Posted on 05/18/2009 9:58:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The world we now know is marked by religious pluralism and the clash of worldviews. The modern world brings individuals and groups of different belief systems into both proximity and potential conflict. How should Christians respond when asked about this? Should Christians "respect" other religions?
Headlines throughout the world announced this week that Pope Benedict XVI, while visiting Jordan, spoke of his "respect" for Islam. This came on the heels of the Pope's notorious 2006 speech at Germany's Regensburg University. In that speech Benedict quoted Emperor Manuel II, one of the Byzantine monarchs, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The outrage throughout the Muslim world was immediate and overwhelming. The Pope issued clarifications and explanations, but Muslim outrage continued. This week, with the Pope scheduled to make his first papal visit to an Islamic country, the sensitivities were high.
The Vatican's official transcript of the Pope's comments at the Amman airport records him as saying:
"My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam."
There are so many different angles to this situation. First, we have the spectacle of a Pope being received as a head of state. This is wrong on so many counts. Second, we have the Pope speaking in diplomatic jargon, rather than in plain and direct speech. Third, we have the Pope speaking of "respect" without any clear understanding of what this really means. Does the Pope believe that Muslims can be saved through the teachings of Islam?
Actually, he probably does - at least within the context of a salvific inclusivism. The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that Muslims are "included in the plan of salvation" by virtue of their claim to "hold the faith of Abraham."
In the words of Lumen Gentium, one of the major documents adopted at Vatican II:
"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind."
The same language is basic to the current official catechism of the church as well. Within the context of the document, this language clearly implies that Muslims are within the scope of God's salvation. While the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Islam is both erroneous and incomplete, it also holds that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ's salvation through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.
Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of "respecting" Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot. Within the context of official Catholic teaching, the Pope can create a fusion of diplomacy and doctrine.
While evangelical Christians face a different context to this question, the urgency is the same. We are not playing a diplomatic role as head of state, but we are called to be ambassadors for Christ and his Gospel.
In this light, any belief system that pulls persons away from the Gospel of Christ, denies and subverts Christian truth, and blinds sinners from seeing Christ as the only hope of salvation is, by biblical definition, a way that leads to destruction. Islam, like every other rival to the Christian gospel, takes persons captive and is devoid of genuine hope for salvation.
Thus, evangelical Christians may respect the sincerity with which Muslims hold their beliefs, but we cannot respect the beliefs themselves. We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God's Son, and takes millions of souls captive.
This does not make for good diplomacy, but we are called to witness, not public relations. We must aim to be gracious and winsome in our witness to Christ, but the bottom line is that the gospel will necessarily come into open conflict with its rivals.
The papal visit to Jordan points directly to the problem of the papacy itself and to the confusion of Roman Catholic theology on this very point. To understand Islam is to know that we cannot identify Muslims as those who "along with us adore the one and merciful God." To deny the Trinity is to worship another God.
Respect is a problematic category. In the end, Christians must show respect for Muslims by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the spirit of love and truth. We are called to love and respect Muslims, not Islam.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com.
I have argued for years, either Christianity or islam is a lie. Both cannot be true, there are toooooo many contradictions for truth to be claimed by both religions.
I also agree with you as to the fraud in this discussion, and it ain't us!
Luck has nothing to do with it.
I am 50sDad because what I believe is simple and in black and white. I am not troubled by a billion shaded European nuances that leave my Liberal friends in a dither, believing two things at once and panicking about "what if they're wrong?" It's not a religion, it's a cult, and before long, we are going to have to do what our ancestors did to stop it, because they don't want to live in an equal society, they want us dead, our culture destroyed, our children enslaved. What could be clearer?
You’re right. I was being kind.
> The religion of Islam is not the problem; the problem is
> from a/the radical minority within Islam.
Really?
Islam’s “Perfect Man” is Mahomet (aka Mohammed), a self professed, unashamed, boastful pirate, murderer, truce-breaker, thief, polygamist, pedophile, rapist, liar.
Depending upon which boast you belive in the Hadiths, Mahomet personally beheaded between 600 and 900 Jews.
I have no respect for Mahomet or any of his hateful teachings or shameless plagiarisms.
Now I don't have any respect for the Islamic faith or culture, and having a new pope Urban (II) would suit me just fine, but then that's just me.
>> I notice you left off Allah from your comparisons. <<
We need to be careful here, because “Allah” is simply the
Arabic word for “God.” Christian Arabs use the same word, as do the dwindling number of Jews whose native language is Arabic.
We were founded as a Christian nation. We had laws to prevent the government from developing it’s own religion, but there was no doubt the Christianity influenced the process heavily. The founding fathers did not expect Christianity to be challenged.
So here we are today, and other religions are demanding that that all public examples of Christianity be removed from the Courthouse, the village square, and any government buildings.
Christianity cannot be mentioned in school. Even prayers to a neutral supreme being cannot be said.
It is the pariah tactics of other religions that make me have to say, that Christianity will either stand up and assert it’s proper role in this nation, or this nation will become an Islamic nation in time.
I don’t happen to think it’s a good thing for us to allow more Islamic devotees to enter the United States.
I do think we have a vested interest in our nation remaining a Christian nation.
I will also say that nations in the Middle-East that do find Islam to be the way to go, should be free do maintain that stance.
I don’t think Islamic people should be persecuted here. I don’t think Christians should be persecuted there.
A stand must be made. No movement can be totally tolerant of a diametrically opposed movement, and continue to survive.
With the possible exception of the Japanese Emperor, the Pope has been a head of state longer than any other ruler on the planet. Something over 1500 years.
Religious beliefs are fine, but certain actions are not. We should not tolerate attempting to spread religion by force of law or violence, and we should not tolerate the stamping out of other belief systems by force of law or violence. And we also should not tolerate violent religious practices.
Essentially, Islam is guilty of all three.
They couldn't have had any idea what a mess the liberals would make out of our society. I have no doubt that if they had anticipated our questioning basic principles like God, marriage, the applicability of foreign law, the individual right to bear arms, etc., the Constitution would have been written very differently.
Listen cranked
I use to be tolerant towards any religion. Even if your GOD was a rock I would not disrespect ya. Hell, what if you’d be right.
That is until my Nephew Marine Lt. J.T. Wrobloweski got killed in Iraq. I’m bitter and I will not let it go. Neither will his mom, dad, nor his three brothers or any of our family.
You can call it what ever you care to pal. But this is a war of religions. Has been for eternity and will continue.
Muslims? F-em.
Tolerant? Screw that,
My cousin is an over-the-moon Obamadroid. I absolutely do not respect the ideology he is espousing, but I do respect that he has thought it over and made his decision.
I treat those of religions other than Christian the same way. I respect that followers have thought out their beliefs and hold them dearly. I do not respect the worship of false gods.
Respecting other religions is nonsense. That not only demands that you respect ideas that you disagree with, but positively believe are wrong. This is hypocritical, and is obviously done for ulterior motives.
“I am respecting your religion so that you will not hate me, or try to hurt me.”
If they hate you or try to hurt you, they are not respecting you as a *person*, not just your ideas. They feel free to violate you, in the name of their religion. This alone is reason enough NOT to respect their religion. They cannot persuade you, so they have to coerce you.
In this case, respecting their religion means rewarding them for their intolerance and violence. This is not respect, it is fear and submission. Cowardice before a stubborn and intractable enemy.
And why should such an enemy respect your religion at all? If their bad behavior advances their cause at your expense, that in itself proves to them that their religion is right, and yours is weak and false. More so if their religion justifies such behavior.
The truth is that Islam is terribly weak. Many who subscribe to it would abandon it if they could do so without threat to their lives. When in the 4th Century it represented civilization’s struggle against barbarity, the world has so passed it by, that today it fights on the side of barbarism, against civilization.
Barbarians can only win such a fight if they can destroy civilization entirely. Because given a choice, most of their followers will embrace civilization as superior in every way.
So when someone feigns respect for Islam, they not only show themselves as hypocrites, but they abandon those still trapped in obsolescence, who cry out for civility, but are denied it by those invested in primitivism.
>Islam’s “Perfect Man” is Mahomet (aka Mohammed), a self professed, unashamed, boastful pirate, murderer, truce-breaker, thief, polygamist, pedophile, rapist, liar.<
A large number of those descriptives easily encompass a number of early Pope’s, does it not? Likewise, they can fit a number of influential historical Christian leaders, as well, correct?
Accordingly, I respect those within the religion of Islam who practice Islam as it was meant to be.
“Does the Pope believe that Muslims can be saved through the teachings of Islam?
Actually, he probably does - at least within the context of a salvific inclusivism. The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that Muslims are “included in the plan of salvation” by virtue of their claim to “hold the faith of Abraham.”
In the words of Lumen Gentium, one of the major documents adopted at Vatican II:
“But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
Maybe he was right in wishing Islam to flourish!
This is an important and salient point.
Christ is subverted to no one, and God bows to no human or other "god".
The point is not made enough that the "god" of islam is a false God, because the ONE, true God is co-eternal with the Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, which is categorically denied by islam, a false religion....
We can not have any agreement or beneficent feelings toward islam, but we can have compassion on Muslims and tell them the Truth, with respect and concern....
That's IT.
Bottom Line....
Faith structures can crumble overnight. Who believes in or fears Soviet Communism any more? What can we do now to build bridges to the Muslims around us, so that they'll know who to turn to when their ideological home is discredited? Our family has found it very rewarding to "adopt" grad students from a Muslim nation, and work on learning their language. We've made some enduring friendships, learned a lot about their culture, and clarified for our young children the element of grace and election. There are nasty Christians, and warm, lovely Muslims. Salvation, however, is of God.
Understood.
Do not Honor the Vision
Honor that one is “Honorable”
There is no obligation to agree
I am more tolerant of an Islamist
who is trying to kill me because
they have been taught that I'm an Infidel
Than I am of a Southern Baptist who is
cheating on his wife, lying, and stealing
I may have to Kill the Islamist, but
I Honor that they are Honoring
what they have been taught to do.
By Honoring those who are honorable
You show them that you are yourself Honorable
And they will at least listen to that Vision
that you have been appointed, and hence
Witnessing can be effective.
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