American pastor says Evangelicals' hateful comments about Muslims worsens Christian persecution around the world

Dr. Bob Roberts, who has participated in high level Christian-Muslim dialogues in the past, is worried that the unloving attitude adopted by American Evangelicals toward Muslims is only triggering animosity among people of the two faiths especially in Muslim-majority countries.

"We are creating a nightmare for Christians around the world," Roberts declared in an interview with The Christian Post.

Referring to the LifeWay Research surveys that placed Evangelicals as having the most negative view of Muslims, the senior pastor lamented that it is the Evangelical pastors themselves who have the "worse attitude." Roberts thinks this runs contrary to what it means to be Evangelical and is only making things worse than they are for Christians in Muslim countries.

He explained: "When Christians make harsh statements against the Muslims around the world, it just makes things far more difficult. Christians actually increase Christian persecution around the world in America by being hateful to Muslims. And those are your brothers in Christ. The world is connected."

Roberts expounded that people in the West and non-Muslim majority nations often misconstrue the Islamic State and Boko Haram terrorist groups as representative of what Islam is, which worries Muslim leaders who condemn the terrorist groups as "not true Muslims."

The senior pastor of Northwood Church in Texas was one of around 50 non-Muslim representatives alongside nearly 250 Muslim religious and government leaders who penned and signed the "Marrakesh Declaration" in Marrakesh, Morocco back in January.

The Declaration aims to "confront all forms of religious bigotry, vilification, and denegration of what people hold sacred, as well as all speech that promote hatred and bigotry" as the gathering recognized the persecution suffered by religious minorities especially in the Muslim world.

In October 2015, Roberts hosted the "Spreading the Peace Convocation" together with the executive director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, Imam Muhammad Magid. The dialogue was attended by nearly 200 Evangelical pastors and imams.

Roberts is also not a fan of conversion.

"We should never be driven to convert people," he said. "I think the goal should be to share the love of Jesus in reaching out to people. I've seen people of different faiths follow Jesus."

Robert's challenge to the Western non-Muslim people is to be loving toward Muslims and for Muslims to be more tolerant of Christians and religious minorities.