Bernie Powers dismantles Miroslav Volf on Allah

Here is a critical review of Miroslav Volf's book on Allah, wherein Volf argues that the deities of Islam and Christianity are, at the end of the day, one and the same.

Here is a section of the review I really liked:

Unfortunately another key foundation of his thesis, that Muslims along with Christians, are commanded to love their neighbours (pp.14) is simply an illusion. The Qur’an nowhere tells Muslims to love those who are different from themselves. Allah does not love such people (apparently He only loves Himself), so why should Muslims do so? There is only a single mention of preference for others and it is not unequivocal. There are two collections of the Hadith which are seen as sahih or ‘authentic’. In Muslim bin al-Hajjaj’s collection, which Volf quotes, it is rendered as: “None of you has faith until you love for your neigh bour what you love for yourself” 8 (p.105) Al- Bukhari’s collection of the Hadith puts it like this: “The Prophet said, ‘None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself.’” (al-Bukhari 1:12) Muhsin Khan’s translation of al-Bukhāri’s Hadith occasionally contains bracketed insertions. Through their use, he identifies between the most likely meaning. In this particular case, the term “brother” is judged to apply only to fellow Muslims.

Powers is rightly pointing out that Islam, at best, has a golden rule that applies only to fellow Muslims.

Read the whole review HERE.

Bernard of Clairveaux on the Unity of the Trinity and Love

From On Loving God, Ch. XII:

For what preserves the glorious and ineffable Unity of the blessed Trinity, except love? Charity, the law of the Lord, joins the Three Persons into the unity of the Godhead and unites the holy Trinity in the bond of peace. Do not suppose me to imply that charity exists as an accidental quality of Deity; for whatever could be conceived of as wanting in the divine Nature is not God. No, it is the very substance of the Godhead; and my assertion is neither novel nor extraordinary, since St. John says, 'God is love' (I John 4.8). One may therefore say with truth that love is at once God and the gift of God, essential love imparting the quality of love.

This quote caught my attention because it points to the relation between God's being love, and the Holy Trinity. This is an important topic in our witness to Muslims, of course.

Temple Gairdner on the Church and Islam

For the church or congregation which desires to be, sets out to be, and succeeds in being a home for those converted to Christ from Islam, is in itself a gospel--preaches thereby the best, highest, and most Christlike gospel of all: the gospel that will be most easily understood and most easily loved by those without, and will most powerfully attract them to come in: let alone the fact that precisely such a church will certainly be the one most forward in preaching to non-Christians in the ordinary sense of the word.

Temple Gairdner, "THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AS A HOME FOR CHRIST’S CONVERTS FROM ISLAM", Moslem World 1924, p 236.

What is the difference between Islam and Christianity?

A Muslima friend of mine asked me this recently. What do you say? How would you answer this question to a Muslima who sincerely wants to know your point of view?

Temple Gairdner on the Church as home for Muslim converts

If any church desires to be a spiritual home for those who come to Christ from Islam, a brotherhood, a spiritual garden, then it must have a very definite and well thought-out plan for teaching and training them in the Christian faith; and it must also, having determined its responsibility with regard to their human needs, be ready to shoulder the same. A church that makes this preparation in a spirit of thoughtful love, is already more than half-way to the ideal of being a home. A church that makes no such preparation, or whose preparation is ill thought-out, is making it that much harder for itself to be a home, indeed has not declared unmistakably that it thinks of itself as such.

WHT Gairdner, "The Christian Church as a Home for Christ's Converts from Islam", The Muslim World Vol. 14, p. 241.

EN 41: indestructible witness and martyrdom

§40 is the beginning of Section IV, and sets up the question: how to evangelize? Paul makes some comments about how it is especially the role of the bishop to decide how to evangelize, which is ironic because the evangelism I have seen in the Catholic church usually happens despite the hierarchy, not because of it. Of course my experience is quite limited and I'm guessing there are bishops out there who wake up and ask, how can I seek the conversion of the people in this city?

But the central question has turned to one of method, after discussing the definition of evangelism, and then its relation to liberation and politics and human rights.

§41 stipulates that "the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal." Again we note the personal-communal balance which Paul has so carefully preserved, quite explicitly, several times. And when I hear 'that nothing should destroy,' from over here in Dar al Islam, I think of martyrdom and physical persecution right away. It is simply a fact of life here for the Christian who is an active witness to non-Christians.

And then here we have a very quotable line:

"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."

Which seems prescient to me. He was writing in 1975 which one could say was during the shift or mutation from Modernism to post-modernism, and thus the primacy of personal experience over didactic teaching. Let us also recall that in Greek the words 'martyr' and 'witness' are the same.

But I must say that I have found a certain romanticism about persecution among Christians in the West. Everyone likes to quote Tertullian: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. In general it is true that there is a spiritual dynamic to the Kingdom of God which subverts or deconstructs the patterns of ordering of our age--"nostra aetate". But when one considers the desert of North Africa which was once home to a vibrant Christian community, or Asia Minor which is now the spiritual wasteland of Turkey, one must amend Tertullian (himself from North Africa):

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, except when Islam is involved.

Seven Stanzas at Easter

I always post this at Easter. I really love this poem:

Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Raymund Llull: First Missionary to the Moslems

The entire text to this book which I just quoted is available online. It is a quick read and very well-written. Very engaging book really. Lull is an awe-inspiring individual. Certainly one of my greatest heroes--now more than ever.

And did I mention it was written by Samuel Zwemer? Himself a father of Protestant missions to Muslims?!

Raymund Lull: First Missionary to the Moslems

Kierkegaard on God's Love

“God’s love is for me, both in a direct and inverse sense, incommensurable with the whole of reality.”

--Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

(HT to Fisher of Men)

Rob Bell: the gods aren't angry

Well, I recently was invited to hear Rob Bell in his "the gods aren't angry" tour.

My impression was overall quite favorable. He started by pointing out how human society developed gods and goddesses, and then explained the novelty of the story of the call of Abraham--that a god would speak to a human--then of the Abrahamic Covenant--this god used the stars as mere props!--and then of the five Levitical sacrifices. I mean, anyone who can make Leviticus into interesting material is pretty cool, and he did. He explained the novelty of the Levitical sacrifices: that you could make this sacrifice and know it had efficacy, as opposed to the pagan deities who always demanded more.

The stage had a large altar on it, with stairs going up to it and four horns.

(Now he talked for like an hour and forty minutes without notes or a script--that was pretty cool. I don't know many people who can do that.)

He then moved on to Jesus and his confrontation with the Temple authorities and how the early Christians reinterpreted Jesus' life and death and resurrection in light of the Temple--especially the author of Hebrews who throws out various tantalizing ideas: this is a better priesthood, a one-time sacrifice, the former was a mere shadow, and so on.

He emphasized very much these verses:

Col. 1:19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Col. 1:20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

I guess he was shooting for realized eschatology without actually saying that. But he emphasized that ALL THINGS have in fact already been reconciled to God. That the Christian life is a realization that all things are reconciled already.

Which leads to the question: well, why does it seem like things (especially humans) are still in rebellion against God? And that is a big question, one he does not even touch.

And then the major slip up of the night: he talked a little about rituals, and it just seemed a little too evangelical to me. He started out by saying "A good ritual is anything that helps you..." Stop right there, I thought. Are rituals really there to help me? There was a very individualistic slant to his teaching on rituals, no mention of the people around you. In fact several of the "good rituals" he mentioned could easily be done alone, like experiencing the beauty of nature.

But anyway, what do rituals help us do? They help us to realize that all things have already been reconciled to God through Christ. He also said that if a ritual made us feel guilty that it was bad--a throwback to the insatiable altar of the pre-Christian pagan gods. But isn't it conceivable that God wants us to feel guilty sometimes? Isn't a very biblical teaching that God uses our guilt and shame to guide us towards repentance and reconciliation with him through his Son? "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins," so isn't a sense of our guilt before God's holiness part of the very fabric of redemption weaved by the Spirit in our lives?

I mean, if he wanted to differentiate between good guilt and bad guilt or something like that, that's doable. But he didn't.

Finally, I'm not sure how one can start off by talking about themes like the altar, blood sacrifice, the Temple, Jesus and his ministry, and then NOT at least address the Lord's Supper. It doesn't take a Roman Catholic to see that all of these themes are very closely woven together. And since he was on the topic of the Temple and how that was understood in the light of Jesus, why no mention of the church? I seem to remember Paul making the point quite vividly:

Eph. 2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,
Eph. 2:20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
Eph. 2:21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
Eph. 2:22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Again, these topics are not foreign to evangelicalism. One does not betray his tradition by talking about the Eucharist and the church. So it was in the end disappointing that he failed to carry his thought process through all the way. He did explicitly cite the wonderful "sacrifice of praise" verse, which for him seems to be just having warm fuzzies of praise in your heart, or taking social action for the poor, as opposed to the very tangible act of eating bread and wine, which I think is how the Church Fathers understood it.

But like I said above, there was enough engaging material and he really did make some very good points and the time was enjoyable, not least because I was hanging out with good friends. (I wonder what the folks back in the Middle East would think about this kind of thing...)

Breaking the Ramadan fast with non-Muslims?

Someone asks this question: is it permitted for a Muslim to break the Ramadan fast (iftaar) with a non-Muslim? Here is the answer from Islam Q&A, which I find interesting:

Praise be to Allaah.

It is permissible to have iftaar with non-Muslims if there is a shar’i reason for doing so, such as calling them to the true religion, or softening their hearts towards Islam, etc, which are what is hoped for if they come and eat iftaar at the tables set up for communal iftaar, as happens in some countries. But if it is done just to be friendly towards them and enjoy their company, this is a dangerous matter, because the principle of al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ (befriending the believers and showing enmity towards the disbelievers) is one of the basic principles of Islam, and one of the most important duties of the believers. This principle is referred to in a number of verses in the Book of Allaah and ahaadeeth of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), for example:

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): [...] “O you who believe! Take not for Awliyaa’ (protectors or helpers or friends) disbelievers instead of believers. Do you wish to offer Allaah a manifest proof against yourselves?” [al-Nisa’ 4:144]

“O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as Awliyaa’ (friends, protectors, helpers), they are but Awliyaa’ of each other. And if any amongst you takes them (as Awliyaa’), then surely, he is one of them. Verily, Allaah guides not those people who are the Zaalimoon (polytheists and wrongdoers and unjust)” [al-Maa'idah 5:51]

In other words, the answer is that genuine friendship with non-Muslims is forbidden. Muslims can ACT like they are friends with non-Muslims to get them to convert to Islam or to gain some benefit for Islam.

Thank God that many Muslims don't actually obey this rule. But it is difficult to get around the prohibition of having non-Muslim friends in the Quran, which is quite clear.

Election

Found these points on the doctrine of Election and found them to bee deeply satisfying and fulfilling. What do you think?

--Election is corporate and concerns a holy people, a covenant community, and not primarily individuals.

--Election of the covenant community is accomplished through its connection to Christ via a sacramental and ecclesiological framework.

--Baptism is the means by which individuals enter the covenant community of the elect.

--Election of the covenant community entails God’s missionary efforts to redeem the remainder of humanity.

--The covenant community is an eschatological community which prefigures the age to come in the here and now.

--Election does not create a class of the elite but rather a class of servants.

--Any pre-creation acts of predestination, on the part of God toward his creatures, seems to entail his choice of a bride for his Son, and not of individuals into that bride.

--Foreknowledge seems to be the fore-loving of the covenant community rather than the fore-seeing of who would ultimately compose such a community.

--Salvation is dependent upon one’s continual perseverance in the body of Christ.

--Election is dependent on God’s faithfulness, and thus we have the best grounds upon which to make our calling and election sure.

"It's all quite embarrassing"

There is something beautiful in seeing Christian humility that is genuine. It reminds me of what TS Eliot said, "Humility is endless."

Mike Liccione, upon being asked, Why do you love Jesus? prefaced his answer (which you can read at his blog) like this:

I confess to some reluctance. For one thing, the theme reminds me that I am a sinner, which I am already reminded of rather more than I care to be. Thus, not only do I not love Jesus as much as he loves me, which is a given and inevitable; I don't even love myself as much as he loves me. In fact, I sometimes find myself questioning his judgment for loving me as much as he does; he's a fool for me, with a wisdom greater than I can fathom, let alone muster; and so the truth that I ought to love myself more—or at least more genuinely—than I do is an obligation I need him to help me meet. Then there's the all-too-evident fact that I don't love others as I ought, largely because I don't love him as I ought. It's all quite embarrassing, really.

Muhammad and his Wives

Interesting article at Anwsering Islam, which I have said several times is the gold standard of apologetics to Islam. It is about the Islamic teaching on multiple wives and proposes that not even Muhammad himself (the perfect man in Islam--tell me if that isn't idolatrous) was able to have a happy plural-marriage (or whatever it is called).

There is ample evidence in this article that he was not successful. The complete picture of Muhammad and his interactions with women is in fact deeply disturbing. I just want to post a short portion of the entire article which you can read here:

Aisha herself admitting that Muslim women suffered worse than any other women?

Narrated ‘Ikrima:
Rifa’a divorced his wife whereupon ‘AbdurRahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. 'Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her (‘Aisha) of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah’s Apostle came, ‘Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!" When ‘AbdurRahman heard that his wife had gone to the Prophet, he came with his two sons from another wife. She said, "By Allah! I have done no wrong to him but he is impotent and is as useless to me as this," holding and showing the fringe of her garment, ‘Abdur-Rahman said, "By Allah, O Allah’s Apostle! She has told a lie! I am very strong and can satisfy her but she is disobedient and wants to go back to Rifa’a." Allah’s Apostle said to her, "If that is your intention, then know that it is unlawful for you to remarry Rifa’a unless ‘Abdur-Rahman has had sexual intercourse with you." Then the Prophet saw two boys with ‘Abdur-Rahman and asked (him), "Are these your sons?" On that ‘AbdurRahman said, "Yes." The Prophet said, "You claim what you claim (i.e. that he is impotent)? But by Allah, these boys resemble him as a crow resembles a crow," (Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 72, Number 715)

Christian apologist and writer John Gilchrist does an excellent job of summing up Muhammad’s failure as a husband and role model:

Ayishah's frustrations and jealousies are the best proof that Muhammad could not treat his wives equally - if for no other reason that he did not regard her with the same total, undivided affection that she regarded him. She may have been his favourite wife but her grievances clearly were motivated, perhaps only subconsciously, by the fact that she was not his only wife. Paradoxically, the fact that Muhammad singled her out as his favourite wife is further proof that he did not treat his wives equally. There is more than enough evidence in Muhammad's own marital affairs to prove that polygamy cannot ultimately be reconciled with God's perfect purpose for human marriage. It is no wonder that the perfect revelation of his will through the Gospel of his Son simultaneously outlawed polygamy. Muhammad had enjoyed a twenty-five year marriage with Khadija which was, in all respects, unimpeachable. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for his many marriages at Medina and one can only sympathize with the young Ayishah who obviously regretted that she could not enjoy the same undivided devotion from her husband that she willingly offered to him… Far from the marriages of Muhammad being proof that he was the ideal husband (as Zain puts it), they rather are evidence of an inherent weakness in Islamic morality… Although monogamy has become the norm in many Muslim societies today, this trend is not to Islam's credit but is rather a sign of the consciousness of God’s real will for men and women and the best way in which a marriage can develop into a truly happy union. By taking to himself more than double the number of wives he allowed to his followers, Muhammad seems to have been something of a champion of polygamy rather than an advocate of monogamy and his tolerance of plural marriages, together with his schemes to rid himself of his personal enemies, negate his claim to be a true prophet of God. A Christian assessment of his character leaves him far short of the ideal - an ideal worked out to perfection in Jesus Christ - and the only conclusion to be drawn is that, despite his many qualities, he cannot be considered as the man God chose to be his best and final messenger to all mankind. That honour belongs to Jesus Christ alone. (Gilchrist, Muhammad and the Religion of Islam, A Study of Muhammad's Personality, C. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS MARRIAGES.)

Easter Sermon from Bp. Mouneer Anis

He is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Egypt, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. There is a dearth of good leadership in the Christian community in this region, but he is, in my view, one of the few excellent leaders among the Protestant/evangelical community. From Here.

Resurrection of Christ frees us from hatred

Today as we remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I would like to meditate on the words of Apostle Paul to the church in Rome;

‘For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’ Romans 6:5

These words are very difficult to understand. How can we unite with Christ in a death like his and how we can we unite with Him in his resurrection?

We learn from the history of ancient Egypt that when a Noble of the first Dynasty died, all of his slaves would be killed and buried with him so that they can serve him in his second life. Later on, this harsh custom stopped and the Ancient Egyptians were content to put small clay figures that represent the slaves in the grave where the Noble was buried. In addition they put the tools he used to use in his first life in the grave so that when he rose from the dead, he would use them in his second life.

That is difficult to accept and to practice as it is hard to believe that life after death will be exactly the same as life before. The Scripture teaches us that the concept of resurrection is different from that believed by the Ancient Egyptians. When we rise from the dead we rise in spiritual bodies that is different from our earthly ones. ‘It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body’ 1 Corinthians 15:44. ‘Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.’ 1 Corinthians 15:49. This is what Paul meant when he wrote the earlier verses that I mentioned above.

Paul then added ‘We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Romans 6:6-8

Here we understand that when we believe that Christ died for our sins on the cross and accept him Saviour and Redeemer for our lives, then our whole self with its sinful nature, would not control us. He gives us then, a new life and a new nature when the Holy Spirit indwells in us by faith.

One of the stories I heard, when the ship sank in the Red Sea last year, was of a father who carried his son on his back and swam until he was able to save him by throwing him into a life boat. After that the father himself sank to the bottom of the sea as he lost all his energy to hold on to the boat. The father drowned to save his son from death. The motive here was the love of the father for his son. If humans can love to that extent, how much more the love of God would be for his children?

The love of God in Jesus Christ moves us from death to life as John in his gospel wrote’ ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16. We may ask how Christ can give us eternal life and a new nature? How can he transfer us from death to life? I think the secret here is in the power of his resurrection. The power by which he overcomes death and has ascended to his heavenly glory once again.

Paul was longing to experience this power of resurrection when he said ‘that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death’ Philippians 3:10. Does this longing of Paul “that he may know him and the power of his resurrection’ is ours today. As we celebrate Easter, I hope that it is mine and yours.

To experience this power of resurrection we need to die with him. This means that we repent of our sins and take the most important decision of our lives which is to believe that he died for our sins on the cross. In this way we become crucified with him and we open our hearts to him. By faith we accept the gift of the Holy Spirit so we rise with him and take him as our Master. Then and only then, we experience the power of his resurrection and start by this power our journey towards eternity.

The experience of the power of his resurrection gives us the victory over ourselves. It frees us from the slavery of sin and leads us to the freedom of the children of God. It frees us from selfishness and hatred and leads us to the love of God and others. It is this power that freed the disciples from fear and sent them to witness for the love of God that was incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ.

At Easter we usually sing ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’. Are we going to sing this with our lips or from our hearts. ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’. Is it a song we sing or a song we lives

My beloved, Easter becomes real when we experience the power of the resurrection in our lives so let us put the goal for our lives the same as Paul’s, ‘that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering’