This is the fifth blog in my series which began with One Christian Looks at Islam Looking at Christianity and is the conclusion to my blog Christianity and Islam: Conflict over True Christianity (1).
The Islamic missionary materials portray the Qur’an as being a divine document and therefore “a-historical.” They claim the very fact that the Bible contains historical stories shows it is a human not divine document, and thus subject to human error. For my part, I have been convinced by the early Christian claim that “all truth is Christian truth.” And since Christianity is concerned with the Truth and its proclamation, the claims of Christianity must have some relationship to all known truth, including historical and scientific truth, appeals to me. I think any religions that claims to be true should be openly willing to have its claims matched against the truths which history, archeology, or the various sciences offer to the world. Some aspects of religion really are issues of faith, some however can be verified by other kinds of study.
Clearly major areas of debate between Muslims and Christians are the nature of revelation, scripture and inspiration. While Christians and Muslims will disagree as which Scriptures offers the final revelation to humankind, an even more significant issue is what exactly God has revealed. ” To Muhammad, a book was revealed to lead mankind out of darkness” (Qur’an 14:1). Christianity does not claim that God revealed a book to mankind. Instead Christianity claims that Jesus is the Word of God incarnate – Jesus thus reveals what Scriptures are, what it means to be human, as well as an amazing revelation about God’s nature. Christianity has the testimony of Jesus in the Gospel, acknowledge by the Qur’an: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40). For Christians the ultimate revelation of God is not contained in a book – either the Torah or the Qur’an – but in the God become man Jesus who is the Christ. The written text is but a witness to the living Word of God. At issue is whether in fact God’s Word really is something that can be contained in a written text, or whether God’s Word has life in Itself, Himself, and the written Word is not what is found in heaven but is testifying to the truth about God’s Eternal Word. This is the major point of contention between Christian apologists and theologians and Muslim ones.
There are some other points which the Islamic missionary literature points out as being significant for Christians to consider:
1) Islam is superior to Christianity because God in Qur’an 3:19 and 3:85 gives Islam its name. Christians get named by those who opposed their religion in Acts 11:25-26. Islam indeed is one of the few religions in the world in which in their scriptures God gives their religion a name. The literature also says since “Islam” has at its root the meaning of both “peace” and “submission” the name Islam means something, while “Christianity” as a word tells nothing about the religion.
2) The literature points out that “Islam” means peace, and that Jesus taught us to be peacemakers, which it claims shows that Jesus is a Muslim at heart. Since the Old Testament says God gives peace to those who obey His commandments, the literature claims this too is an Islamic idea: submission leads to peace. In this literature one can see that though Christians see Jesus as both fulfilling and giving full meaning to the Old Testament, Islam moves back and forth between using the Old Testament to interpret the New and vice versa as best fits its own understanding of God. In this Islam holds to an idea that Jesus is simply one more prophet in the line of God’s prophets but does not hold to an idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament.
3) The Muslim missionary literature interprets references to the coming of the Holy Spirit (Parakletos) in John’s Gospel as referring to another human comforter, Muhammad, rather than to the coming of the Holy Spirit. This argument was part of what apparently is important to Islamic missionary need – to prove that in fact the New Testament predicted the coming of Muhammad. It also denies Acts 2 event of Pentecost or the role for the Holy Spirit in the life of God’s people. Christians probably would be disappointed to know that the promises of Christ about the coming of the Comforter and Spirit of Truth, refer to Muhammad rather than to God’s Spirit. The literature claimed that no one in all of history could be the promised Comforter of John 14:16 except for Muhammad. Even if one leaves aside the claim that the Comforter refers to another man, how could we know that no one in all of history could be that man except Muhammad, since we haven’t lived all of history yet?
4) What is perhaps a fair critique of many Christians and some of Christianity, the Muslim literature says that since the Bible enjoins fasting, prayer, modest dress (it notes that Nuns dress themselves in a Muslim way), sobriety, sexual control, and circumcision, and prohibits eating pork, Muslims keep the faith better than most Christians. There is a question raised as to what extent Christians believe they are compelled to follow the Torah in keeping ritual. In Acts 15 the apostles themselves come to the conclusion that the Torah served a purpose to prepare God’s chosen people for the coming of the Christ, but that with Christ fulfilling the Torah, converts to the faith no longer have to become practicing Jews in order to be disciples of Christ. And while this does answer the Muslim charge against Christians on a number of issues, their criticism of Christians not being willing to follow any discipline makes it certain that neither can they be disciples of Christ the Master, is a valid one which Christians need to consider. Prayer and fasting are a normative part of the Orthodox Christian way of life.
Next: Christianity and Islam: Jesus – Prophet, Messiah, and Lord
Fraternized 