Jay Smith has cross-cultural missions in his blood. As a third- generation Brethren in Christ, he was born in a remote village in India's Himalayas.
As a teen, he trekked across Asia into Europe and found himself in Switzerland at L'Abri, where he became convinced that the gospel was absolutely true and relevant. At a 1981 missions conference, Smith encountered two numbers that changed his life: Only 1,500 missionaries were ministering to the world's 800 million Muslims, a missiologist reported.
"Fifteen-hundred wouldn't do diddly-squat," Smith said. So he threw himself into apologetics and specialized in Islamic theology. Following graduation from Fuller, Smith grew a bushy beard, learned to speak French in Paris, and headed off to French-speaking Senegal, eager to engage Muslims.
Four years later, an urgent message from a London missionary redirected Smith's focus. This friend was doing a door-to-door survey on religion and found that the average Brit cared little about faith. This researcher's most dynamic religious conversations were with Pakistani and Indian Muslims. And this colleague uncovered a troubling trend: an increasingly radical Islamic element that Britain's Christian leaders were apparently unaware of, let alone doing something about. He urged Smith to come to London. Smith agreed.
Soon after arriving in 1992, Smith visited Speakers Corner, where hundreds of Muslims converged each Sunday to hear virulent Islamic preachers.
At times, 10 passionate Islamic speakers, using a short ladder as a platform, roused equally passionate crowds of men in native dress, all punching the air, shouting "Allahu akbar." These individuals were imams or educated men of high standing. Women also attended. Combative free-for-alls between followers of different Muslim clerics erupted on occasion.
Smith decided to step right up and start speaking to the crowd. But he didn't get far. The crowd laughed at him. They pushed, punched, and cursed him, and yanked his beard (since shaved off).
"I was not expecting vitriol, aggression, physical abuse," Smith says. "This was way out of my comfort zone." Smith found addressing Muslims' objections to Christianity next to impossible. These adept debaters responded with challenges that Smith's years of apologetics and seminary studies had not prepared him to confront.
"Christians had all the best material but didn't know how to package it," Smith says. To reach Muslims, he needed a better way to communicate. "I just felt I didn't know the material well enough. Muslims had much better presentation."
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