Jesus of the gaps: The evangelistic use of biblical reflexes in the Qur’an

Abstract

Does it help to start with the Jesus of the Qur’an when doing Muslim evangelism? This missiological approach has been, and continues to be, prevalent. In this article we examine the theological legitimacy of appealing to biblical reflexes in the Qur’an for evangelism. Is such an approach biblically legitimate and practically helpful? We first argue, from Acts 17, that the Bible tacitly endorses the evangelistic tactic of making appeals to truth statements in alien religious texts to connect with hearers’ theological imaginations. In doing so, we propose an evangelistic alien text appeal principle. Second, we adopt Qur’an 4:171 as a case study, arguing that some Christological reflexes hinder, and others help, Muslims imagine the biblical Jesus. We conclude that only those Qur’anic Christological reflexes that are imprecise—Jesus of the gaps—are biblically legitimate and helpful for evangelism.