Wheaton College Administrators Remove Names From Christian-Muslim Statement

Christianity Today ^ | February 8, 2008 | Ted Olsen

[Alex Murphy]

The Wheaton College student newspaper, The Record, reports today that the influential evangelical college’s president, provost, and chaplain have removed their names from a letter to Muslim leaders that has attracted criticism in some quarters.

“Loving God and Neighbor Together” was published in the November 18, 2007, New York Times as a response to an October statement from 138 Muslim scholars and clerics calling for interfaith cooperation. Wheaton College president Duane Litfin and provost Stanton Jones were among the signatories, along with pastors Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson, Youth With a Mission chairman Lynn Green, Frontiers mission founder Greg Livingstone, theologians Miroslav Volf and John Stott, and Christianity Today Media Group editor-in-chief David Neff.

“I signed the statement because I am committed to the business of peace-making and neighbor-love,” Litfin wrote in The Record. “I did not savor the document’s unnuanced apology section, but swallowed that in order to be a part of reaching out a hand to these Muslim leaders who had courageously taken the initiative. Though the statement was not written in the way I would have written it, it seemed to me that I could sign it without compromising any of my Christian convictions.”

But in the last month, the statement has been sharply criticized by several other evangelical leaders, including Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler, pastor John Piper, and Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink newsletter.

(A Christianity Today news report on the statement and its critics appears in the March issue of the magazine; we’ll post it online shortly.)

Such critiques, Litfin said, prompted him to rethink his signature....

[weegee]

Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, “First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors.

The first was a response to Islamic imperialism and conquest, the second is a lie when it is characterized as a "Christian" war on terror and when it is criticized as "excessive".

[weegee]

“Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world.”

Six billion people in the world. 3 billion muslims and Christians? I don't think so.

And considering how there is not freedom of religion in the muslim nations, those numbers are inflated by those who MUST worship the "one" faith.

[LiteKeeper]

read full story later

[Cvengr]

I don’t recommend clicking the link to the ‘A Common Word’ embedded above in the article as a reference to what the 138 Muslim clerics wrote. Once activated, the website www.acommonword.com is entered and about 5 seconds later a popup window comes up demanding the reader’s information and endorsement of the Muslim message. It is not known what other information is transmitted if endorsed or escaped, but it is not considered a trustworthy transaction.

[Cvengr]

Alex,..were you aware of the embedded link in the phrase “October statement”? Anybody trace it’s activity separately?

[Alex Murphy]

Alex,..were you aware of the embedded link in the phrase “October statement”?

No, I wasn't - and thanks for catching that for me. RM, can you assist in removing the URL link from the posted article? It's the URL attached to the words "An October statement" in the second paragraph.

[oblomov]

Registration info for acommonword.com:

Registrant:
Simon Hart
Kharabsheh
Amman, Amman 11192
Jordan

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ACOMMONWORD.COM
Created on: 08-Sep-07
Expires on: 08-Sep-08
Last Updated on: 08-Sep-07

Administrative Contact:
Hart, Simon shart@sinandesign.com
Kharabsheh
Amman, Amman 11192
Jordan
962776718241 Fax —

Technical Contact:
Hart, Simon shart@sinandesign.com
Kharabsheh
Amman, Amman 11192
Jordan
962776718241 Fax —

Domain servers in listed order:
NS25.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS26.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

[Cvengr]

Thanks, ..ditto to oblomov

[Between the Lines]

For any one wishing to read “A Common Word Between Us and You,” without having to go through this website, here is a link to a pdf file:

http://www.liturgy.co.nz/worship/matters_assets/a%20common%20word%20between%20us%20and%20you.pdf

[weegee]

Thanks for pointing that out. I DID click through to “Loving God and Neighbor Together” and didn’t recall a popup.

[PAR35]

along with pastors Rick Warren and Bill Hybels,

Someone needs to ping the FR Rick Warren fan club.

[dangus]

Actually, if you count people as Christians by simply them choosing to consider themselves Christians, then there are about two billion Christians: 1.1 billion Catholics, 300 million Orthodox, 70 million Anglicans, 400 million Protestants (or Nondenominationalists, and including Baptists, etc.), about 100 million quasi-Christians (Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Christian New Religionists, etc.) and 100 million crypto-Christians.

There are about 100 million Muslims, including those of Muslim homelands who may not necessarily embrace Muslims.

[dangus]

I meant a billion muslims, not 100 million