Islam & Christianity Understanding begins with acknowledging devotion and differences For many Americans, the only encounter with Islam and Muslims is televised images of violent conflict in the Middle East. For others, it may be the glimpse of a fully covered female shopper in a supermarket. Our family’s first encounter was hearing the call to prayer from the mosques near our apartment in Damascus, Syria.
In the 25 years since this first immersion in Arab-Muslim culture, I’ve studied Islam as a doctoral student, taught Islam in universities, participated in formal Christian-Muslim dialogue, traveled in a dozen Arab and African countries with Muslim majority populations, and lived six months in Yemen, an Arab-Muslim country even more distant from Western culture than Syria. But most important, my family and I developed long-term friendships with Muslims of many nationalities and political and religious orientations. They share a desire to tell Christians that they take seriously their commitment to follow God’s will, and that they worship the same God, revere the same prophets, and obey the same spiritual commandments that we do. Christianity and Islam are the world’s largest religions, with an estimated 2 billion and 1.3 billion followers, respectively. In North America, Muslims and Christians are increasingly living and working side by side. As Lutherans, it’s vital for us to understand Islam and its diversity—and also Islam’s similarities and differences from both Christianity and Judaism. As an organized religion, Islam dates to the year 622, when Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina. Muhammad’s death in 632 led to dissension over leadership succession and the eventual division into the Sunni and Shia branches. Shiites, about 15 percent of the world’s Muslims, have further subbranches. Although Shiites differ from Sunnis on the matter of civil and religious leadership, they share most beliefs and daily practices. For all Muslims the chief source of guidance is the Qur’an, believed to be a verbatim revelation to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. Also important are the hadith: the preserved sayings and stories of the prophet. Islamic law is derived from the Qur’an and the hadith, along with community reasoning and consensus. It may surprise some Christians that the Qur’an is believed by Muslims to continue and complete God’s revelation to Jews and Christians through Moses and Jesus. Many verses from the Qur’an echo the psalms. Stories of biblical figures—from Noah to David to Jesus—are featured in briefer form. Underlying devotion to the Bible and Qur’an as parallel scriptures suggests both a major similarity and a major difference between Christianity and Judaism on the one hand, and Islam on the other. All three of these traditions are religions of “the book,” stressing the importance of using scripture to discern God and God’s will for humankind. But many Jews and Christians see the Bible as the word of God, written by human beings in their own historical and cultural settings. Consequently, Jewish and Christian biblical scholars apply a range of methods to interpret those words. Qur’an as God’s actual words Most Muslims, however, including scholars, believe the Qur’an to be the actual words of God in Arabic. They assert that Jewish and Christian written scriptures have been distorted by human tampering. Qur’an experts, however, are increasingly considering which verses apply to all Muslims in all times and which had meaning primarily in the time of Muhammad, such as those about proper public dress for women. The Qur’an affirms Jesus’ virginal conception and exalted role as one of God’s greatest prophets. But it’s equally firm in denying Jesus’ divinity. Worshiping as divine anything or anyone other than God is the greatest sin in Islam. Yet despite this major disagreement about the nature of Jesus, Muslim and Christian theologians for almost 15 centuries have been discussing Islam’s belief in God’s oneness and Christianity’s belief that the Trinity can also express that oneness. In daily religious practice, Christianity and Islam, along with Judaism, emphasize the importance of living a God-centered life and the role of prayer in achieving that goal. Christians use ritual prayers in communal worship, and many rely on spontaneous daily conversation with God. Muslims pray together at the mosque on Fridays and feast days but also perform salat, ritual prayer at least five times each day. Ethical living is a goal for both Muslims and Christians, but there is a difference. For Muslims salvation is equivalent to success in following God’s will and God’s guidance is considered grace-filled. For Christians, of course, salvation by God’s grace is realized most fully in Jesus’ incarnation, life and teachings, crucifixion and resurrection. These differing understandings of salvation relate to a major divergence in the views of human nature. Both Judaism and Islam believe human beings are able to follow God’s teaching and law to achieve a right relationship with God and creation. We Lutherans have inherited from Paul, Augustine and Luther the conviction that, with our wills bound by sin, we are unable to be reconciled to God. Thus we confess and give thanks for God’s willingness to become human and suffer and die on our behalf. It’s important to acknowledge that we have theological disagreements but that these need not prevent mutual respect and understanding. Whether the different understandings of salvation mean Muslims and Christians worship different gods will continue to be debated by Muslim and Christian theologians. But two points are significant. First, Allah, the Arabic word for “God,” is used not only by Muslims but also by Christians in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. Second, most Muslims I know never question whether they are worshiping the same God as their Jewish and Christian cousins, since the Qur’an asserts that Moses and Jesus were both messengers of Allah. Religion and politics Equally relevant to the spiritual similarities and differences among Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the issue today of the relationship of religion and politics. Although for many centuries and in many places Christianity has been joined to the state, the U.S. Constitution provides for separation of church and state. The Islamic understanding of God’s unity and sovereignty over all extends to sovereignty over the state. Some Muslims favor having a theocratic ruler, such as the Ayatollah Khomeni in post-revolutionary Iran. Others point out that early Islam encouraged rule by consensus of community leaders and maintain that God as sovereign means that no one human being can be an absolute ruler. They advocate a participatory government as appropriate for such Muslim and pluralistic societies as Jordan and the U.S. Many Muslim organizations in this country promote American-style democracy within their communities. Shortly after Sept. 11, the Muslim Public Affairs Council initiated the National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism, including guidance for local mosques. Even those of us Lutheran Christians who live and work in places where we don’t have everyday association with Muslim people can learn about Islam (www.elca.org/ecumenical/interreligious/Muslim). We also can work to overcome the negative stereotyping that happens when religious communities face one another in ignorance and fear. That will make us better prepared to work together toward a society just and welcoming for all. |
| chad eubanks - 7/9/2007 |
I am writing a paper on the similarities of Christianity and Islam.I have been doing some research but i keep coming up with the same stuff.If anyone has some useful knowledge, could you please email it to me at Bamaboy1286@yahoo.com. If its a website i need the author and exact address to give to my teacher...thanks Chad |
| Mary P - 8/24/2007 |
I found Dr. Schersten Lahurd's brilliant piece on Islam & Christianity tremendously uplifting. It is always terribly difficult to look and reach beyond the barrage of media hype and fantasy....the popular fiction which love to create black and white scenarios of good and evil which play so convincingly as a blockbuster summer movie where it is so EASY to tell who the "bad guy" is. Equating all Muslims with Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda is no different that equating all Christians with "the Reverend" Jim Jones and the horrors of his compound in Guyana. It is too easy to believe that people who look so very different from us can actually be so much like us. Loving their families, their God, their Land and their community. Any attempt to villianize or dehumanize another group of people should be a blaring alarm to every true Christian. Throughout recorded history, this is the first step that power hunger despots and masters of genocide use to turn the masses against any one, selected population that is being used as a "scapegoat". George Stanton in his "8 stages of Genocide" states: "One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. " http://www.genocide1915.info/research/view.asp?ID=28 The week of Sept 8-15, 2007 will find a huge gathering of international supporters in Beirut to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Palestinian civilian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila Camps of Beirut. The actual ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday Sept 12, 2007. I will be there, returning to the city I left 25 years ago while working as a nurse -part of an international medical relief team. 25 years ago this September,just after the PLO fighters laid down their arms and agreed to be deported out of the Beirut, and the American Peace Keeping force had prematurely left Beirut, the Israeli Defense Force tanks invaded the city. The IDF surrounded the adjoining Palestinian Refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The young men, fighters and weapons were all gone. They had left Beirut days before with assurances that their families who were left behind in the bombed out refugee camps would be safe because of the American presence and the international Peace Keeping Forces. The IDF prevented all the civilians in the camp from leaving, but allowed passage into the camp of a large Arab militia in green uniforms with no insignia who were armed to the teeth. These "soldiers" are generally accepted to have been members of the Maronite "Christian" militia - blood enemies of Palestinians and Muslims. They went directly to the camp hospitals and forcibly escorted our international medical team (sponsors=National Councils of Churches USA, Christian Aide UK, The Middle East Council of Churches, Beirut)out of Gaza and Akka Hospitals in the camps to be interrogated by the IDF....all the while verbally berating our volunteer doctors and nurses "How can you call yourself CHRISTIANS!?!?!, you are helping these animals, these vermin"...referring to the elderly men, women and children of the camps, both Lebanese and Palestinian, Muslim and Christian. Sobbing people lined the streets as our team was escorted out, one woman tried to save her child by giving the infant to one of our doctors in the hope she would carry the baby out with her....the woman was pushed back by the "soldiers", and she was unable to save her child. After our people were out, the sound of screams and automatic machine gun fire were heard for hours and hours afterwards, into the night.....That night I worked in an underground parking garage that had been set up as a hospital by Lebanese and Palestinian medical workers...a number of patients had managed to be evacuated from the camp hospitals prior to the IDF surrounding the camps. We foreigners went up to the outside entrance and watched the bright flares over the camps, being used by the militia to illuminate the dark camps so they could continue to hunt down and kill every living human being in the camps....old men, women, toddlers, infants... Dialogue, forgiveness, peace, understanding, reconciliation and social justice are the only ways to prevent this muderous cycle from occuring over and over again throughout our human history. Read Fr.Lawrence Martin Jenco "Bound to Forgive", Rev. Ben and Carol Weir "Hostage Bound, Hostage Free", Dr. Sis Levin "Beirut Diary"....these are people who have suffered tremendously at the hands of terrorists.......and forgiven them as did our Christ. There are evil human beings in every country on this planet, every religion in the world has it's destructive fanatics - we cannot allow ourselves to be seduced by the darkness that begins when we hear some one utter the words ".....well, you know, they don't value life like we do..." Although NEVER justified under any circumstance, terrorism does not occur in a vacuum.....massacre a man's children, rape his wife, take all his hard earned propery,the land he inherited from him father and grandfathers, force him to become a refugee, a man without a country, deny him work and the most basic of human needs and kindness....and what have you "created".......what has he to lose? Ask yourself what would you do if this happened to YOU and your family.....curl up and die? Maybe, Maybe not. "It you want Peace, work for Justice" Pope Paul IV |
| Daniel - 8/31/2007 |
Hello, Everyone. I approciate your experience in Islamic Countries. however, what do you say about recent brooadcast of God's Warriors on CNN by MS.CHRISTIAN AMANPOUR, What do you think about the IRAN stance and Palestine towards the west and Isreal |
| Mohamed hujjatul islam - 3/4/2008 |
| The Lutheran's Web Manager removed this comment because it violated Section 5 of our Terms of Use (solicitation). |
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