British evangelicals tussle over Islam and Israel

A Church Divided
by Mark Tooley
03/17/2009

A bit of a ruckus among British evangelicals and Anglicans has arisen over charges of accommodationism toward radical Islam. The latest controversy flared up in January when a British evangelical group, Fulcrum, negatively reviewed a new book by Anglican priest and critic of jihadist Islam Patrick Sookhdeo. In reaction, defenders of Sookhdeo alleged a secret campaign among British evangelicals to discredit critics of radical Islam and supporters of Israel. British evangelical groups that allegedly met secretly for this purpose insist they simply want better relations with Britain's growing Islamic population.

In the Fulcrum review, author Ben White decried Sookhdeo's Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam for its "political decontextualisation, unsustainable generalisations, and a simplification or misrepresentation of Islamic theology," with an "extremely skewed analysis of radical Islamism and the 'war on terror.'" White also noted disapprovingly that the book's U.S. version includes endorsements from neoconservatives such as David Frum and Frank Gaffney. the rest