Mike Scruggs
There are some common characteristics between Christianity and Islam, but ironically they make substantial accommodation between these two worldviews impossible. One is that both religions are not just a set of rules and cultural traditions that are set aside six days a week. They are both total worldview religions encompassing all areas of life. But their respective worldviews are quite different. Another is that both religions are based on reputedly divine revelations of truth either in the Bible or the Koran. If you argue with a Christian about the truth of the Bible, your argument is with the Holy Spirit. If you argue with a Muslim about the Koran, your argument is with Allah and Muhammad.
Neither Christians nor Muslims can change what they both believe to be divine revelation. Yet the messages of the Bible and the Koran are quite different. It is a mistake to think that the God of the Bible and Allah are interchangeable words for the same deity. This is a frequent deceptive claim of Muslim propagandists, but to the Biblically informed Christian, it is very bad theology. Although the Koran mentions Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (Isa), there are immense and irreconcilable differences between the Isa of the Koran and the Jesus of the Bible. In addition, the Christian concept of the Divine Trinity is blasphemy in Islam. Furthermore, neither Biblical Christianity nor Islam is pluralistic. Biblical salvation is based on faith in Christ alone. There is no other name, way, or works that suffice. In Matthew 14:6, Jesus says:
“I am the way, the truth, and the Life, no one comes to the father except by me.”
Speaking of Jesus, Paul says in Acts 4: 12:
“And there is salvation in no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
A number of Biblical verses state this same defining doctrine in other words. Only apostates deny this doctrine. Similarly, to give allegiance to Muhammad as the Prophet of Allah is the only way to paradise in Islam. The routes to salvation in Christianity and Islam are mutually exclusive. Still further, Christianity is by Biblical command evangelical and hopeful of eventual evangelical success, and Islam is by Koranic command militantly expansive and driven to dominate all other belief systems.
The theological and cultural clash between Islam and Christianity is deep and irresolvable. In addition to that, we have the obsessive Muslim Judeophobia, some example of which appears in international news reports almost every day. Can’t we just get along and agree to disagree peaceably? The problem with Islam is Jihad. Its mainstream theology commands a resort to arms and coercion, when persuasion is insufficient to achieve its revolutionary goals.
When three U.S. Presidents describe Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, one can only wonder if they sincerely believe this in the light of many obvious and contrary imperatives in the Koran, the personal example and words of Muhammad, and the violent and coercive history of Muslim expansion. Not only is warfare constant along the borders of Islam with other cultures, intra-Muslim warfare between the major Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam is widespread and often brutal. Both Sunni and Shiite Muslims embrace and respect the concept of Jihad as holy war against all unbelievers. Their intra-Islam conflicts are often over political dominance within Middle Eastern states. Political leaders who endorse the counterfactual fantasy of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance demonstrate the unfortunate influence of misguided multiculturalism, theological pluralism, strident secularism, and Muslim Brotherhood propaganda.
One can only be sympathetic, however, with the diplomatic dilemma of Western leaders in regard to Islam. The United States and many Western countries are dependent on Middle Eastern oil. There are over five million Muslins in the United States, four million in Germany, five million in France, and perhaps as many in the United Kingdom. France’s refusal to aid the United States in the Iraq War was certainly influenced by the growing political power of North African Muslims in France. In addition, the influential Western media is more sympathetic to its misunderstanding of Islam than to Christianity. They prefer to believe the myth of Islamic peace and tolerance.
One can also be sympathetic to the Bush Doctrine that followed September 11, 2000. It was necessary to demonstrate that harboring, encouraging, supplying, and financing Muslim terrorists would be considered an act of war against the United States and would be met with speedy and painful retaliation. However, we can only wonder about the success of these endeavors and the success of Homeland Security as well, when we refuse even to recognize or name our enemy.
Terrorism is not our enemy. Terrorism is only a method of our enemy. We are involved in a very complex clash of civilizations. It is foolish to deny its obvious religious connections. It is also a serious mistake to believe that the terrorism results from a gross distortion of Islamic theology by a small radical minority, when its predominant roots are in the mainstream of traditional Koran-based Islamic theology that is in a cycle of resurgence.
The hope of modern liberalism is that Christianity and Islam can be made compatible by secularization, making Christianity nominal and Islam purely cultural. But this would sacrifice truth and integrity to multiculturalism and make the State god. Another secularist hope supported by constant propaganda is that Christian orthodoxy can be marginalized. That secularist driven multiculturalism has been relatively, if not totally successful in this, can be seen in the decline of firm Biblical doctrines in the Church and the rapid moral decline now so painfully evident in Western civilization.
Much is at stake in the proper understanding of Islam in the Western world. We must not allow ourselves to be anesthetized to the nature of Islam and multiculturalism by false platitudes and sentimental bromides. Truth is the only high ground.
