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.
If that is what you believe, you have hashed the Biblical message and are personally in imminent danger of an eternity which you will find unsatisfactory, ACCORDING to GOD, Himself...
Actually, Islam IS the problem. We know some wonderful people who are ensnared in that cult, and we pray regularly for their salvation.
The good muslims are not consistent with their book. The good christians are consistent.
“Respect” in the sense of “steer clear of”? Sure!
Curiously, writing as an Orthodox Christian, I feel it is far easier to respect most other religions that don’t claim Abrahamic descent than to respect Islam, Ba’hai, or even rabbinic Judaism (though the last gets a big boost from using only true Scriptures).
Taoism, Buddhism, Zoarastrianism, and even still-pagan Hinduism, all to one extent or another escaped from the basic religious state of fallen man—base paganism that confounds the creature with the Creator, does not understand at all the transcendence or unity of God.
Taoism more or less fails to be true—as far as it goes—only because its conception of the Tao is impersonal, while The Tao (The Way—or Hellenizing the place of Tao in Chinese thought, The Logos) is a Person, the Son, Jesus Christ. (It is a curious exercise to read the Tao Te Ching with the thought that The Tao is a person. It fits Christ as well as the suffering servant passages in Isaiah.)
The Buddha, to the extent that he departed from Hinduism, got what he got right—the passions are the root of suffering, we need to overcome them, we need to escape the world of phenomena, that he existence or non-existence of such beings as the Hindus called gods is irrelevant to human existence or spiritual progress—but failed to get further because he kept the error of reincarnation, and failed to see that even non-being is a phenomenon, that only the One
of whom St. Dionysius the Areopagite would write centuries later “It is not proper to say that God exists. Not that He lacks existence, but that His superessential being is beyond the distinction between existence and non-existence,” is beyond the world of phenomena.
Zoaraster managed to make moral advances on paganism, and to understand somewhat the transcendence of God, but his system is marred by its dualism.
And finally the Hindus, while foolishly keeping polytheism to some degree, managed nonetheless to have some sense of the unity of the Divine Nature and a severely imperfect intuition of the Trinity.
I’ll even stand with C.S. Lewis in having some respect for Norse paganism, with its prefiguration of Christ in the myth of Baldur the Beautiful.
But Islam, Ba’hai and rabbinic Judaism, all represent descents from the truth of the Gospel back into one form of error or another. St. John of Damascus critiqued Islam (which he knew very well, having served as Grand Vizier to the Caliph of Damascus) as a heresy, rather than a separate religion. And much though I am fond of lots of heretics, I cannot really respect heresy.
The only non-Christian religion which arose after the coming of Christ (and yes, rabbinic Judaism arose after the coming of Christ, being shaped largely by the rejection of Christianity and the destruction of the Temple) for which I have real respect is Sikhism, which seems to me to have made the best of a bad situation, and chosen wisely mostly true elements from the two false faiths it was sandwiched betweenn—Islam and Hinduism.
Yes, of course...
I suspect you are right. Something will have to be done sooner or later, and the more the process mimics the role of a passive/aggressive personality, the more dangerous the fix will be.
Christianity’s Perfect Man is Jesus Christ, not *ANY* Pope or self-proclaimed “Christian leader”.
Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our Faith, not *ANY* Pope or self-proclaimed “Christian leader”.
Now contrast the life and teachings of Jesus to that of the murdering pirate who is the author of Islam and who Islam teaches is the “perfect man”.
> I respect those within the religion of Islam who
> practice Islam as it was meant to be.
Mahomet himself, Islam’s “perfect man”, the murdering, raping, pedophile polygamist pirate practiced Islam as it was meant to be.
The men who flew the planes into the WTC practiced Islam as it was meant to be.
The women who blow themselves up in Isreali supermarkets and Pizza parlors practiced Islam as it was meant to be.
Please see the films, “Obsession” and “Fitnah”.
Good thing for me I have different beliefs than you.
Sorry to jump.
Still very touchy about it here.
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
That won't matter dear one.
God's decrees rule over all of your beliefs.
Let us believe what He has revealed to us in His Word, the Bible.
There is only One Way, Jesus, not any other.
All our talk won't do any good. Just look it up for yourself.
The Gospel of John is a good place to learn these important truths.
Here's hoping for your best good.
We all stand before him as condemned sinners until we enter into Christ, believe in the saving efficacy of His Blood shed for our sins. Then, no law will further require our punishment, if we hope in Christ. If you believe this, God will receive you and pardon you.
Good thing I have different beliefs than you have.
Shouldn’t other religions respect Christianity?
I think THAT’S the more appropriate question!
Sorry you believe that. Scripture is clear. Jesus is the only way to Eternal Life.
“Allah” in Arabic traditionally has 99 names, IIRC.
I’ve studied the culture for over 40 years. Allah and God as Christians and Jews know God are not the same being. That islam wishes to suggest there is merely a translation issue is taqiyya and kitman. It uses the same logic as calling both Christians and Jews Ahl al-Kitab, the people of the book, and teaching that everyone lives peacefully together (as long as you pay for it). The suras and teachings in the West are pure deception.
Think of it. If people worshipped the same God, why would Jews not be able to travel to SA, or, even anyone who had travelled to Israel? Why would there be no Christian churches or synagogues in SA?
As is inscribed in gold on the top of the Dome of the Rock, paid for by a Saudi some years ago, “God has no son.” To whom would that be directed?
The history channel or PBS or enemedia or anyone else who says differrently is lying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I40VgpJADKY
While I am about it, know that I was raised to believe that all parths lead to God, and all major religions of the world are the same. It took me a very long time to understand that is not and cannot be true, even if someone wants to think it is.
Finally, IIRC, SCOTUS decided that athiesm is a ‘religion,’ as the belief in the absence of God is itself an ethic. Go try that thought on for size and remember the Bible verses about calling ‘evil good and good evil.’
Praise be to the Father, and to His Son and to the Holy Ghost.
Well now, you have nailed it.
I am Catholic but disagree with the degree to which the higher ups of the Church are dancing a minuet with a false religion. They do not, in my view, have the right to do that and do not represent me in their concessions.
“The message is eternal life.”
That’s not much of a message. Eternal life of what, the same thing we endure on Earth? I want a little more than that.
But, again, you are doing what a lot of people who espouse that philosophy do, and that is try to make Christ a super-perfected human being that we can all be if we just do the right things, pray , give alms to the poor, go to church, go to Mecca.
None of those things, can or will save your soul from judgment. Knowing that “eternal life is the key” does not get you any where other than knowing your soul has an eternal existence. But knowing that does not account for, or more importantly, pardon you for your sins.
We have all sinned, and all are under God’s judgment. There is a day we will have to give an accounting for everything we have done and thought. We are all convicted under God’s law of having transgressed one or another, or more accurately, all of them, and a reckoning on our part is due.
We can not pay that price ourselves. No number of good deeds, or enlightened knowledge, will cleanse us from our sins. Only Christ can do that. That is the difference between Christ teachings, and all others, which is Christianity teaches that you cannot come to God by your own deeds, you must go through Christ, and all other religions teach that you come to God by doing certain deeds, learning certain knowledge.
You always see a critic of Christians, rarely a critic of Christ himself. Probably the most revered teacher on Earth, but somehow folks from your viewpoint don’t think he was smart enough to know what he was saying when he said nobody comes to the “Father except through Me.”
Albert Mohler PING
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