When Muslims convert...

From 1991 to 2007, Fuller Theological Seminary's School of Intercultural Studies conducted a survey among 750 Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Those surveyed represented 50 ethnic groups from 30 different countries. Here were the nine most-cited reasons for conversion to the Christian faith:

1. Christians practiced what they preached.

2. Christians appeared to have loving marriages in which women were treated as equals.

3. Christian-to-Christian violence was less prominent than Muslim-to-Muslim violence.

4. The prayers of Christians had healed the disabled and delivered others from demonic powers.

5. The Koran had produced profound disillusionment because it accentuates "God's punishment more than his love, and the use of violence to impose Islamic laws."

6. God had used visions and dreams to influence the converts' decision.

7. Muslims can never be certain of their forgiveness and salvation as Christians can.

8. As they read the Bible, the converts had been convicted of its truth.

9. The converts were attracted to the idea of God's unconditional love.

Jennifer Riley, "Analysis: Why Muslims Follow Jesus," The Christian Post (11-16-07)

Good advice from Fulton Sheen?

Richard John Neuhaus in First Things seems to think so:

A priest on Long Island tells me that, when he was newly ordained, he had the chance to visit with the legendary Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who was famed for, among other things, winning many converts to the Catholic Church. Sheen was in the hospital and, as it turned out, on his deathbed. “Archbishop Sheen,” my friend said, “I have come for your counsel. I want to be a convert-making priest like you. I’ve already won fifteen people to the faith. What is your advice?” Sheen painfully pushed himself up on his elbows from his reclining position and looked my friend in the eye. “The first thing to do,” he said, “is to stop counting.”

Anne Rice - her spiritual odyssey

"To The Source" has a great piece on horror queen Anne Rice. She has journeyed back to Christ, as some of you already know. But this piece is outstanding on that journey.

Rice began writing novels that reflected her “guilt and misery in being cut off from God and from salvation; my being lost in a world without light.” Her research for her writing took her back through history. She confesses that she was obsessed with finding meaning in a world without God. As any historian knows, this journey leads to the undeniable fact that Christianity had the seminal influence on our lives today. How did this happen? She wondered what caused the fall of Rome, and what is in the very character of the Christian faith that enabled it to pick up the pieces? And even more perplexing, how have the persecuted Jewish people, the people of the Book, not only sustained themselves, but remained the great people they are.

These remarkable people of faith from our past, both Christians and Jews, along with friends in New Orleans who were churchgoers and believers, coaxed Rice back to God. It was a journey of the mind as much as a journey of the heart.