The Family Ties That Bind: How Muslim Families Impact Christian Witness and Political Discernment

As we have seen over the years, negative words directed at Islam are often met with harsh criticism or condemned for being bigoted or xenophobic. Even within the church, Christians are often confused about how to think about the rising tide of Muslims in our nation. Therefore, our convictions must be rooted in Scripture, so that we can be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

To that end, this article will examine the strong familial and cultural structures found within Islam, and how these bonds make it difficult for Muslims to receive Christ, enter the church, or assimilate into Western civilization. My goal, therefore, is twofold. First, I want to help you, dear Christian, to faithfully proclaim the gospel to your Muslim neighbors. Second, I want to equip Christians for faithful cultural engagement in the public square.

The Familial Bonds of Islam

In order to be discerning in both our gospel witness and cultural engagement, there is a characteristic of Islam that we must understand: kinship. In many Islamic societies, the welfare and opportunities made available to an individual are closely tied to the extended family structure. Muslims care deeply about devotion to their flesh and blood. Familial ties in Islam are exceptionally strong.

This creates family structures that are powerful, protective, and capable of advancing the claims of Islam. Equally, they make evangelism and assimilation in other cultures incredibly difficult.

Understanding this reality creates challenges for Christians, but also unique opportunities. Let us consider these cultural realities and their implications within the distinct spheres of Christian witness and civil responsibility.

Islamic Kinship and Christian Witness

God has called Christians to love their enemies (Matt. 5:43–47) and to serve as his ambassadors, agents of divine reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:20). This is certainly true in our witness among Muslims.

Over the years, there has been considerable interest in the missions world regarding the 10/40 Window, an area stretching from North Africa through the Middle East and into South Asia. This region contains many of the world’s most unreached peoples, and it is predominantly Muslim. There is a reason for this—Islam presents a formidable challenge to Christian witness.

This is not to say that the gospel cannot penetrate the spiritual darkness of Islam. It can, and it has. But remember, Islam was crafted to be in direct opposition to the Christian gospel. This is an undeniable reality that would likely invite criticism in modern media circles, but it’s true. As Tony Costa observed in his essay, the founder of Islam was accosted by a demonic spirit and preached a “gospel” different than the true gospel, something that the apostle Paul explicitly warned against in Galatians 1:9–10.¹ And so, it is not too much to say that Islam was fashioned by Satan himself as a weapon against Christ and his church. As Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

1. Tony Costa, “Lost Brothers or Mortal Enemies? A History of Islam’s Teaching on Christianity,” Christ Over All, June 22, 2026.

When it comes to Islam, we must remember this truth. From the beginning Islam has sought to conquer Christ, his church, and the cultures that have been formed by Christianity.

Yet, this also means that Muslims, as fallen image-bearers, are not public enemy number one; Satan—and the spiritual darkness that opposes Christ—are. This means that Islam as an ideology works against the gospel that might save individual Muslims. For instance, Islam contains built-in theological objections against Jesus as the Son of God (Quran 4:171; 5:72; 9:30; 112:1–4; hereafter “Q”), against substitutionary atonement (Q 4:157–158; 6:164; 53:38–39), and against aspects of Christian teaching concerning righteousness and salvation (Q 2:123; 6:164; 35:18; 53:38–39). When one studies Islam carefully, it becomes apparent that it directs its followers away from central truths concerning Christ. And it does so, as it offers an impersonal, and ultimately unapproachable god.

Still, doctrinal armor is not the only thing Islam is equipped with. It is also layered with ideological and cultural emphases that resist outside influences and Western norms. Islamic culture is designed to endure, and once having endured, it achieves dominance over competing cultural systems. True Islam cannot be governed by anything but the Quran, and cannot settle for anything less than supremacy and subjugation.

Recognizing these realities helps us understand important cultural norms within Islam as well as those within our tradition. Over the last number of generations, the family structures of countries once known for their Christian witness have been weakened by serial divorce, so-called gay marriage, and a host of -isms, but especially expressive individualism. In such a cultural context, children leave home, establish their own paths, and function as autonomous individuals.

Islamic family structures function in exactly the opposite way. They exist to build, maintain, and preserve the family, all the while extending the strength, wealth, and influence of the family.

There are good things to learn from this. In many ways, community-oriented cultures possess strengths that individualistic cultures lack. Families that think generationally and provide thoughtfully for one another are good things.

I lived in the Muslim world and experienced many things that challenged me as a Christian and as a father. Several years ago, I remember sitting in the house of a Muslim friend. Present in the home were my friend, his father (who served as the family patriarch), as well as his uncles, brothers, and cousins. All the men sat in one room while the women gathered in another. Each member of the family lived on the same property. I estimate there were nearly sixty people in all, including children. It was true communal living.

As I sat in the living room receiving their hospitality, the men continually moved in and out of the house. Near the front door sat a basket filled with keys to a dozen or more cars parked in the courtyard. Each time someone left, he simply reached into the basket and grabbed a set of keys without even looking.

After watching this happen several times, I asked my friend’s father, “Does each man own his own car?”

“Yes,” he replied.

I remembered seeing a particularly nice Volkswagen outside and asked, “I saw Mehemet drive away in the Volkswagen. When did he buy that?”

One of Mehemet’s older cousins spoke up and said, “That’s my car.”

I expected him to become upset and demand that the vehicle be returned immediately. Instead, the father declared, “We are a family. All of our things belong to each other. My things are his things, and his things are my things.”

Each of the men nodded in agreement.

As I sat there thousands of miles from my own family, accompanied by another American Christian, they understood that this display communicated their collective strength, wealth, and unity. It was a declaration of the power and cohesion found within their family structure.

Moments earlier, I had explained that the Christian accompanying me was my brother in Christ. I had read Romans 8 and spoken of our adoption into God’s family and the church as a family of brothers and sisters. Yet, in that moment, my claims seemed to fall flat. In many ways, they simply did not believe me, because their understanding of family appeared far more substantial than mine.

Getting to the Heart of the Family

There are two lessons Christians can learn from this:

First, our God is the God of nature.

He created the family, and it is natural to have special affections and greater responsibilities toward our own kin. God is glorified when families love and care for one another.

Our God is also the God of grace. Through adoption in the gospel, he has created an eternal family: the church. The church must take this reality seriously and become a people who bear burdens, rejoice together, and share life together. The reality of our family bond in Christ should be visible even to families like my Muslim friends.

This should challenge us to ask: How can I be a better brother to the men in my church? What needs do others have? How can I intertwine my life with theirs? Would an outsider believe my claim that these people are my brothers and sisters in Christ? Would a follower of Islam? If a Muslim is on the fence about the gospel—knowing that it will likely mean expulsion from his Muslim family—it is important for him to see the local church family that he would join and know he has a community that will care for him.

The world will know our Father’s love by the way we love one another. And honestly, if Christians live, move, and have their being by their individual selves, their personal evangelism will run up against the thick familial bonds of the Muslim family.

Second, while this family displayed strong kinship, the love of Christ was absent.

The family structures found in Islam cannot ultimately offer the benevolent and sacrificial love found in Christ. And this creates a tremendous opportunity for Christian witness.

The church’s mission to make disciples of all nations and teach them to obey Christ comes from a superior love. Namely, the love of Christ and his death for our sins (1 John 3:16). When he died for his people, he created a new family and one that should not be hidden in witnessing to Muslims. Indeed, Christians offer a greater family, one that truly seeks the good of others above our own. As the Church Father, Cyprian of Carthage, once rightly noted, “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the Church for your mother.”²

2. Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Church 6, in Early Latin Theology, ed. and trans. S. L. Greenslade, Library of Christian Classics 5 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956).

Therefore, we must plant churches and train indigenous churches to become this kind of family. And just the same, Christians should continue to build their own families thick with love as testimonies to the kind of familial bonds that Christ creates in us.

Indeed, the church can love Muslims by raising up, training, and sending families to proclaim the beauty of Christ in difficult places. These efforts often come at great cost, but we are called to obedience. With hearts that desire the glory of God among a lost world under Christ’s authority, we become heralds of grace to our opponents.

Islamic Kinship and Christian Discernment

After living in the Middle East for several years, my family and I also lived in the Netherlands, where we worked among Muslim migrants in the cities of The Hague and Rotterdam. As we lived there and ministered among Turkish-speaking communities, we were surprised by how conservative the Muslims remained. Many had learned Dutch and English, received some level of Western education, and worked ordinary jobs throughout the city. We expected these factors to produce greater secularization or perhaps increased openness to Christianity. That was not the case.

Once again, it was the family that created strong resistance to the gospel. In some ways, Islamic kinship was even more visible. The difference was that it often felt less hospitable and more defensive, like walls erected for self-preservation.

Nearly every week we learned about another mosque or Islamic center being established. When I asked local Turks and Kurds about these projects, some were reluctant to discuss them, while others openly shared how much of the funding came from Turkey and other Muslim nations. Subsequent reporting and government investigations have confirmed concerns regarding foreign influence and efforts to limit outside funding.³ Reports have also shown that many imams in the Netherlands are employed and paid directly by the Turkish government. In some cases, Turkish officials appointed them to their positions.⁴

As you can imagine, therefore, these arrangements, all of which were encouraged by their hosting government, create genuinely perverse incentives to resist Dutch cultural assimilation. They also work to encourage greater effort to preserve connections to their family, their homeland, and the Islamic political interests of Turkey.

In fact, studies indicate that more than half of eligible Turkish voters in the Netherlands participate in Turkish elections.⁵ Nearly seventy percent of those votes have gone to President Erdoğan and his Islamic political party.⁶ This differs significantly from voting patterns in many of Turkey’s largest and most westernized cities, such as Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara, where secular parties often perform more strongly.⁷

Again, this evidence shows how Islamic kinship structures function within Western societies. They are often organized to preserve religious identity, maintain communal cohesion, and resist assimilation. Their loyalties frequently remain tied to family networks, ethnic identity, and Islamic institutions. And, of course, these familial bonds are not unique to the Netherlands. Across much of Europe, including Berlin, Paris, London, and Dublin, as well as American communities, such as Dearborn, Minneapolis, Newark, Houston, and the Dallas–Fort Worth area, Muslim populations continue to grow and establish institutions that preserve their communities and identities.

From this perspective, Islam functions as a durable and expanding religious system. By design, Islam seeks to preserve itself, outpopulate its host country, and then conquer its host. Making matters worse, unwitting (or self-congratulating) magistrates facilitated widespread immigration, often covering up the harm imposed by Muslim invaders (e.g., Britain’s Rape Gangs⁸).

8. See The Rape Gang Inquiry, The Rape Gang Inquiry Report, chaired by Rupert Lowe MP (2026), 8.

In such cases, what are Christians to do?

Cultivating a Political Mind

While Christians are called to evangelize, evangelism is not the only duty Christians have. We are also called to pray for and work toward peace in our places of residence (1 Tim. 2:1–4), and that means seeing what the mass migration of Muslims is doing to the places where our children are growing up. Accordingly, Christians should be willing to speak honestly about the impact of mass Muslim migration, without allowing concerns about political correctness to prevent faithful speech or strategic opposition.

The difficult reality for much of Europe is that the necessary corrections from their governments will be incredibly painful and most will be unwilling to trek that path. Many governments have neglected their responsibility to preserve their own cultural inheritance and protect the long-term interests of their citizens. In some places, immigrant populations have become major demographic forces within major cities.

In the three largest cities of the Netherlands: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, ethnic Dutch populations now make up less than half of the total population. In these cities, native Dutch citizens have become a minority.⁹

9. Marina Lazëri and Marcel Coenders, “Dutch National Identity in a Majority-Minority Context: When the Dominant Group Becomes a Local Minority,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49, no. 9 (2023): 2129–53. They report that ethnic Dutch residents made up 44 percent of Amsterdam and 47 percent of Rotterdam. For the 43 percent ethnic Dutch population of the Hague, see Municipality of The Hague (Gemeente Den Haag), “Den Haag Buurtmonitor” (neighborhood statistics portal / Den Haag in Cijfers), archived May 4, 2013, via Wayback Machine.

As Christians, we must think carefully about what these realities mean in the distinction of government and our civil responsibilities.

As Scripture teaches, God instituted government for our good (Rom. 13:1–7). He rules over it, and he appoints its rulers according to his providence. Yet, his sovereign rule does not deny the part citizens play. If anything, it should energize Christians to take seriously their civic duties to seek the welfare of the city (Jer. 29:7). And practically, that means seeking, praying for, and helping elect civil authorities who will administer justice, protect their citizens, safeguard the common good, and uphold laws that in the West find their origins in Christian views of justice.

Accordingly, Christians who live in America should pursue policies that best serve the United States and its citizens, according to its historic and Christian views of life and law.

This means that while Christians should freely advocate for the dignity of every man, woman, and child, this should not come at the expense of protecting the children born in our nation. Indeed, while it is good and right to support, fund, and send missionaries to proclaim the gospel among Muslim peoples, we must also call for federal, state, and especially local governments to honor, respect, and protect the familial bonds of American families. This includes a growing Christian voice in the public square that calls on leaders to prevent harmful ideologies like Islam from growing by way of migration.

Without wading into policy debates, Christians should all be able to affirm the goodness that comes in preserving, protecting, and upholding an American culture that has been shaped by Christian morals, values, traditions, holidays, and customs. Certainly, this is not preaching the gospel, but it is making sure that America is a place where the gospel is freely proclaimed. Because, as we know all too well, swelling numbers of Muslims in various cities are electing their family members, gaining power and advancing an ideology that threatens our cherished principles of Christian liberty.

Conclusion

In all, it is possible to be a Christian who loves God and loves his neighbor by evangelizing the lost and protecting laws, customs, and cultures that have incubated so many Christian churches. Indeed, this is our heritage. And for all the ways we can see how strong familial bonds make it difficult to evangelize and assimilate Muslims in America, maybe it’s time we learn a thing or two about building sturdy Christian families, churches, and cultures that have even deeper bonds, because they are rooted in the love of the Triune God.

After all, if present trends continue in our nation, we will find it increasingly difficult to share Christ with Muslims and oppose their demographic takeover. As we see the effects of the mass migration in Europe, there is a growing urgency for Christians in America to build things that last and protect what is good. And to do so with bold evangelism and wise engagement in the public square.

Indeed, Christians need to understand the way familial bonds impact and ensnare Muslims in the shadows of Satan and in the ways it is used to advance the false religion of Islam. We need to grow in our ability to preach the liberating message of Christ, without surrendering the Christian inheritance and moral order that arose from a nation who once honored the Triune God, and who, by God’s grace, will honor him again.