By Laurie Goodstein
GROVE CITY, Ohio “” On a recent Saturday in a church fellowship hall here, evangelical Christians from several states gathered for an all-day seminar in how to woo Muslims away from Islam.
The speaker urged a kindly approach: always show Muslims love, charity and hospitality, he said, and carry copies of the New Testament to give as gifts. The students, scribbling notes, included two pastors, a school secretary and college students who said they hoped to convert Muslims in the United States, or on mission trips abroad.
But although the speaker, an evangelical preacher from Beirut, Lebanon, stressed the need to avoid offending Muslims, he projected a snappy PowerPoint presentation showing passages from the Quran that he said proved Islam was regressive, fraudulent and violent.
“Here in the Quran, it says slay them, slay the infidels!” said the speaker, who said he did not want to be identified because being a missionary to Muslims put his life at risk. “In the Bible there are no words from Jesus saying we should kill innocent people.”
