about atonement, which is so important in the Christian view, but loses its impact if there is no belief in man´s sinful nature. Just as we have done in other chapters, we looked at the death of Jesus from the viewpoint of the Qur´an, from the Islamic view, from the Christian view, and from the secular view. The most amazing thing from this chapter is that a proper hermeneutical analysis of the relevant Qur'anic verses shows that Jesus was indeed killed and crucified and resurrected. Even though the majority of Islamic scholars still claim that Jesus was never crucified, a few Islamic scholars today agree with this interpretation.