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Panel: "Efforts to unite Christians, Muslims undermine Gospel"
BP ^ | Dec 4, 2003 | David Roach

Posted on 12/04/2003 3:01:40 PM PST by yonif

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Should Christians view Muslims as monotheistic allies in the culture wars?

Not according to panelists at a symposium sponsored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement.

The panelists, depicting Allah as fundamentally different than the God of Christianity, said efforts to unite Islam and Christianity threaten to compromise the Gospel.

The symposium featured seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr.; Russell D. Moore, assistant professor of Christian theology and executive director of the Henry Institute; and Ergun Caner, associate professor of theology and history at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College, was scheduled to speak at the mid-November session but was unable to attend due to a family emergency.

More than 500 people listened as panelists responded to Kreeft's book, "Ecumenical Jihad," in which he argues that Christians and Muslims hold many beliefs in common as monotheists and must unite in the fight against secularism. Fighting between the two religions, Kreeft writes, unnecessarily detracts from positive work that could be accomplished.

Caner, who was a Muslim for 20 years before committing his life to Christ, described Kreeft's view as ignoring irreconcilable differences between Islam and Christianity.

"To say that our ... monotheistic religions worship the same God, that as sons of Abraham we can unite on a common cause of this said God against the threat of humanism, in my mind ignores the central tenets of each system and insults the adherents of each system," Caner said.

Though Muslims believe that Allah is the sovereign creator, they deny other facets of the Christian doctrine of God such as the Trinity and the deity of Christ, Caner said.

"It is not the same God," he said. "The Koran is explicit not to say Trinity.... We're not talking about the same God."

In fact, Islamic eschatology teaches that one day Jesus will return to "break all the crosses" and "kill and send to hell every Jew and Christian who did not accept Allah," Caner said.

"As much as I would love for there to be ... unity, you cannot unite with those who seek your death for the sole reason of your conversion," Caner said.

Mohler, in his comments, said Kreeft's thesis stems from a false notion that all monotheists share a common worldview.

Prior to Vatican II, a pivotal Roman Catholic council in the 1960s, it was commonly acknowledged that Christianity and Islam hold contradictory theologies, Mohler said. After Vatican II, it became popular to lump all monotheistic religions into one category.

"Vatican II went so far as officially to embrace all monotheists as sons of Abraham and included in God's economy of salvation," Mohler said. "This means Christians and Jews and Muslims."

Among the sharp differences between Christianity and Islam, as noted by Mohler: Christianity's insistence on the full deity of Christ versus Islam's denial that God could ever have a son.

"The issue ... is the doctrine of the Trinity, in particular the doctrine of Christ," Mohler said. "We must face the fundamental question of how one knows the one true and living God. The Scripture is abundantly clear that God is known through Jesus Christ the Son."

Islam, in contrast, insists that "Allah is one, and he has no son," Mohler said. "The only ground of our Christian identity is ... the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord." Efforts at waging the great battles of the age, he said, are "fundamentally limited to those who believe and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

Because God reveals moral standards through human conscience, Christians and Muslims will agree on some cultural issues, Mohler noted. But the two religions will never unite fully because Muslims reject God's authoritative revelation, the Bible.

"When we come to revelation, it's not just any book," he said. "It is the holy Scriptures. It is explicitly not the Koran, which is explicitly a different worldview." Common ground "from time to time on limited issues we understand by common grace," he said. "A common platform to address the culture war? I think not. The seductive nature of that idea makes it all the more dangerous."

Moore said Muslims also misunderstand the fatherhood of God.

"God the Father does not simply mean that God is caring," Moore said. "God the Father, in Scripture, is a specific truth claim that God is the Father of Jesus Christ. We cannot start with some generic concept of God and then move to a fuller revelation in Jesus Christ. God reveals Himself as Father, Son, Holy Spirit and as the God and Father of Jesus Christ."

Although some thinkers minimize the distinctions between Islam and Christianity, Scripture teaches that only followers of Christ will inherit eternal life, Moore said.

"The issues here are about more than foreign policy, although foreign policy is at stake," he said. "The issue is about more than the culture wars although the culture wars are at stake. The issue is billions and billions of people for whom Christ died, who right now are chanting, 'There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.'"

Moore concluded, "I fear for us in evangelical Christianity that there are so many of us who want peace with Islam, and by peace what we mean is that they would stop killing us so that we can continue to consume our stuff. That is not what peace is as defined by the New Testament. Peace is John 3:16. ... For millions and millions of Muslims, peace -- being defined as being ignored by the Gospel -- is hell. If we love Muslims as we love ourselves, we will take the Gospel to the ends of the earth."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: christians; gospel; muslims
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1 posted on 12/04/2003 3:01:41 PM PST by yonif
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To: yonif
Interesting
2 posted on 12/04/2003 3:07:15 PM PST by fiscally_right
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To: yonif
Thank God that the Southern Baptists will take a stand.

blessings. greg
3 posted on 12/04/2003 3:09:16 PM PST by bobo1
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To: yonif
Religions are largely a reflection of their adherents...which may go some way toward explaining why Islam seems co-opted and made-up.
4 posted on 12/04/2003 3:13:16 PM PST by onedoug
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To: yonif
The Southern Baptists are one of the few brave Christians to call a spade a spade. They are right in what they are saying here. It is politically inocrrect but, so be it! No Koran kissing going on here to go along to get along.
5 posted on 12/04/2003 3:14:24 PM PST by nmh
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To: yonif
Glad to be affiliated with Southern Baptists bump.
6 posted on 12/04/2003 3:18:14 PM PST by k2blader (Haruspex, beware.)
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To: yonif
Does anyone else think this ecumenical nonsense has gone just a trifle too far?
7 posted on 12/04/2003 3:23:08 PM PST by IronJack
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To: yonif
It is not the same God," he said. "The Koran is explicit not to say Trinity.... We're not talking about the same God."

In fact, Islamic eschatology teaches that one day Jesus will return to "break all the crosses" and "kill and send to hell every Jew and Christian who did not accept Allah," Caner said.

"As much as I would love for there to be ... unity, you cannot unite with those who seek your death for the sole reason of your conversion," Caner said.



George W. Bush... are you listening to these truths???
.

8 posted on 12/04/2003 3:29:37 PM PST by GeekDejure ( LOL = Liberals Obey Lucifer !!!)
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To: yonif
"Christians view Muslims as monotheistic allies in the culture wars?

Errrrmmm... wonder how a Muslim would get around that Darul Harb vs Darul Islam thing, and the whole idea of a caliphate for the ummah. And where does this leave the "sons of apes and pigs?"

9 posted on 12/04/2003 3:29:53 PM PST by USF
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To: yonif
INTREP - RELIGION OF PEACE COMPROMISERS ALERT!

SPOTREP - SO BAPTISTS take stand where many others should also.

10 posted on 12/04/2003 3:36:43 PM PST by LiteKeeper
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To: yonif
"For millions and millions of Muslims, peace -- being defined as being ignored by the Gospel

Islam and Peace, and the differences between Islam and Christianity

11 posted on 12/04/2003 3:39:52 PM PST by USF
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To: yonif
totalwasteoftimeandresourcesbump
12 posted on 12/04/2003 3:40:17 PM PST by tracer
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To: nmh
I grew up as a S. Baptist, and while now there are many aspects of that denomination's theology I find flawed, I can still count on them to take a solid moral stand on almost every issue.
13 posted on 12/04/2003 3:40:47 PM PST by LS
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To: yonif
Kreeft is generally pretty solid. DOn't know how he went so far afield on this one.
14 posted on 12/04/2003 4:22:10 PM PST by Keyes2000mt (Pray for Rush)
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To: yonif
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

James 2:19

15 posted on 12/04/2003 4:42:07 PM PST by Russian Sage
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To: yonif
When the opening sentence of this article mentioned a culture war, I read with some anticipation. Instead, the article should have been titled "A Baptist is not a Muslim and Vice Versa."

The term culture war caught my attention because I recently read the first three chapters of a book by Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate." The opening chapters are a survey of philosophical thought from Hobbes, Locke and DeCarte to the current intellectuals as it pertains to human nature and the nature vs. nurture controversy. The survey ends with a definition of culture. And if this definition of culture doesn't get you ready to fight a war, you may already be dead. Culture is considered by some to be a supra entity - like a man made glory cloud that resides just above the individual. Man is thought to respond by instinct to the supra culture. Thus man is reduced to an animal in concordance with the theory of evolution. Where an animal responds to stimuli like food, man responds with the same base set of instincts to a culture. Pinker is a chaired professor of psychology at MIT - he is apparently anti christian - in other words a run of the mill intellectual.

It is important for us to realize just how far the intellectual mind has descended into a night that is utterly putrid and dark. When our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II warns us of the culture of death it is more than a call to engage in tactical politics such as prolife initiatives or marriage protection amendments. It is ultimately, as my Baptist friends point out, a call to conversion.

Along the path of salvation history, the muslim world view may ally itself with the church for tactical reasons. The muslim view is flawed (with its house of war) but not as depraved as the intellectual onslaught that is waging the culture of death against the little ones. However, all Christians know that when Jesus returns it is Islam that will be thrown into the dustbin of history - along with some intellectual theories.

An objective observer can see that the muslim world is bloody and has been ailing for 500 years. Therefore, any alliance between the Bride of Christ and Islam must be underscored with Christian self sufficiency. We can not expect to be propped up by a house that is built on such a foundation.
16 posted on 12/04/2003 5:25:56 PM PST by reed_inthe_wind
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To: yonif
Although my hero GWB and Administration may be loath to admit it, for political reasons, the war on terror is most certainly founded in the war of ideas which founded the West, and left the Middle East in the Dark Ages.

Defend Freedom!  AMERICA AT WAR
"And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth,
With carrion men groaning for buriel."

Shakespeare from Julius Caesar.

American Flag

17 posted on 12/04/2003 6:22:09 PM PST by Salem (FREE REPUBLIC - Fighting to win within the Arena of the War of Ideas! So get in the fight!)
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To: yonif
What's the problem? We all worship the same God: Jesus Christ.
18 posted on 12/04/2003 6:30:36 PM PST by cookcounty
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To: yonif
Panel: "Efforts to unite Christians, Muslims undermine Gospel"

Never. True Christians know their gospel and NOTHING will undermine it or their support for Israel. They can preach their PC mantra all they want, but we're not fooled.
19 posted on 12/04/2003 7:46:20 PM PST by ETERNAL WARMING
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To: ETERNAL WARMING

20 posted on 12/04/2003 8:28:59 PM PST by ppaul
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