Once in a while, we receive messages from Muslims who complain that we are using deception because of the name of our website.
Through the name Answering Islam we allegedly are giving the impression that we are an Islamic site; we are leading Muslims astray by feeding them anti-islamic material while pretending to be Muslim.
Maybe there are some Muslims who think that anything that uses the word "Islam" is automatically Islamic. Maybe there are some Muslims who do not understand the English language well and who misunderstand the name. But anyone who knows the English language to a degree to be able to understand articles about theology and religion in that language, should also be able to understand the very common grammatical construction of our name.
Answering Islam is the same construction as countering Islam, rebutting Islam, or exposing Islam, and they all mean similar things, only that the word "answering" is the more friendly and most polite version of all those mentioned.
We want to be in a respectful dialog and factual discussion with Muslims. We want to give answers to their questions and responses to the attacks against the Christian faith that are inherent in Islam. But any of the above terms clearly says to anyone who knows English, that the group who writes under that title is in opposition to Islam.
In English "Answering XYZ" always means a critical evaluation of and answer to the conviction and arguments of XYZ.
"Answering Atheism" is understood as a presentation of arguments against atheism and is certainly produced by people who believe in God, who have a conviction opposing atheism.
"Answering the Pro-Choice movement" is understood to critically evaluate the arguments of people propagating abortion, and it is done by those who oppose abortion. ("Pro-Choice" is the name that the advocates of abortion in the USA give to their own movement and position, i.e. it is my own choice whether kill the child in my womb, and nobody should be allowed to forbid it. It sounds a lot more positive than pro-murder of the unborn.)
If people become angry about the name Answering Islam, the problem is not with us or our name, it is not because we are deceptive - after all, we are stating our convictions very clearly throughout the pages we publish. The problem is only that people who register protest on these grounds do not understand English very well.
There are others who complain about the Answering Islam subtitle "A Christian-Muslim Dialog". We agree, it is not a dialog in the sense that Muslims have an equal say or influence on the content or presentation on the site. It is a Christian site. However, the site is highly interactive. We offer many feedback email addresses of individual authors with the invitation to discuss everything that is presented. We welcome further questions, ask for corrections of mistakes and critique of our content and approach. And we link to Muslim responses to our critique of Islam where the Muslim authors inform us about their response and request that we link to it. For details, see the page about our Policies on Answering Islam.
There is a lot of dialog going on between Muslims and Christians that is initiated through Answering Islam. Many of the articles on our site are the result of our direct discussions with Muslims in face-to-face encounter, via email and on public discussion boards on the internet. We do not create fictitious ‘Muslim arguments’ in order to then knock down what no Muslim believes (like some of the fake "dialogs" presented by Muslims, see this example). We answer to the real arguments which Muslims direct at Christians. In this way we are in dialog with Muslims and our site reflects the results of this dialog and encourages to continue the dialog with us.
Answering Islam Home Page