The Qur’an’s challenge to the Bible
May 3, 2007
My most recent conversation with a Muslim took place a couple of months ago in Trujillo, Peru. My companions and I were in a cab at the Plaza de Armas on a Saturday afternoon and noticed two bearded Middle Eastern men in turbans rolling out their prayer rugs amidst the crowds. This stood out in Trujillo like it would in Kosciusko. After getting something to eat, we walked over to where the men were sitting after they had finished their prayers. We engaged in some discussion in English with these men, who said they were from Pakistan. They were soft-spoken, charitable and most eager to talk about their faith. They emphasized Islam’s regard for Jesus as a prophet, implying that Muhammed reformed and revived and reoriented the path of true religion that Abraham, Moses and Jesus had advocated. By then a small crowd was gathering, along with a few nervous-looking police officers. As I was about to ask them if the Qur’an teaches that Jesus was crucified and resurrected (it denies this, by the way), a young Peruvian man asked them in English why Muslims crashed the planes into the World Trade Center–and you can guess that the conversation steered way off course from that point, and we decided to leave the crowd to their wrangling and the police to break it up.
Adam S. Francisco, assistant professor of history at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York, has written a short introduction to some of the striking differences between Christianity and Islam that may help you learn the lay of the land a bit. The piece originally appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of Modern Reformation.
You got your caliph in my imam!
February 12, 2007
Or was it, You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!?
A couple of months ago I heard a U.S. Army lieutenant share some of his experiences in Iraq at a Rotary Club meeting. He was involved in ‘detainee operations’–in other words, housing prisoners, and in the Army’s program of paying the families of Iraqis who accidentally die at U.S. hands, whether in the prisons or on the streets. His presentation was informative and enlightening in many ways. There was, however, a most disturbing moment when he took questions from the audience. Someone asked him to explain the basic differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims. After a few seconds of foot-shuffling, he admitted that he didn’t know.
Now, I’m the last person to claim expertise in how to run a war (I would say, ‘Fix the bayonets, men, and let them feel the steel!’), but it seems to me that military personnel would at least be given a one-hour course on the basic rift that is igniting so much of the violence in Iraq. I mean, if you were a policeman in Belfast, would you not be well-served to know something about why there is Protestant/Catholic conflict in certain areas of the city? Of course, most of us here safe at home are no better educated, although the terms Sunni and Shia are in the news everyday.
National Public Radio (yes, I know, spare me the conservative crankiness) is producing a five-part series this week on its Morning Edition program called The Partisans of Ali: A History of Shia Faith and Politics. The web material is worth checking out–audio, transcripts, timelines and maps. The first part is an excellent, concise account of the historic roots of the split.
We ignore Islam at our own peril.
Muslims in Nazareth: ‘Islam will dominate the world.’
January 2, 2007
OK, then…
Here’s an article from WorldNet Daily about recent ‘Angry Arab Street’ incidents in Nazareth, where Jesus was raised. The Muslim propensity for bluster, anger and outrage is remarkable. It brings to mind a quote from last February from my favorite columnist, Mark Steyn, commenting on the crazy protests over the Danish cartoons satirizing Mohammed:
Say what you like about the Islamic world but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offence or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they’d have.
The threat of Islamic advance from southern Europe and Turkey was a concern to the German princes of the 16th century. Prince Joachim of Brandenburg, about to lead a Saxon military expedition against the Muslim Turks, sought spiritual advice from Martin Luther before setting out. Luther’s letter of August 3, 1532, to Prince Joachim contains counsel that is extraordinarily relevant to us in the present crisis.
…I beg that those on our side may not place their reliance on the Turk’s being altogether wrong and God’s enemy while we are innocent and righteous in comparison with the Turk, for such presumption is also vain. Rather is it necessary to fight with fear of God and reliance on his grace alone. We too are unrighteous in God’s sight. Some on our side have shed much innocent blood, have despised and persecuted God’s Word, and have been disobedient, and so we cannot take our stand on our merits, no matter how righteous or unrighteous the Turks and we may be. For the cursed devil is also God’s enemy and does us great injustice and wrong. In comparison with the devil we are innocent, and yet we must not boast of our innocence and the superiority of our right, but must fight against him in fear and humility and with God’s help alone. This is what David did in his fight against Goliath. He did not boast of his rights, but with God’s help he fought and said, “Thou hast blasphemed against God, in whom I put my trust.” In like manner we must pray to God, not that he may avenge our innocence against the Turk, but rather that he may glorify his holy name against those great blasphemers and meanwhile graciously forget our sins.…I wish and pray that in such a war those on our side may not seek honor, glory, land, booty, etc., but only the glory of God and his name, together with the defense of poor Christians and subjects. For the glory should and will be God’s alone. As unworthy sinners we deserve nothing but shame, dishonor, and even death, and this Your Highness knows better than I can write. But since Your Highness has so earnestly requested spiritual counsel, I have wished to set down this brief opinion in Your Highness’s service. I have no doubt that if Your Highness inculcates such sentiments in others, with the result that the war is conducted on such a high plane, the devil and all his angels will be too weak for our soldiers, and the Turks will encounter men who are different from those whom they have fought before, when both sides were insolent and fought without God, which has always harmed God’s people more than their enemies…Our prayers shall go with you and follow after you.
‘We shall break the cross and spill the wine’
September 18, 2006
Says who? Says a web statement of the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by the Iraqi chapter of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda militants are vowing war on ‘worshippers of the cross’ and protestors are burning effigies of Pope Benedict XVI, who had the gall to quote 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who had the gall to point out the prophet Mohammed’s final directive to wage war until everyone confesses that Allah is God.
Islamic outrage is on the front page again, as it was earlier in the year when the Danish cartoons which mocked Mohammed provoked violent demonstrations in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. At that time, I read aloud in prayer meeting an outstanding article from the pen of John Piper called ‘Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ’s Work, Not Mohammed’s’. This latest ‘outrage’ against Islam makes me think it would be worth reading again. Piper puts his finger directly on the great difference between the Gospel and Islam–the cross! This short piece is a must read if you would understand the fundamental difference in the ‘DNA’ of the Christian faith and the false religion of Islam.
By the way, if you ever get worried that Islam will triumph, remember to read Psalm 2.
