Posted on 12/18/2001 4:10:48 PM PST by Pokey78
SOME years ago, an agnostic friend of mine married a Jewish woman who practised her faith seriously. He took instruction in Judaism and seemed quite likely to convert - but eventually did not. His chief reason was that he remained agnostic. But there was another obstacle that surprised even himself: "I found that I just did not want to give up Jesus."
In European culture, there is no getting away from Jesus even if you are agnostic. True, Nietzsche tried to reject him with detestation and contempt, calling him an "idiot", a purveyor of a sick, decadent view of the world. Nietzsche thought that the only figure in the New Testament who commands respect is Pontius Pilate. Yet the very ferocity of Nietzsche's onslaught on Jesus showed how strong in his heart was the image he wanted to destroy.
Now, what if my friend had married a Muslim? The interesting thing is that he could have kept Jesus - not the Jesus who was the Son of God, admittedly, and who was crucified, but certainly the Jesus who was Messiah and miracle worker, who conversed regularly with God, who was born of a virgin and who ascended into heaven.
Jesus is referred to quite often in the Koran, six times under the title "Messiah". Yet I had long supposed that the importance of Jesus as prophet in Muslim tradition was not much more than a matter of lip-service, something to which Muslims gave (to use Cardinal Newman's distinction) "notional" rather than "real" assent.
This impression was strengthened when I went to Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq and visited the so-called house of Abraham. It is only a few piles of sun-baked mud bricks, but you would have expected hundreds of Muslim Arabs to be visiting the birth-place of their Patriarch. I saw none - whereas the shrines of Muslim martyrs in Najaf and Kerbala were thronged. I assumed, therefore, that Jesus must be a marginal figure in the Muslim world.
How wrong this assumption was I have learnt by reading a fascinating and instructive book, The Muslim Jesus, by the Cambridge academic Tarif Khalidi. Professor Khalidi has brought together, from a vast range of sources, most of the stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that are to be found in Muslim piety from the earliest times.
The Muslim Jesus is an ascetic, a man of voluntary poverty, humility and long-suffering. He literally turns the other cheek, allowing his face to be slapped twice in order to protect two of his disciples. He teaches the return of good for evil: "Jesus used to say, 'Charity does not mean doing good to him who does good to you . . . Charity means that you should do good to him who does you harm.' " He loves the poor and embraces poverty: "The day Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind nothing but a woollen garment, a slingshot and two sandals." He preaches against attachment to worldly things: "Jesus said, `He who seeks worldly things is like the man who drinks sea water: the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes, until it kills him.' "
Many of the sayings of the Muslim Jesus are clearly derived from Biblical sources - "Place your treasures in heaven, for the heart of man is where his treasure is"; "Look at the birds coming and going! They neither reap nor plough, and God provides for them." Sometimes there is a sort of gloss on words of Jesus from the Gospel: "Oh disciples, do not cast pearls before swine, for the swine can do nothing with them . . . wisdom is more precious than pearls and whoever rejects wisdom is worse than a swine."
He is certainly a wonder-worker. He often raises the dead, and gives his disciples power to do the same. More than once he comes across a skull and restores it to life, on one occasion granting salvation to a person who had been damned. The skulls, like everyone else in these stories, address Jesus as "Spirit of God". Once he is even addressed as "Word of God".
I once had a conversation with members of Hizbollah in Beirut. One of them said this: "The greatness of Islam is that we combine Judaism and Christianity. Jesus freed enslaved hearts, he was able to release human feeling, to reveal a kingdom of peace. Jesus's realm was the realm of soul. Jesus is soul; Moses is mind, the mind of the legislator. In Islam, we interweave both."
This is certainly the Jesus of these stories - the Jesus of the mystical Sufi tradition. The great Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali actually called Jesus "Prophet of the heart".
The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false. He is, as it were, Jesus as he might have been without St Paul or St Augustine or the Council of Nicaea. He is not the cold figure of English Unitarianism, and he is less grand than the exalted human of the Arians. As you read these stories, what comes across most powerfully is that the Muslim Jesus is intensely loved. There is an element of St Francis of Assisi.
It is good to be reminded, especially now, of the intimate connections there have been between Islam and Christianity, and how close in spirit Muslim and Christian piety can come to each other. Curiously enough, the Muslim Jesus, shorn of all claims of divinity, could be more easily held on to by my agnostic friend than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
One other thing: since Muslims deny the Crucifixion, their emphasis has been on the wonders surrounding the birth of "Jesus Son of Mary", born as his mother sat under a palm tree, and miraculously speaking from within the womb. There really is no reason why schools that put on Nativity plays, or anyone who wants to insist on the Christian meaning of Christmas, should fear that they may offend Muslim sensibilities, for Jesus really is shared by both faiths.
Pretty darn good.
In Christ,
freebilly
What horsehockey. Christianity is absolutist if nothing else -- and it is not ABOUT to "share" some sanitized version of Jesus with any demon-driven cult -- be it Mormonism or be it Islam. Paul writes in I Corinthians, Chapter 15:
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Pssssssssssst! If Christ was never crucified, he certainly is not risen.
True, but the adversary had another, perhaps more subtle approach which was started even while the battle with the Arians was raging in the old Western Empire. This was the Monophysite heresey, which denied that Jesus was human, thus denying any meaning in his sacrifice on the cross, and also denying that Adam's sin had been redeemed, since a non-human God could not pay mankinds debt.
This heresy dominated much of the Eastern Empire at the time of Justinian in the 6th century (the story was that the Empress Theodora was Monophysite). It was also suppressed, but resentment against this suppression weakened the provinces in which it had the most influence (Syria-Palestine and Egypt), so that the resistance to Islam was less than it might have been. The Coptic churches in Egypt and Ethiopia are Monophysite to this very day, I understand.
The Church holds, and has always held that those who have no access to the truth about Jesus Christ may still be saved by His perfect sacrifice. We are all judged by what we have been given, and those who have not been given the full truth of Jesus will be judged with His mercy in view of their ignorance.
Most Muslims are ignorant of Christianity. Throughout the Muslim world bibles are banned. Preaching Christianity is punishable by death. Anyone who would become a Christian is under sentence of death. Any knowledge of the true mission of Christ is kept from them.
Just this evening I met a Syrian Christian at Bible study. He told me firsthand about the troubles of being a Christian in a Muslim country. The Muslims murdered his Grandparents' family. He underwent a subtle persecution most of his life- a second class citizen in his own country.
He also told me how many Islamics totally ignorant of Christianity and that he knows as much of Islam as they do. He knows many former Muslims from his own country who became Christian once they actually had the opportunity to find out about Christ. And that many in those countries are afraid of what would happen to them if they even tried to learn about Christianity. Those who have converted when the came to the West often may not go home ever again or they might be murdered for their new faith.
While many will never forgive the average Muslim their ignorance of Christ, the Church recognizes that Christ came for all mankind, not just those who are lucky enough to hear His message. But of course, those who would not extend that mercy to Muslims are also not charitable enough to look upon me and people like the Syrian, who live under persecution for their faith, as Christians because we believe that the fullest expression of Christianity is in union with Rome.
"All four imams (the founders of the four schools of Islamic law) -- may Allah have mercy upon them -- agree that the apostate whose fall from Islam is beyond doubt -- may Allah forbid it -- must be killed, and his blood must be spilled without reservation. The hypocrite and heretic (zindiq) who poses as a Muslim but has secretly remained an unbeliever must also be killed."
Contrast that with:
Pius IX, in a letter to the bishops of Italy (10 Aug., 1863), restates this Catholic doctrine: "It is known to Us and to You that they who are in invincible ignorance concerning our religion but observe the natural law . . . and are ready to obey God and lead an honest and righteous life, can, with the help of Divine light and grace, attain to eternal life . . . for God . . . will not allow any one to be eternally punished who is not wilfully guilty" (Denzinger, "Enchir.", n. 1529). X.
However, many centuries later, this does not "excuse" the re-emergence of such behavior. I know the current persecution didn't begin overnight. "Re-Emergence" may not be the best choice of words. It has been increasing as the Christians increase in number and expand into Muslim-dominated terrtories.
But as most of us have gotten over the Civil War of the US in that northerners and southerners can co-mingle somewhat peacefully 150 years later, the civil war between the Arian Christians and the Muslims should have died out a very long time ago.
I do realize that battles fought on religious premises do not just suddenly die out, however. I guess it's just wishful thinking that the "My God is better than your God" syndrome would just go away.
Thank-you for your thoughtful and informative response.
Thank-you for supporting my initial reaction. That's what brought me to the thread in the first place. I was beginning to think it was an irritable, knee-jerk response on my part.
However, this is the next day and after a decent night's sleep, I still feel the same way.
Actually for more than 50 years Christians have decreased in number relative to Moslems, and have been withdrawing from Muslim-dominated territories during that period. And the conflict (in the terms I suggest) is between the main-stream Christians, and the Arian-descended Moslems not between the Arian Christians and the Muslims.
The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false.
To deny that he was wholy devine and wholy human is to deny him as God's son. Muslims are not forgiving and they "do not let you worship anyone but their god, don't buy into this blantant lie!
Don't believe me? Look at the Christians in Muslim countries today...they are killed for their faith in Jesus and their refusal to convert to Islam.
Therefore, he is an antichrist.
The realJesus will judge all mankind. Then we will see just how much these pagans love Him.
The Muslim "Jesus" is a figment of Muslim imagination and a blasphemy. Islam is not in agreement on Christianity and Koran DOES NOT CONTAIN the New and Old Testament.
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