Fulcrum Statement on Concerns raised by the Book Review of 'Global Jihad' and Responses

Fulcrum Statement on

Concerns raised by the Book Review of ‘Global Jihad’ and Responses

In the last few days a number of people have expressed concern to Fulcrum Leadership Team members about Fulcrum’s alleged treatment of Patrick Sookhdeo. It would appear that much of this concern has been caused by allegations in an anonymous article which was originally posted by David Virtue on VirtueOnline on 15^th February 2009.

This article also appeared for a short time on the Anglican Mainstream site but was, at Fulcrum’s request, subsequently removed. It has recently been posted on the Barnabas Fund site. On VirtueOnline, it has been replaced by David Virtue with a significantly edited version. This version has reappeared on the Anglican Mainstream site. However the Barnabas Fund site still has the original, unedited version.

The article draws attention to a personal attack on Patrick Sookhdeo written by a convert to Islam on the convert’s blog. Fulcrum is then linked to this attack because the convert refers to Ben White’s review on Fulcrum of "Global Jihad", to which his attention had been drawn by the author.

As a result of the publication of this article on three Christian websites (VirtueOnline, Anglican Mainstream and Barnabas Fund), it appears many people are falsely associating Fulcrum with the Islamist’s personal attack and believing it may be part of a wider plot to discredit Patrick Sookhdeo and his ministry.

Fulcrum totally repudiates these false allegations and regrets their dissemination by fellow evangelical Christians. As a review of our site will show, Fulcrum has made no attack on Patrick Sookhdeo nor has it undermined what we believe to be the important work of the Barnabas Fund (on whose Council of Reference the Chair of Fulcrum serves). Indeed the Barnabas Fund has co-operated with Fulcrum in the publication of a full response to Ben White's article, and we are still awaiting a further response in the debate on the Fulcrum forum, which was promised last week.

On Fulcrum we state clearly, on our Articles and Forum pages, that "The material contained in articles and news items on this website represents the opinions of the authors themselves, not necessarily those of Fulcrum."

The Leadership Team has simply sought to provide a forum to discuss the issues raised in the book “Global Jihad” by publishing what we believe to be an important, measured, detailed, academic and, at points, critical review and by providing the Barnabas Fund with a right of reply in order to inform and educate our readers about this important area of engaging with Islam. We will continue to seek constructive dialogue between all those working in this important field.

19th February 2009