"Why do people choose the substitute over God himself? Probably the most important reason is that it obviates accountability to God. We can meet idols on our own terms because they are our own creations. They are safe, predictable, and controllable; they are, in Jeremiah's colorful language, the 'scarecrows in a cornfield' (10:5). They are portable and completely under the user's control. They offer nothing like the threat of a God who thunders from Sinai and whose providence in this world so often appears to us to be incomprehensible and dangerous . . . [People] need face only themselves. That is the appeal of idolatry."
- David F. Wells
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Islam and people’s feelings about Islam are in the news a lot lately. Therefore, I decided to share some things that you don’t normally hear in typical media reports so that your opinions will be better informed. If you are not a Muslim, you may not know what they are taught about non-believers. To the best of my knowledge the following info is 100% accurate and comes from Muslim sources.
First, Islam teaches that every baby is born a Muslim. If they grow up to be something else, they believe it is because their parents or culture steered them away from the true faith. Therefore, if someone becomes a Muslim, they say, “I reverted to Islam.” In other words, they believe that by becoming Muslim, they have gone back to what they were when they were born.
The Koran says,
“[Prophet], when your Lord brought forth the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness that You are.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection: ‘We were not aware of this’” (Surah 7:172).
They believe that every human soul ever created was created at the same time that Allah created Adam, and that they acknowledged Allah as the one true God at that time. Muslims believe that God’s first address to all humans is preserved in your unconscious mind and that it will be awakened if you read the Koran.
Second, Muslims consider anyone who associates anything or anyone with “God”, guilty of “shirk.” “Shirk” is the sin of “joining any partners with Allah” or ascribing divine attributes to anything or anyone else. Idolatry and polytheism are considered “shirk.” Believing that Jesus is the Son of God is considered shirk. In fact, Muslims believe that the Christian view of the Triune God is polytheism, and therefore shirk.
The Koran says,
“O you People of the Book! (Christians and Jews) Believe in what We have (now) revealed, confirming what was (already) with you before we…curse them…Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him…; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin most heinous indeed” (Surah 4:47-48).
I share this with you not to encourage animosity towards Muslims but so that you won't believe it the next time someone tells you that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. There are profound differences between the two. It is true that we both believe that the God who created the world and spoke to Abraham is the God we worship, but we can’t both be right.
Christians believe that God is and has always been triune. Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Christians worship Jesus as part of the Godhead. Muslims do not. When I am worshiping Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, Muslims would agree, I am not worshiping Allah. The Christian description of God is far different than the Muslim description. We do not all worship the same God.
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Comments on "What Muslims Believe About You":
2. Dave
- 10/21/2010 12:56 am CDT
The Father, Son and Spirit are all fully God, the fullness of God, all at the same time, while still being distinct in person. -- I had a Muslim student from a university religion class come to interview me about the Christian faith. We talked for hours. He was a very sweet person. He gave me a Quran, I gave him a Bible. Let me just say: spend a little time really talking with a devout Muslim and you will understand clearly that we do not worship the same God. Muslims worship a god who did not become human. Jesus is "just" a prophet, who is sinless, but they believe Moses and Muhammad and the other prophets were all sinless. That's a part of being a prophet for them. They don't believe Jesus even died on the cross. They believe Judas was made to look like Jesus and he died on the cross in the place of Jesus. The Muslim faith is built, unashamedly, on legalism to the max, and it is totally incompatible with genuine Christianity.
3. Karl
- 10/21/2010 9:12 am CDT
So if we can say this:
"It is true that we both believe that the God who created the world and spoke to Abraham is the God we worship, but we can’t both be right."
. . . and clinch the argument that we don't both worship the same God by pointing out that the other religion doesn't recognize a trinitarian God and denies the divinity of Jesus . . .
. . . then, would you say that Jews and Christians also don't worship the same God? Seems like those two pivot-points both apply equally to Jews.
I would suggest that Jews and Christians DO worship the same God, but as a Christian I believe that Jews, having rejected Jesus and NT revelation, have an incomplete understanding of the God they worship and who they believe they know through the OT scriptures. I would also posit that Muslims are on the same spectrum - but farther down the road of mistaken beliefs than Jews are, about the nature and character of the God who spoke to Abraham and revealed himself through Jesus.
4. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 10:05 am CDT
Karl,
Really good points. I've struggled with that some and I waiver between saying that the Jews are just mistaken about YHWH all the way to following the logic of my post here about Muslims all the way to its natural conclusion, that Jews don't actually worship YHWH. Maybe the truth (as far as Jews) is somewhere in the middle?
These passages keep jumping out at me:
Jesus said, "Moreover the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him." (John 5:22-23)
Jesus said, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life" (John 5:39-40)
Jesus said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me" (John 5:46)
"You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." (John 8:19)
"We are not illegitimate children," they protested. "The only Father we have is God himself."
Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God..."(John 8:41b-42a)
"He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear sis that you do not belong to God" (John 8:47)
"My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you..." (John 8:54b-55a)
"I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I Am!" (John 5:58). (In other words, Jesus is Yhwh. So does it stand to reason that if you don't worship Jesus, you don't worship YHWH?"
"I and the Father are one" (John 10:30)
"...that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father" (John 10:38b)
"When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me." (John 12:44)
"They will treat you this way because of my name for they do not know the One who sent me" (John 15:21) "They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me" (John 16:3)
It's hard for me to read those passages and not think, "If you don't worship Jesus, you don't worship YHWH."
Or maybe another way to put it would be that we worship the same God they worshiped, but they don't worship the same God we worship?
Or to use another analogy, the Jews in the early part of the OT did not have a full understanding of the resurrection, life after death or heaven and hell. And that was OK, until fuller revelation on the subject had come through the Psalms and the prophets. Jesus then seems to expect that the Jews contemporary to him ought to believe in the resurrection and heaven and hell.
In other words, it's OK to be ignorant when you don't know any better, but know that you've been told....
So while they were in OT times they were worshiping YHWH but once Jesus revealed himself as God and they refused to worship him as such, they weren't worshiping YHWH anymore.
OR yet another way to put it, I suppose would be: "We all claim the same God that appears on the Tanakh, but we believe very different things about him."
Or is it just semantics? Like if you and I wrote a biography about George Washington, but your description of him and what happened to him was very different from mine. Let's say that mine is completely false: full of false physical and character descriptions and full of false stories about him. Are we both talking about the same George Washington? Yes AND no, I suppose.
Maybe that's the right answer with the Jews. There's a sense in which we do and a sense in which we don't.
5. nhe
- 10/21/2010 10:47 am CDT
To quote RC Sproul, I think it's most important that we worship "the God who is there".......without Christ our advocate, who goes to the father on our behalf, I'm wondering if it's possible to actually worship the God who IS there.....Jews can call upon Yahweh, but can they worship Him if they can't actually get to him?
Edit: Didn't see Shrodes comment above mine before I submitted.......what he said
6. Karl
- 10/21/2010 10:55 am CDT
Good thoughts, Shrode. I really like your last 3 paragraphs. I have a hard time seeing why they don't apply equally to muslims as to Jews.
I'm not talking about "worshiping the same God" being salvific. That's a whole different discussion and I think one can answer "no, it's not salvific, if you believe totally false things about Him and reject Jesus as the divine Son/Word" but still concede that when muslims say Allah, Jews say YHWH and Christians say The Father, they are talking about "the same God" in at least some sense.
7. Dave
- 10/21/2010 11:02 am CDT
I think what Shrode is saying is compelling. From everything I've read, and the discussions I've had with Muslims, a Muslim would tell you that, as a Christian, the God you are worshiping is not the real God, Allah, because your ideas of God are false. They believe our God is false. And, to the point, there's that common question: "Do Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God?" Can you call what Jews and Muslims do, from a religious standpoint, true worship if they deny the deity of Christ? Do Jehovah's Witnesses worship the same God as evangelicals? Jesus talked about "true worshipers" operating in spirit and truth in John chapter 4. And in Matthew, we see that just because someone is going through the motions of worship, it can be pointless: MT 15:9 "They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." Just because people worship does not mean God is being worshiped. You can't love the Father without loving the Son: 1JN 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
8. Karl
- 10/21/2010 11:03 am CDT
I'm thinking of Lewis' words on religions:
"If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest one, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic - there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong: but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."
I think that in our desire to emphasize the rightness of Christians' beliefs about God, we can sometimes overstate the degree of wrongness of Jews, Muslims, or whoever. Using Lewisian terminology I'd say all 3 (Jews, Muslims, Christians) worship the same God but that while the Christian understanding of Him is "right," the Jewish understanding of Him is wrong but nearer being right than the muslim understanding, and the muslim understanding is wrong but nearer being right than ____ [fill in the blank with some other, non-Abrahamic religion].
9. ruben
- 10/21/2010 11:15 am CDT
I wonder how Muslims were able to live in peace with the rest of the world for so long, up until Bin Laden. I still think, pretty much as george bush also believed, that radicals are the ones who do these crazy things and that there are actually muslim moderates (liberals I guess) who used to dominate.
10. Quaid
- 10/21/2010 11:40 am CDT
"I wonder how Muslims were able to live in peace with the rest of the world for so long, up until Bin Laden."
Is this sarcasm? Please tell me you're kidding. If you think that Muslims lived in peace with the rest of the world up until September 11, 2001, then I would suggest that you have a poor understanding of history for everything up until about September 10, 2001.
11. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 11:53 am CDT
Ruben, when you look at the history of Islam, they have only ever been able to "live in peace" with non-muslims when they were the ones in charge...and that's just what the history books say. The books and current moderate Muslims themselves say that in the past, Muslims were tolerant of "people of the book" who lived in Muslim lands. Though I'm still a little doubtful that it worked that way in practice.
And Ruben, they weren't living at peace with the rest of the world up until Bin Laden. There was this little incident. Notice that the surviving hostage takers returned to the Muslim world and received a heroes welcome. But that wasn't just one isolated event. Stuff like that only increased all the way up to 9/11. Looking back I'm not sure we should have been so surprised. I'm not minimizing the horror, I'm just saying that attacks by "radical Islamists" were increasing and growing more bold year by year.
The biggest spark of this fire (at least in modern times) was the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. (Although you can also go back in history all the way to Muhammad and see that they weren't always living peace with the rest of the world.)
Though you are partially right about Bin Laden, sort of. What he does is call attention to something that had been brewing and bubbling for over 200 years. However, Bin Laden is the leaf of the tree, not the root. Bin Laden's brand of Islam is called "Wahhabi". The more "radical" Islam came out of Wahhabiism which is more recent in historical terms. (middle 1700's) But it's also very wide-spread and very influential.
12. Raindream
- 10/21/2010 12:01 pm CDT
As I understand it, Muslims also believe Jesus will return to tell everyone it's okay, that Christians, Jews, and Muslims will all go to heaven. I've heard from a couple people who know their Koran that it's in there. I haven't read it myself--I'm sorry--I may get to it some time.
13. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 12:43 pm CDT
Raindream, I don't think that's quite right. As far as I can tell, though I haven't read the entire Koran, the Koran doesn't speak of his second coming. I have the Koran in two different English translations and have read many parts of it. I also have a comprehensive index of every mention of Jesus in the Koran, and there are a lot, and none of them speak of his return.(Jesus in the Qu'ran, Geoffrey Parrinder, 1977, pp.18-20).
However, Muslims do affirm Jesus' second coming. Muslim tradition has a lot to say about it.
"According to these traditions jesus will return from heaven, battle the Antichrist, and defeat him. Jesus will confess Islam, kill all swine, break all crosses, and establish a millennium of righteousness. There is a tradition that Jesus will marry and have children." (Islam, George Braswell, 1996)
The reason I doubt what you've been told is because of the sin of "Shirk." It is considered the only unforgivable sin, if someone dies without having repented of it. According to Islam, since Christians will be guilty of it when Jesus returns, they ain't goin to heaven.
If you ever talk to those people again, get them to cite Surah and verse. :-)
14. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 1:10 pm CDT
Karl, could I apply those last 3 paragraphs in comment #4 to Muslims? Probably. However, I think there are some important semantic reasons not to.
Did you see what Bird wrote in comment #1? I grow weary of hearing that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
The statement "We all worship the same God" or "We all pray to the same God" has been used by people with an agenda of peace by minimizing or sacrificing our differences on the altar of "Why can't we just all get along?" (That might be analogous to the way that the word "gay" was adopted and infused with a particular agenda.)
And so I think for Christians to say, "No, we don't" is an important way for us to differentiate ourselves from the universalist or "what you believe doesn't matter" crowd.
We live in a world of soundbites, and "We all worship the same God" has a whole lot of other assumptions that usually go with it.
I think saying "No, we don't" is a good opening to say, "Christianity is different, and it's different because of Jesus."
I realize an argument can be made either way...but I put myself on the "No we don't" side for the purpose of evangelism. The "we all worship the same God" mantra strongly implies to the world that evangelism isn't necessary. (I know you don't believe that. :-)
I'm curious, would you also say that Deists worship the same God we do? What about Masons? Does different character traits mean we are talking about "a different god" or does it mean we believe different things about the same God?
Maybe it is just semantics...
For me, I go back to Jesus' statements in the Gospel of John.
The Muslims created a caricature of God based on the one in the Bible. But he's not the same. (I guess kind of like the legends that grow up about historical figures like Jesse James. In the public mind, they become different than they actually were.)
Jews didn't create a caricature, but they were left with one when they didn't embrace Jesus. (I suppose that would be like people who only remember Clark Pinnock before he became a liberal or Stephen Baldwin before he became a Christian.)
In a way, the Muslims say the same about us, except that I think they use the "we worship the same God" line because they came last, and it gives them legitimacy to build on what came before.
The relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is a fascinating topic to me.
15. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 1:21 pm CDT
AAAAGH!
I just thought of a better way to put it...we all 3 look back at the God who created Adam, who revealed himself to Abraham and to Moses and we all say, "The God I worship and proclaim today is that same God."
And in that case, only one of us can be right.
Because when each of us begins to describe the God we worship TODAY, He doesn't look the same as the other two.
16. Shrode
- 10/21/2010 1:29 pm CDT
Or I suppose we could respond this way:
"We may all think we are praying to the same God, but only one of us is right."
OR
"We may all three be praying to the same God, but the prayers of two of us fall on deaf ears."
17. Karl
- 10/21/2010 1:54 pm CDT
Shrode,
I don't know enough about the Masons to comment on them. As for Deists, I might argue that a devout-but-not-radical-islamicist Muslim has more in common with a devout evangelical and is closer to worshiping the same God as the evangelical, than is a Deist.
I go back to the Lewis quote I cited. Only one religion (or relationship) provides the right answer to the pressing question of "what must I do to be saved?" But just because all the others get this key thing wrong, doesn't mean that they are all equally wrong, nor that some of them might not be right about a lot of things. Nor (to my mind) that they might not even be talking about "the same God" as we are, even though they are wrong about some of his attributes and how to be restored to right relationship with him. Like someone who had heard of Jared and knew some internet bits and pieces about him, along with a bunch of other false, apocryphal stuff about him, and was out there talking about Jared spreading a dangerous mix of truth and lies. But YOU actually KNOW Jared and can tell them that they are incorrect about Jared in many respects. But when you hear them talking about Jared, the very reason that you get so upset about what they say is because it IS the same Jared that you know, about whom they are so mistaken.
As for the idea that if we give into the "same God" language we might sound like universalists or anti-war-on-terror folks, I don't want to let my desire for evangelism nor my disagreement with a particular political position, drive the language that I use when speaking about God and others if I think that language is accurate (albeit in need of qualifiers).
18. Raindream
- 10/21/2010 3:41 pm CDT
Maybe we should look up the place describing his second coming.
19. Roy
- 10/21/2010 7:29 pm CDT
Come on, folks. Those verses quoted from John suffice. But one could multiply references. Those not submitting to Christ as Savior and King do not worship the God of the Bible. Instead, they count him an enemy.
Putting this conversely: all those not having surrendered to Jesus worship the same god. No matter what they say their god is, they actually worship self. Muslim, romanist, JW, Mormon, Buddist, atheist, materialist...all worship the same god.
20. ruben
- 10/22/2010 2:47 pm CDT
I guess I was not able to explain my point correctly. For many years the moderate voices were able to dominate, countries like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have had peaceful relations with the west because they were predominantly secular. I do agree with the original post that the Koran says pretty terrible things completely opposed to Christianity, however we cannot imply that all muslims think this way, moderate and liberal voices were able to soothe the extremes before (any maybe still now). There is a danger in painting all Muslims to be like Al Quaida
22. Shrode
- 10/23/2010 4:16 pm CDT
I do agree with the original post that the Koran says pretty terrible things completely opposed to Christianity, however we cannot imply that all muslims think this way, moderate and liberal voices were able to soothe the extremes before (any maybe still now). There is a danger in painting all Muslims to be like Al Quaida
This post isn't about extremist Muslims. All Muslims believe as I've described in this post. I don't think I was quoting "terrible things", if by that if you are referring to the types of passages in the Koran that encourage violence or wife beatings. That wasn't the point of this post.
I agree that not all Muslims are like Al Qaueda. This isn't a post about violence. It's a post about theology.
I didn't write anything in here that any Muslim wouldn't read and say, "That's correct. That's what we believe." (There were only 2 things in this post - 1.All humans are born Muslim. 2. Christianity is guilty of "shirk" )
Neither of those are unique to Radical Islam. They are basic beliefs according to Muhammad. And neither of those doctrines necessarily lead to violence or radical Islam, and I hope that nobody understood me to be saying that.
23. Shrode
- 10/23/2010 4:50 pm CDT
Raindream,
I couldn't find any reference in the Koran to Christ's second coming.
I don't know what the other sources are.
When I get a chance, I'll check out www.islamicity.net which is an islamic website. (I highly recommend the "ask an imam" section. It's fascinating.)
24. Shrode
- 10/23/2010 5:02 pm CDT
From Islamicity Q&A Section:
Qur’an: Sura 19 Aya 33
Question:
I have recently converted to Islam from Christianity and I have been studying the Qur'an and I came across a passage that I hope you can help me with. Sura 19 - 33 is a quote from Jesus (PBUH): "So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)". If Muslims do not believe in the reserection then what does this mean? Sincerely, Anne
Answer:
Dear Sr. A. As-salaamu alaykum. The Peace that is bestowed upon Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) from God depict three consecutive, yet distinct and different stages of the life of Prophet Jesus (pbuh). The first time is when he was born (coming to the earthly world), the second time is when he will die (after his Second Coming, he will die and depart from this world. As you know, Muslims believe that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was never crucified but instead raised to the sky and is still alive nowadays. He will come back at the end of time to spread justice, fight oppression, and stop the Anti-Christ). The third time is when he will be resurrected (raised from death) on the Day of Judgment (like all other human beings). This stage is a transitional period towards the Afterlife.
Since he is still alive, the verse cannot be interpreted like the mainstream Christians do, because in order to have resurrection, a person must die, and until now, Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) is alive. Thank you for asking and God knows best.
25. Shrode
- 10/23/2010 5:06 pm CDT
Raindream,
Teachings about his Second Coming comes from the Hadiths, not the Qu'ran.
Question#:
3257
Question Date:
6/3/1998
Topic :
Autopsy:
Question:
Dear Imam, As-Salam o alaekum My question is that I saw a postmartum video in my biology class and I wanted to know that what is the Islamic teaching about doing the autopsy on a dead person? Do the Islamic teachings make it clear that is it legal to do autopsy? and also my other question is that who is the Antichrist, who will he be, where will he start, and who is Mehdi? Thank you very much Your friend,
Answer:
Dear Br. U. As-salaamu alaykum. An autopsy is allowed in Islam if it is done for reasons that are allowed in Islamic Law. Therefore, performing an autopsy to increase your knowledge that is needed for your medical field and that is necessary to improve the condition of patients is a valid reason. There are still certain guidelines to conduct an autopsy such as 1-not to perform it excessively or when it is not needed, 2-get the approval of the patient before his/her death or his/her close relatives' consent, etc.
As to your second question, the Antichrist is a human being who will be an unjust ruler, an oppressor, an aggressor, and who will come at the End of Time. He will come from a land in the East, probably known as Khurasan (according to the Hadith collection of Tirmizi) or from Asbahan (according to the Hadith collection of Muslim). We don't know his exact lineage but I believe he will be a Jew. As to Imam al-Mahdi, he will come during the same time prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) will come back again on earth. There are many Hadiths about him. We know that he will fill earth with justice after it has been filled with oppression and corruption. His coming is one of the great signs of the Hour. To get more information about him, please contact your local Islamic center that can share with you the collection of the Hadiths regarding his coming and the end of time. Thank you for asking and God knows best.
Reference:
IslamiCity
26. jez
- 10/26/2010 6:34 am CDT
The Gods of the Abrahamic religions are the same historically, but they report different attributes. By analogy, we might all know Dick Cheney, but since we read different newspapers etc. we know different things about him, and consequently we believe different things about him. My description of Dick Cheney might be utterly different from yours. Are we describing the same person?
I'd say yes, we would both point to the same individual and identify him as the person we described as Dick Cheney.
Do we all see the same bottle of gatorade? Or are there two gatorades, one for those who claim it to be green, and another for those who claim it to be yellow?
I'm not sure why a different approach is needed for God. Sure, you believe different things about Him, but is there any object for which there are no conflicting perceptions?
28. Shrode
- 03/01/2011 3:09 pm CST
Karl,
I saw it. Thanks for commenting!
I read the post over at McKnight's blog and was disappointed that he just threw that up there without comment as though he agreed with it. and then left his commenters to flounder. I hope he weighs in soon.
I found one of the commenters' response to be helpful. He talked about responding in 3 ways to the question "Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?"
1-literarary and historical - yes
2- theologically = no
3- Evangelistically - a qualified yes.
I thought it was interesting.
Others compared it with whether or not we are talking about the same "Jesus". A great discussion.
Leave a Comment:
Great post, Phil. Thanks for posting it. I grow weary of hearing that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
Christians worship Jesus as part of the Godhead.
Sort of off topic, but not really. This is something I've struggled with, the idea that JESUS is God, but merely "part of the Godhead." I'm not denying the ontological distinction of the Son, but I struggle with the idea that JESUS is not fully God in every conceivable way. I'm also not saying that the Son is the Father (or the other way around), but I wonder how JESUS can be both fully God and, in some sense, "part of the Godhead." I always end up going back to Colossians, "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Any ideas?