Posted on 03/24/2006 10:52:14 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
The clash of civilizations is a term most of us are familiar with. But it’s more than just a catchphrase or a book title. It’s a grim reality that we live with every day, as we deal with acts of religiously inspired terrorism.
In such a difficult and often frightening situation, how should we live? How do we relate to the people of different backgrounds and beliefs that we see every day? And going beyond that, how do we talk to them to about Christ? In these tense times, we’re in need of a thorough and practical answer.
Ida Glaser helps us to meet that need in her new book, The Bible and Other Faiths: Christian Responsibility in a World of Religions. Glaser is uniquely qualified for the task. She is the daughter of a Christian mother and a Jewish father who later converted to Christianity. She has spent her entire career working with international students and studying interfaith relations.
In her book, as her subtitle suggests, she focuses on the responsibilities that Christians have in dealing with their neighbors of other faiths. Glaser acknowledges the difficulties and problems in dealing with people of other beliefs. But she calls us to account for our own behavior.
Tragically, Glaser has seen situations where Christians have killed in the name of religion—in Nigeria, for instance, when Christian youths killed Muslims who tried to pass their roadblocks. More commonly, Glaser has known Christians whose skewed theology has led them to look down on people of other faiths and to think that some people groups are inherently better than others.
Glaser takes us where we need to go—back to the Bible—to emphasize that God’s care and provision has always been for all people, as demonstrated by Christ’s death on the cross. Looking at current events in the Middle East, for example, Glaser says, “Whatever their interpretation of the current state of Israel, Christians have no basis either to treat the Jews as people whom God hates or to treat Israel’s enemies as people whom God hates. Any theology which leads either to hatred of Jews or to hatred of Muslims must be wrong in itself or be wrongly applied.”
This truth has radical implications about how you and I as Christians should live our lives and deeply convicts many of us. Both Chuck and I take seriously the words of God in Genesis 12:2, where He blesses Israel and says, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Therefore, we have an especially strong attachment to Israel and the Jewish cause. Chuck has also spoken many times of our support for Israel, because it is a beacon for democracy in that troubled region. But that’s no excuse for hating Arabs and Muslims. The fact is that we have a Savior who came for all people.
This is the very point our founding fathers understood when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Glaser’s book, The Bible and Other Faiths, can be a helpful guide for Christians to look beyond the barriers that separate us from our neighbors. Its central message is one that we need to take to heart: We can only share the Gospel of Christ and the hope of Christ with other people, however great our differences, when they know that we care about them and respect them as human beings made in the image of God.
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Any religion which denies that Jesus and Jesus alone is the one true risen Christ is a false teaching and must be proclaimed as such by the faithful.
We (all believers in Christ) were commanded by Jesus to spread the good news of salvation through Him, and to instruct those seekers who are deceived by false teachings of the error, and the consequence, of their having been deceived.
Our Constitution states that here in America no law can be passed which prohibits Christians from practicing our faith, including this single most important obligation.
That we do it with the true heart of a servant and with love in our hearts for our deceived bretheren is also one of Jesus' commands. May God bless America, and give us all His tongue with which to spread His word.
The time is short, and Satan knows this. The Age of Grace will end with the Rapture. Don't miss the boat.
;-/
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