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February 26, 2012 |
| Chrislam | ||
Something is happening in the some of the churches of North America that has the potential to be as big a change as was seen in the 1500s with the Protestant Reformation that resulted in congregations splitting away from the Roman Catholic Church. We Protestants see that split as a good and even necessary thing, but neither Catholics nor Protestants sees this change as good.
20 years ago most people didn't know anything about Islam. It was only with the introduction of Salmon Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses in 1988 that a few people were alerted to the nature of Islam. But going back as far as the Protestant Reformation there were people who were aware of it and how its texts position Islam as Anti-Christ.
With the 9/11 attacks many more people became aware of Islam as a motivating force for evil. And people started looking at it more closely. But then the most amazing thing started to happen – some people started to adopt it or at least accept it, even in the Christian church. This lesson is about that change, the integration of Islam into the Christian church. Its name is Chrislam.
Most of the people in the Christian church are religious conservatives, which means that they believe there are absolutes like good and bad, right and wrong, which tends to lead them toward a belief in a God who has set a standard for the conduct of his people. Conservatives also tend to believe that history can teach us about the future. Religious conservatives hold that the Bible is the true word of God given to the writers through divine inspiration and is perfect having been sustained by God through the years so that we can use it as a solid foundation for our faith.
But there are also religious liberals in the Christian church. They hold that the Bible's authors were inspired to write but their writings are from their own viewpoint in time and culture. Therefore they can't always be applied to our time and culture. They also believe that the scriptures may have been modified as they traveled through time to us. This fits well with a general liberal belief that there isn't much to be learned from the past and that man's own reasoning will lead him into the future. This belief in man's ability to reason also leads them to a belief that rights and wrongs are not absolute and the true right and wrong can only be determined by weighing the various factors at the time.
The religious liberals in the Church share some ideals with liberals outside the church. One of these is the ideal of inclusivity of groups that they see as down-trodden. This is where Chrislam has been able to set its roots. By convincing some of these churches that Islam is misrepresented and mistreated and that we worship the same God, they have been able to gain entrance to these congregations. And these congregations now consider themselves to be enlightened and progressive.
Some churches have attracted a large number of religious liberals. As they have done so their message has drifted to what is commonly called a social gospel or "Liberation Theology". In the process their message changes from one of salvation from sin to one of doing good works for others.1
While the integration of Islam has been going on in the liberal churches there are also indications that some of the mega-churches are sympathetic to the idea. I'm sure they all have some rational for it such as "if we can just get them into the church we can convert them" or perhaps it's only financial. But it certainly is not biblical.
"This religion started through a man named Muhammad. He was born in a tribe of Mecca in Saudi Arabia in 570 AD. Amazingly, this man came from the descendants of Ishmael who was a son of Abraham. God told Abraham that He would give him a son. However, Abraham's wife Sarah got impatient waiting for this to happen. She told Abraham to have sex with one of the maids. He did, and this maid then gave birth to Ishmael!
"Ishmael was not God's original plan for his life. Sarah eventually got pregnant as God had promised and she gave birth to Isaac, who was God's original plan and intention. Because Abraham could not wait for God's timing, he ended up giving birth to a son whose descendants eventually bore out Muhammad. This story is giving all Christians a major lesson on the importance of staying with God's specific instructions and timing on exactly what He wants to do with your life. If you don't, the consequences could be extreme and severe as this story perfectly illustrates!
"Muhammad was supposed to have been a good righteous man who spent a lot of time in a cave meditating. At about the age of 40, Muhammad claims that he received an angelic visitation from an angel by the name of Gabriel.
"This angel then proceeds to give Muhammad revelations over a 23 year period. These revelations were then compiled in a book called the Koran or another way it is spelled, the Quran or Qur'an. This book then became to be known as the final word of God on all matters. Muhammad became the final messenger from God to man. Muslims do not believe that God has given any further revelations to anyone since Muhammad."2
"The concept of Chrislam […] appears to have emerged from a program on the meaning of "love your neighbor" at Grace Fellowship Church in Atlanta, Georgia "In 2001, like most Americans, we were pretty awakened to the true Islamic presence in the world and in the United States," says Jon Stallsmith, the outreach minister at Grace Fellowship. "Jesus says we should love our neighbors. We can't do that without having a relationship with them."
"Stallsmith maintains that a [renewal of friendly relations] between Muslims and Christians can be achieved by the fact that Jesus is mentioned twenty-five times in the Quran.
"The Chrislam movement has [been strengthened] by statements from President George W. Bush that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God and by Rick Warren's reference to Isa (the Muslim name for Jesus) in his prayer at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Muslims, according to a Pew Forum poll. At the same time, more than half the country says they know 'not very much' or 'nothing at all' about the Islamic faith. 'The recent political developments and the fact that we're fighting two wars in Muslim countries should sharpen that need to know how to talk to these guys,' Stallsmith insists 'We want to find peace, reconciliation around a scriptural understanding of Jesus.'"4
I tried but could not find a statement of beliefs for a Chrislam Church. It's hard to imagine how there could be one. Islam does not accept most of our understanding of the nature of God, the Trinity, and Jesus.
Muslims do believe in a God and they believe that God is the same God as the God of the Jews and Christians and "they do believe that Jesus existed. They believe that He was a great messenger and prophet from God, just like Abraham and Moses. They also believe that God gave Jesus supernatural power to do the miracles that He did. However:
"They believe that God ascended Jesus up into heaven, but they do not believe he was ever crucified on a cross. They believe that Jesus ascended up to heaven before His enemies could get to him to kill Him. They believe Judas was the one who was actually crucified!
"They also do not believe that our 4 gospels were utterances from Jesus or divinely inspired by God through the Holy Spirit."5
Christian congregations have split up over doctrinal differences far smaller than these. So how is it possible for the two to merge and for Chrislam to continue to exist?
The word Islam means "surrender" and comes from the same root word as does "peace". The concept of surrender to God is also fundamental to Christianity. So at first glance it seems there is a commonness of spirit. But you can't understand Islam without understanding Jihad.
Jihad is sometimes translated as "holy war" and sometimes as "struggle". It seems odd to us that a word could have a range of meanings from war to struggle, but that is the case here. And that's important for Christians to understand.
When talking to others about Christianity, Christians limit their actions to things that we consider acts of love for them. We want the result to be their personal choice to accept Jesus as their savior. Islam sees the act of love being the result, conversion to Islam. This leaves the actions that can be taken to achieve that conversion largely unlimited. It is an ends-justify-the-means approach. Therefore these actions, this Jihad, includes all the actions that Christians would take but goes on from there to include psychological pressure, deceit, physical threats, physical violence, and in the right circumstances murder and war.
Some Christians may think they can use this coming together with Islam as an opportunity to convert the Muslims. If so, they will find themselves at a tactical disadvantage.
Christians and the countries they live in are quite tolerant of other religions. Sure, we seek to spread the word and convert those we can, but we understand the choice is theirs to make. But we understand that most people will not accept a walk on this narrow road. There is nothing in the Bible that teaches eradication of other religions6. That is not true for Islam, which specifically requires conversion or submission of everyone to Islam.
Therefore if Christians try to work together with Muslims they find themselves with people who are not prepared to accept their religion.
Here are a few related verses from the Qur'an
Surah 3:85 "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam,
it will never be accepted of him"
Surah 3:151 "We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve."
Surahs 4:89, 101-102 & 5:51 states not to "take the Jews and the Christians
for friends; they are friends of each other."
Surah 8:12 "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every
fingertip of them."
And a verse from the New Testament
John 16 2-3: "… The time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service, and these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me."
1 John 4(False Messiah here means Anti-Christ)
2 The Spirit of God is known by this: every spirit who confesses that Yeshua the Messiah has come in the flesh is from God. 3 And no spirit that does not confess that Yeshua has come in the flesh is from God, but this is from that False Messiah, him whom you have heard that he will come, and already he is in the world.
1 John 2
22 Who is a liar but whoever denies that Yeshua is The Messiah? Such a person is a false messiah. He who denies The Father denies also the Son. 23 He who denies The Son also does not believe in The Father; whoever confesses The Son confesses The Father also.
This movement appears to be growing though it is in a phase where it doesn't like a lot of attention. Preferring to grow in the dark, the light of mass media exposure causes much scurrying and denials. As a result it is hard to pin down anyone on anything.
They are not just scattered individual churches. There is organization between them.
Given the very significant differences between the Bible and Qur'an it's hard to imagine this movement's continued existence but then it is hard to imagine it would form at all. But to really flourish it is going to need a strong, even charismatic, leader.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel
2 http://www.bible-knowledge.com/islam/
4 http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=1366
5 http://www.bible-knowledge.com/islam/
6 The country of Israel in Old Testament times was a special case. God wanted all other religions driven out of the promised land. Even so it was not a call for world-wide destruction of those religions