Dr. Ahmad Reza Meftah, Associate Professor of Religions and Denominations, held a series of “Reflections” meetings by the Center for Studies and Response to Seminaries, in collaboration with the University of Religions and Denominations, on the subject of “Paradigms and New evangelism Strategies”. , Explaining six evangelism Paradigms in different periods of history.at first he said: “Although in the University of Religions and Denominations we are looking for conversation approach and we seek to achieve a peaceful interaction and peaceful coexistence through conversation, but we are sensitive to evangelical activities in the Islamic world. And it’s necessary to enlightenment about it. Because evangelical activities lead to the weakening of religious beliefs.

Six evangelical paradigms in different periods of history

He added: evangelical activities can be divided into six paradigms throughout history: the first step is related to the primary Christianity, which dates back to the time of Jesus’ apostles. The second stage is the evangelism of the Eastern Church during the Byzantine Empire. The third stage is the evangelism in the Dark ages, with the largest volume of development of evangelical activities during this period and by the monks of the Catholic Church. The fourth stage relates to the religious reform movement, which, in addition to the evangelical activity of the Catholic Church, came to the Protestants. The fifth and sixth stages are the evangelism in modern and postmodern periods, which are Christian evidence in the contemporary period.

Difficulty of evangelical in face of original cultures

The author of the book Christianity stated the differences between the activities of the old and the new period and said: In the past periods where Christian scholars were publicly allowed, the most important obstacle to their activities was the cultural cohesion of societies such as Iran. For that, to change the religious view of the people, they sought to transform their culture to open the way for evangel and change the religion. Since the independence of the countries under colonialism and their resistance to Western culture, Christian propagandists have rethink in evangelical methods.

Missiology or science of evangelism

In the Christianity world, especially in the United States, for the pathology and solution of evangelical activities in the past, they turned to missiology or evangelical science, and for this purpose, they set up departments, fields of study and associations, including the American missiology association and published many books. Missiology has four sub -categories: 1. History, in order to examine the strengths and weaknesses of past evangelical activities, 2. Social science, to utilize the various sciences of sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, and like that. 3. Faith, in order to rebuild match faith with evangel, 4. Strategies, one of their strategies was to evangelize Christian in colonialism country that they are influenced by contextualization faith without interference in their culture.

Evangel strategies in face of Islamic World/ Planting Church or Home Church

Associate Professor of the University of Religions and Denominations said: “Given the ban on evangelical activity in some countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of their strategies is the” church planting “strategy that the home church is one of the obvious instances.

He added: “Home churches are created with few people, for example, with three people and expanded over time, and each member provides the field for the creation of new home churches.” This type of church does not require such costs and facilities and is not bound by certain customs. These churches use every opportunity to attract new people. This strategy seems to be specific to Islamic societies.

Comparative studies

Dr. Meftah at the end responded to a question that “some believe that comparative faith is used in favor of evangelism. What do you think about this? ”He said: One of the challenges of comparative faith is how to preserve religious identity. The theorists of comparative faith in a new sense, such as Francis Clooney, Catherine Cornell and Fon Stush, are that they can use the capacity of other theology to enhance and deepen the teachings of their own religion. In comparative faith, participants can use other theological discussions assuming monopoly. Therefore, given that comparative theology is an elite conversation, the instrumental use for evangelism is ruled out.