Παντα τα εθνη

Today the people featured in Unreached People of the Day in my sidebar are the Malays, and the pictured shows a pretty and happy-looking young woman in a tightly arranged yellow head covering. The statistics show a population of 286,000, their religion as Islam, and the percentage of evangelical Christians among them as 0.00%. There are actually far more Malays in Malaysia than this, but most of them live in Malaya proper, which is on the Asian mainland, right below Thailand. The other statistics are likely to be almost the same.

Why would there be so few Malays who are Christians?

Well, in Malaysia, you can only claim Malay nationality if you are a Muslim. If a Malay converts to Christianity or any other religion, that poses a significant problem: he or she is no longer a Malay and therefore has lost almost all human rights. And if forcibly converted to Islam, a person of another religion is not allowed to go back.

Because I have strong ties with Indonesia, I also keep my eye on Malaysia, where there are also Christians, especially on the island of Borneo in the Malaysian state of Sabah. I have had internet exchanges with some there who are Roman Catholics. I have also had internet exchanges with Muslim Malay youth over the internet, through blogging. When I encountered Malay Muslim youth, it was the first time since my college days that I had met any young Muslims who really seemed happy, normal and balanced people. It was almost as if the universal Islamic jihad weren’t happening for them. They looked happy and they talked happy. They were of the educated class, students, etc., and some of them were positively in love with Islam. I had never seen that, especially after 9/11—Muslims who were actually devoutly Islamic and didn’t want to kill me!

Back to the topic, unreached people, and why they are unreached.

Although Malaysia inherited a lot of good things from the British who colonized and organized these two dozen or so sultanates into a single entity that could later become a nation state, it is still a country where Islam is eroding the Western concepts of personal liberty and human rights.

It must be a very courageous missionary, whether native Malaysian (not Malay, of course) or foreigner (and I’m not sure they are allowed), to “go, make disciples, and baptize” the Malays, because to do that is almost the same as spreading the “bad news” to a people who are so locked into a politico-religious system that they cannot even imagine escape.

The bad news should be, “you realise you are sinners, and you don’t know what to do about it, or how to get right with God, other than to hope that Allah will forgive you,” so that the good news can be, “there is a way of escape from death and judgment: it is the Son of God, whose death on the cross has paid all of the price for your transgressions, and whose rising from the dead has guaranteed salvation and eternal life to you who believe in Him.” Instead, the bad news is, “If you accept Christ and become a Christian, you will be considered fair game for anyone who wants to harm you in any way, and you may even find it impossible to continue living here.”

This is probably why there are 0.00% evangelical Christians, or Christians of any kind, among the Malays. The situation is similar to that in the first centuries under the pagan Roman Empire, only actually it is much worse. Technology has provided tools for extending modern tyranny deeper into the peoples that are captured. This is true not only in Malaysia, but even in Indonesia to a lesser extent, and then throughout the ‘Muslim’ world, in countries that have fallen under Islam yet contain significant crowds of Christians, Egypt for example.

Missionaries in lands under Islam run a very high risk of suffering martyrdom, as we have seen, even when the martyrs were not engaged in any direct proselytism. On the other hand, proponents (they could be called missionaries) of Islam in countries that are predominantly Christian have absolutely nothing to fear. This double standard is possible only with the collaboration of governments that in theory favor no religion yet in practice provide ample safeguards for the establishment of Islamic footholds. These governments are headed by men and women who are fools, walking right into the jaws of lions with their eyes wide open. There are enough blogs to demonstrate what I am saying, so I need not elaborate. My focus is on the people in Islamic bondage, like the young woman in the picture.

Humanists, even some who claim to be Christians, take the side of those who believe that the missionary movement has done more evil than good, and that we should leave the peoples as they are. I don’t buy this, but neither do I debate. Some things are beyond debate, especially when the opponent has jettisoned reason in favor of entrenchment in his own views no matter what is presented to him. Jesus’ word is the reason for missions. If He had not spoken thus, we need not bother to liberate the peoples with the gospel, but He has said,

πορευθεντες μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19

That is what we do, wherever God sends us.
Yes, pray for the Malays and all nations under the sword of Islam.
They too are the sheep of Christ’s pasture,
and are waiting for His salvation.