Posted on 05/18/2009 9:58:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The world we now know is marked by religious pluralism and the clash of worldviews. The modern world brings individuals and groups of different belief systems into both proximity and potential conflict. How should Christians respond when asked about this? Should Christians "respect" other religions?
Headlines throughout the world announced this week that Pope Benedict XVI, while visiting Jordan, spoke of his "respect" for Islam. This came on the heels of the Pope's notorious 2006 speech at Germany's Regensburg University. In that speech Benedict quoted Emperor Manuel II, one of the Byzantine monarchs, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The outrage throughout the Muslim world was immediate and overwhelming. The Pope issued clarifications and explanations, but Muslim outrage continued. This week, with the Pope scheduled to make his first papal visit to an Islamic country, the sensitivities were high.
The Vatican's official transcript of the Pope's comments at the Amman airport records him as saying:
"My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam."
There are so many different angles to this situation. First, we have the spectacle of a Pope being received as a head of state. This is wrong on so many counts. Second, we have the Pope speaking in diplomatic jargon, rather than in plain and direct speech. Third, we have the Pope speaking of "respect" without any clear understanding of what this really means. Does the Pope believe that Muslims can be saved through the teachings of Islam?
Actually, he probably does - at least within the context of a salvific inclusivism. The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that Muslims are "included in the plan of salvation" by virtue of their claim to "hold the faith of Abraham."
In the words of Lumen Gentium, one of the major documents adopted at Vatican II:
"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind."
The same language is basic to the current official catechism of the church as well. Within the context of the document, this language clearly implies that Muslims are within the scope of God's salvation. While the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Islam is both erroneous and incomplete, it also holds that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ's salvation through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.
Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of "respecting" Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot. Within the context of official Catholic teaching, the Pope can create a fusion of diplomacy and doctrine.
While evangelical Christians face a different context to this question, the urgency is the same. We are not playing a diplomatic role as head of state, but we are called to be ambassadors for Christ and his Gospel.
In this light, any belief system that pulls persons away from the Gospel of Christ, denies and subverts Christian truth, and blinds sinners from seeing Christ as the only hope of salvation is, by biblical definition, a way that leads to destruction. Islam, like every other rival to the Christian gospel, takes persons captive and is devoid of genuine hope for salvation.
Thus, evangelical Christians may respect the sincerity with which Muslims hold their beliefs, but we cannot respect the beliefs themselves. We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God's Son, and takes millions of souls captive.
This does not make for good diplomacy, but we are called to witness, not public relations. We must aim to be gracious and winsome in our witness to Christ, but the bottom line is that the gospel will necessarily come into open conflict with its rivals.
The papal visit to Jordan points directly to the problem of the papacy itself and to the confusion of Roman Catholic theology on this very point. To understand Islam is to know that we cannot identify Muslims as those who "along with us adore the one and merciful God." To deny the Trinity is to worship another God.
Respect is a problematic category. In the end, Christians must show respect for Muslims by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the spirit of love and truth. We are called to love and respect Muslims, not Islam.
==========================================================================================================
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com.
You need to get off the crank and read the Koran and haddith. It is the “non-radical” muslim who is not following their religion.
Sura (2:191-193) - "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution of Muslims is worse than slaughter of non-believers...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
Sura (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"
Sura (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"
Bukhari (52:177) - Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared," Kill any Jew who falls under your power."
Ibn Ishaq: 327 - “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”
الاسلام هو شر لا مثيل لها ، ويجب القضاء عليه
I have different beliefs than you.
ALL truth is God's truth.
April 11, 2009 Anti-Bob Update #7: That Old Devil Moonbat
[..................snip...................]
"..I call any philosophy "of the left" if it denies the transcendent truth under- and overwritten by the logos of the One, because once the One is denied, all paths lead to leftism, whether it is materialistic scientism or the kind of bonehead atheism promulgated by phobosophical flaw firm of Harris, Dawkins & Hitchens. Just as all paths of truth lead to God, the denial of Truth is the "final common pathway" to leftist hell on earth.
"This is also why all philosophies and institutions that are not explicitly conservative (by which I mean embodying the principles of classical liberalism rooted in Judeo-Christian metaphysics) sooner or later descend into leftism. Moreover, this is why it is no mystery that the Republican Party should fall into a form of "leftism lite," because very few Republicans are explicitly conservative -- which is to say, they may be "conservative" as adjective but not "Conservative" as noun. Thus, when given power, they govern like slightly less intoxicated leftists.
"Mankind is sick. This we all know. We also know that there is a "treatment," but no absolute cure.
"America's founders, who wanted to "relaunch" mankind in a new setting; not just a geographical setting, but an interior one of spontaneously ordered liberty oriented toward a spiritual telos. And they obviously achieved a smashing success, because America produced the finest and most decent and prosperous country the world has ever known. In fact, it is hard to even imagine what a miserable hellhole the world would be without America's beneficence. (Here is a simple test: what I just said is either immediately self-evident to you, or your soul is possessed by a demon.)
"I'm not saying it's your fault, dear moonbat -- to put it in your terms, you may well be a victim, but not in the way that word is usually employed by the left. Rather, leftists are the victims of their own demons, and like all demons, they seek to convert others by "placing the bite" on them. Thus, for example, they have successfully plunged their teeth into the majority of blacks, 90% of whom vote against their best interests by identifying with the Democrat plantation. Secular Jews too have by and large abandoned God for the demons of the left, for how else can you account for their support of the most anti-Semitic institutions and forces in the world?
"And adolescents with no spiritual foundation -- which is to say, no anchor in objective truth -- naturally veer leftward, since they, more than any other people, are under the influence of the earth, what with their abundance of hormones raging through a mind that has been temporarily dismantled on the developmental road between childhood and adulthood.
"But to inculcate adolescents with leftism at this sensitive age -- to expose them to registered text offenders, which we routinely do by giving them an insanely expensive brainwashing in leftist loondromats -- is a grave, even unforgiveable, offense, for it sanctions a lifetime developmental arrest at a partial stage of what should be a "functional dis-integration," not a permanent one. For it is written:
If anyone of you moonbats causes one of these little ones to reject Truth for the intellectual crack of leftism -- look at me, Chomsky, I'm talking to you -- if any of you little tenuremites eating away at the spiritual foundation of the West do this, it would be better for you to have a large millstone hung around your pencil neck and drowned in the depths of your own bullshit. ...."
<>
If Man Can Explain Darwinism, then Darwinism Cannot Explain Man - Friday, May 15, 2009
[.............]
"....Read any book of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology, and you will see how they are able to reduce anything and everything, no matter how noble or lofty, to selfish genes.
"Again, for the benefit of the retarded, I have no problem with natural selection, so long as it is in service to Truth. If it claims to be the total truth, then we're gonna have trouble. For if you cannot see that truth transcends the genes, then there's no hope for you at this time.
"Let's go back to language. DNA is a language, just like speech. Let's suppose that, like any other speech, it has a meaning. Just as words do not refer to themselves, but become "transparent" in pointing to their meaning, I believe the human genome is transparent to its meaning. And what is it trying to say? Does it really just point to its own survival? Is the biosphere really just a tenured deconstructionist who believes that genetic language is a closed and self-referential system, with no reality beyond itself?
"Here is what I believe. Take it or leave it. What Life is "trying to say" is Man. And what Man is "trying to say" is God. .." "[...] Again we return to the critical relationship between truth and freedom, the latter being a necessary condition of the former. Thus, if the Darwinian wants to explain how man may know truth, he must first explain how it is that man is free. ..." [..............]
<>
"The Being Without Whom You Are Not Real"
[.........]
"...Put it this way: either you have a reason for being here, or you do not have a reason for being here. If you do have a reason, then it cannot be located in you. In fact, even the materialist must allow this realization through the back door. For example, for the metaphysical Darwinist, your reason for being is not within yourself, but in your offspring. Your reason is to perpetuate your genes; according to Richard Dawkins, your reason is your genes.
But what is the reason for genes, especially since they do not exist in the absence of a human subject who can define them? Simple: ... the reason for genes is evolution, and the reason for evolution is God, who is both its origin and end, its alpha and omega. In short, the purpose of evolution is cosmotheosis, which is a doctrine that was held by many in the early church. That is, the shocking hominization of God is at the same time the otherwise impossible divinization of man, which is in turn the sanctification and salvation of the very cosmos.
Which, if you think about it, is the opposite of the way things stood prior to the emergence of man. ..." bttt
No! People, yes; other religions, no!
Some of them are pretty horrific.
Judges 19:29 And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.
1 Samuel 15.2-3 ...Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
These are just two of hundreds of examples. You don't want to start down that road.
Oh, dear no. Jesus is the ONLY way. The Bible clearly says that and we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If a Muslim does not accept Christ as Savior, he or she is lost for eternity. I will never respect the teachings of Islam. I know individual moslems whom I respect. One was my pulmonary doctor. He was wonderful. He, I respected. Islam I do not.
You will find salvation in no one but Jesus Christ. God made the way and it was through His Son. Your very life depends on your knowing that. The others didn’t shed their innocent blood for your salvation. They’re dead. They could care less about you. Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father, praying for you, wooing you do Him. The others are incapable of it. Find the truth before it’s too late for you, please.
Yes, and salvation comes only through His Son, Jesus Christ.
As a government requirement?
NO!
As an individual choice, why not?
People do stupid things all the time!
It's amazing how many people are viewed that way; until they are caught.
Causing harm can be overt or covert.
I admire your loyatly to "family," but question your reasoning abilities.
And yet of all of them, Christianity has the true Saviour who bled and died on a cross of shame for a world who rejects Him. Without Jesus there IS no eternal life.
Your beliefs will send you to a Christless eternity where there will be wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Is that what you really want Warrior? I don’t want that for you or anyone else.
Understandable, Joe. Our love and sympathies are with you and your family. It’s a great loss.
Mary,
I struggle every day with the forgiveness portion of the bible.
Afraid I’m in a battle with Islam til the end.
Actually, I do – to clearly show what Mohamed commands his followers to do on a going forward basis. The stories of the OT are there for a reason, but I am a Christian and I prefer to focus on what Jesus commands.
The difference between Islam and Christianity is clear. Christ teaches forgiveness. Mohamed teaches killing. Killing is the nature of their religion.
The example of Mohamed on forgivness Sahih Muslim, Book 17: 4206
There came to him (the Holy Prophet) a woman from Ghamid and said: Allah's Messenger, I have committed adultery, so purify me. He (the Holy Prophet) turned her away. On the following day she said: Allah's Messenger, Why do you turn me away? Perhaps, you turn me away as you turned away Ma'iz. By Allah, I have become pregnant. He said: Well, if you insist upon it, then go away until you give birth to (the child). When she was delivered she came with the child (wrapped) in a rag and said: Here is the child whom I have given birth to. He said: Go away and suckle him until you wean him. When she had weaned him, she came to him (the Holy Prophet) with the child who was holding a piece of bread in his hand. She said: Allah's Apostle, here is he as I have weaned him and he eats food. He (the Holy Prophet) entrusted the child to one of the Muslims and then pronounced punishment. And she was put in a ditch up to her chest and he commanded people and they stoned her. Khalid b Walid came forward with a stone which he flung at her head and there spurted blood on the face of Khalid and so he abused her. Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) heard his (Khalid's) curse that he had huried upon her. Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Khalid, be gentle. By Him in Whose Hand is my life, she has made such a repentance that even if a wrongful tax-collector were to repent, he would have been forgiven. Then giving command regarding her, he prayed over her and she was buried.
The example of Jesus on forgivness (John 8:1-11)
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
I have different beliefs than you.
So what exactly are you saying? That all Muslims are terrorists who want to kill us?
Quite right, my point is, viewed rightly, all of the pre-Christian religions that escaped from base paganism, and even some pagan cults, contain elements that point to Christ.
Christ is indeed the fulfillment of all of the prophecies of the Old Covenant, but He is also the fulfillment of all that was good and true in those religions that men followed without the benefit of God’s self-revelation to the Jews before His coming.
You and the senile version of Billy Graham are in agreement.
Show me the scriptures that support that idea. I will show you a few that absolutely deny that contention.
Your challenge is analogous to using a Chevrolet owners manual to prove that Chevy makes better vehicles than does Ford.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.