Posted on 09/02/2011 9:07:47 AM PDT by marshmallow
Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.
But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.
“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.
“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”
Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.
But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.
“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”
It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”
(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...
Do you reject Mormonism and believe they are heretics ?
It means exactly what it says. It is you guys who are taking it out of context. Do you wish me to show you once again?
First the Catholics.
Then other Christians.
Then the Jews.
Then, first amongst all that are left, the Muslims.
Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear...
Talk about unmitigated hubris. To what extreme do you have to take mind reading to feel qualified to lecture Catholics on the Catechism and that what we really believe is something other than what we say we believe?
Now, now. Some people take failure seriously. When you fail, you must go all the way. Do not leave any stone unturned or rake untrod upon in your quest for absolute failure.
It would not be seemly otherwise.
I am jumping in late, but your statement: Here’s an even bigger hint: the Jewish OT God is not a Trinity either. Strikes me as in need of fleshing out. Beyond the Christian claim to the OT, did not our Lord point out Psalm 110 in the Gospels?
Yes, Markbsnr, we DO have a choice and that choice is not, as you expressed, between what Almighty God has revealed through his Son and the Apostles or our own imagined god. Any person who claims the Christian faith MUST hold to what the Holy Bible says because it is the revelation from God. Through the Holy Spirit, holy men of God spoke as he moved them and what God has preserved for us is our authority. We cannot rely on the traditions of fallible men but only upon what has been taught that the authority of Scripture proves.
I don't blame you for wanting to deflect the point about the glaring error in your Catechism regarding the Muslim religion and Christianity worshipping the same god. According to the Catechism, 'together with us (Catholics) they (Muslims) adore the one, merciful God.' Pope John Paul II repeats this statement even more clearly. Addressing Muslim youths, the Pope said::
We believe in the same God, the one and only God, the living God, the God who creates worlds and brings creatures to their perfection' (What Dialogue Means for Catholics and Muslims, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org/seia/brunett.htm).
Dr Robert Reymond comments on the odd stand of Roman Catholicism on Islam:
I should note in passing that Islam’s doctrinal hostility to Biblical Christianity apparently does not bother the Roman Catholic Church, for Rome declared in its 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 841) that Muslims are included within God’s plan of salvation because they 'acknowledge the Creator,...profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with [Christians]...adore the one merciful God [Muslims and Christians hardly 'adore' the same 'one merciful God'].' Never mind that Islam’s Allah is not the triune God of the Old and New Testaments; never mind that Muslims think our Trinity is made up of God, a human Jesus, and Mary his mother, the last two of whom we blasphemously worship along with God; never mind that they deny that Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God and that he died on a cross a sacrificial death for his people’s sin and rose again because of their justification; never mind that Muslims believe that Christians are idolaters because we worship Christ who they contend was simply a human Messiah and a human prophet; never mind that they see no need for Christ’s substitutionary atonement or for that matter any substitutionary atonement at all. According to Rome’s teaching, in spite of their unbelief, Muslims are still salvifically related to the People of God and may go to Heaven as Muslims, all of which shows how serious is Roman Catholicism’s departure from Christianity (Reymond, R. What’s Wrong with Islam?).
From: http://www.justforcatholics.org/islam.htm
The Christian response to Muslims should be twofold. Firstly, we must separate ourselves from Islam and clearly state that it is a false religion. 'Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds' (2 John 9-11). Christians do not have any ecumenical relationship with Muslims. We cannot participate in their idolatry by saying that we worship the same God. On the contrary, we must warn them that since they do not abide in the doctrine of Christ, they do not have God.
Secondly, we have an evangelistic responsibility towards Muslims. They have been indoctrinated against the Son of God. We must proclaim Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord from Heaven, the Saviour of the World. We must proclaim that he died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. This is our message to Muslims, and to the rest of the world, 'He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him' (John 3:36).
One God and a belief in Abraham?
That’s it?
I guess I looked up the wrong words, Islam and Moslem
Judiasm fits in that category too. One God and belief in Abraham.
Judaism fits in that category too. One God and belief in Abraham.
Good one. LOL!
Too bad no one bothered to read 842
842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race:
All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. .
Why do you want to change the subject?
You got it all. Thanks.
What happened to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”??
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."
So, tell me, if you insist this refers to the "Protestants", then why all the recriminations and condemnations all the time on this forum? Why the constant insistence that we are all a bunch of heretics? Why, if your magesterium considers us "Christian", must all y'all refuse the same hand of fellowship? We are certainly accepting that some Catholics are among the wheat and the sheep of Christ.
You said: Words mean something. They don’t mean them to mean what you want them to mean when you want them to mean it. That is the difference between Catholicism and you guys. If that is so, then why don't you seem to acknowledge that we are indeed brothers and sisters in Christ? I've said all along that the Body of Christ is a spiritual body that is the universal called-out assembly of believers in Jesus Christ, but I get called a "Gnostic" or whatever else the heretic word of the day is. Don't we deserve some kind of apology?
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
GREAT WORK, Y’ALL.
It’s the same old, same old.
It doesn’t really mean what it says. It means what we say it means.
i.e. in the CURRENT, transitory, capricious, emotively dicated, rant propagated . . . version of the moment according to the Pontificators of the Vatican Ishtar-Mary Goddess Cult hereon as major agents thereof—of the VIMGC headquartered in the Vatican, led by the Pope, 80-90% successful in turning FR’s Religion Forum into a sub unit of said Vatican cult.
marshmallow, you scored again!
The anti-Catholics are running wild tonight. I think they live for it because deep down inside they may think they really aren’t OSAS after all and that is a scary thing.
To actually have to recognize that God so loved the world that He sent His Son. And that Christ actually started a Church which has been with us for almost 2000 years.
Instead they believe that God so loved the world that He sent a book.
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