Bishop urges Christians to call God 'Allah'

[birdsong]

Contarni:Well, they obviously do not appear contradictory to Muslims. I wouldn’t know how to evaluate whether the contradictions in the Qur’an are more problematic, and I don’t really care. I see no reason to believe in the Qur’an and would see no reason even if it were entirely coherent internally.

The main issue , again, is that whether internally coherent or not, the teachings and examples of muhhamad that encourage violence against non-muslims, for example, are there for all to see. Your problem, of course, is that instead of encouraging good people disguised as muslims to separate from islam, you are telling them “yeah, it,s ok that you find the teachings of islam so distasteful and repulsive, it’s fine, you and the bin ladens of the world are all muslims”.

Extremely baffling argument, not to mention intellectually and morally dishonest, to say the least!

When have I said that we should not point out problems with Islam? Again, you argue with a position I have never expressed. However, by and large trying to convert people by pointing out logical problems in their religion is a superficial and pointless approach. If that is what you feel called to do, then more power to you.

And yet, you seem very content maintaining something along the lines of “yeah, it,s ok that you find the teachings of islam so distasteful and repulsive, it’s fine, you and the bin ladens of the world are all muslims”.

I just have to repeat myself: Extremely baffling argument, not to mention intellectually and morally dishonest, to say the least!

Certainly there are truths in Islam that are not in atheism, or even Hinduism. Islam has inspired many people to acts of goodness–and others to acts of evil. Neither set of facts can be justly or safely ignored

Islam superior to Hinduism and atheism? Wow, I am sure many people would disagree with you, but let us assume you are correct for the sake of argument. This obviously means that islam is NOT superior to Christnity, which, of course, means that the wolrd can live perfectly without islam, so there’s no point in not discouraging good people disguised as muslim to remain in islam. Point closed.

Now to your point: it is self-contradictory to make a theological critique of Islam from an Islamic perspective unless one is a Muslim. You cannot adopt an Islamic perspective simply for the sake of argument, because theology is not a set of logical propositions to be deduced from a premise. This is the basic fallacy into which you have fallen. Theology can only be done from within a tradition, not from outside it.

The point I have been making is that we can indeed make a theological critique of Islam from a Christian perspective (or whatever perspective the critic may be coming from). And we can make a historical analysis of whether certain contemporary Islamic beliefs are reasonable interpretations of what Muhammad is likely to have meant…

You are building the straw-man that I have argued from a theological perspective all the time Contarini. you are wrong! I am mainly interested in separating muslims from alleged muslim based on whether they follow muhhamad’s teachings as muhamad intended them to be! I am taking the historian’s perspective, in case you have not noticed! Of course I don’t believe that the angel Gabriel told muhhamad to recite verses that command the killing of unbelievers! I am just concerned that muhhamd said such words! This of course, gives me enough arguments to say with certainty that, people who maintain that muhhamd did not command to kill unbelievers are not muslims in the sense that they choose to ignore the fact that muhhamad said such words!

Are you able to grasp the difference, or do you want to continue building straw-man?

No, it’s not unreasonable. Think about Christian theology. Do you really think that non-Christians can be Christian theologians? Do you think that they can make judgments about what is or is not a valid development of the Christian tradition? If you do, then you have a terribly inadequate understanding of your own faith and of theology in general.

Of course not in the sense that they’d not be able to explain facts in the same manner! A chrsitain theologian would explain an empty tomb with the miracle of the resurrection, while a historian in Christianity, while accepting the fact that there was an empty tomb, would explain it in different ways with the exception of a miracle!

Likewise, a muslim theologian would explain muhhamad’s word by saying he received them from an angel, whereas a historian would describe them as simply the words of a man who wanted to kill those who did not believe him!

Can’t you see the difference??

oh, so you don’t want to continue our dialogue? How convenient!

No problem, but believe me Contarini, you have not heard the last from me!

 

[chucks]

Hi,
Here in Nigeria Allah is generally accepted as another name for God and among hausa Catholics the name Allah is freely used to call the name of God and it isalso used in the Eucharistic prayers.
God to me is far above the pettiness we try to ascribe to him. Let not the name he is given cause dissenssion

I support the Dutch Bishop

Chucks

 

[Booklover]

Hi,
Here in Nigeria Allah is generally accepted as another name for God and among hausa Catholics the name Allah is freely used to call the name of God and it isalso used in the Eucharistic prayers.
God to me is far above the pettiness we try to ascribe to him. Let not the name he is given cause dissenssion

I support the Dutch Bishop

Chucks

“Allah” is not the name for God used by Christians in Holland, so why should they make concessions to Islam by using that name??

Vickie

 

[Sixtus]

The Bishop is obviously preaching conciliation, that is commendable for Christ said: 'Blessed are the Peacemakers.

I think that we do not have to appease Islam but it would do no harm to find common ground between us. Far better we celebrate our similarities than fight over our differences.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Hello Gottle,
are we going to see Christiane Amanpour’s interview of you tomorrow night? Or didn’t you make the cut?

If I knew who she was, I could tell you

Not that those Christian leaders had an ulterior motive to convert Muslims, but have you never heard that when a missionary initiates an attempt to convert someone, he begins by discussing what his religion has in common with that of the person he is trying to convert before moving on the discuss what is different and superior about his own religion?

That wasn’t discussion - it was worship. Otherwise, I would agree with you.​

And if he is not successful in converting the person, at least good will and mutual understanding of some kind has been created.

Maybe.​

Can that be bad?

Perhaps not - but it is no replacement for missionary work; yet it seems now to be so important that that has evaporated. That means that dialogue, in principle a good, has become the enemy of missionary work, which is better. What has happened to evangelising the Jews & Orthodox ? Gone. What are Protestants - heathens ? This position does not make sense: as though Christ’s own People were to be deprived of the Gospel. Nothing could be crueller than that.​

Just because we recognize that there are truths that Islam shares with Christianity does not mean that we are accepting Islamic claims that we consider to be untrue, e.g that Jesus is merely a human prophet and nothing more. To recognize that, whatever else it teaches, Islam teaches moral values which Christianity also does and that there are Muslims who live moral lives following their faith as they understand it does not mean that we see Muhammad in the exact same way that Muslims do or that we see the Qur’an as being divinely inspired and equal to the Bible.

That does not explain why that happened in a Christian church. Anything that even looks evil is to be rejected, according to St.Paul.​

By sharing in the edification

If Baal-worship edified, would that make it right ? Or satanolatry ?​

that comes from singing the 99 Names (which say nothing about Jesus),

For an event in a cathedral dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is grim: He is cast out of His own church - Church, indeed.​

no one is trying to create a Muslim-Christian syncretism. Christian civilization absorbed the true and beautiful in Greco-Roman culture without diluting Christianity.

Those names in a Catholic Church are no different from a satanic mass: they are a rejection of the first two Commandments. If bishops cannot make these simple distinctions - why are they bishops ? Other bishops can - so why not they ?​

The parallel with Greco-Roman culture breaks down because the Church *rejected *the false gods - that is why there are martyrs from that period: they rejected the idolatry of the heathen, dying rather than seem to tolerate such things. The Church was not conciliatory - it was militant & intolerant. *Those *men were Catholics. Did St. Cyprian praise the goddess Tanit of Carthage ? Of course not. Did St. Augustine try to justify the idols of Rome ? No - he denounced them. St. Athanasius would have shed every drop of blood in his body a million times over, rather than adore false gods: he did not endure Arius. Would men so sensitive to heresy endure allah-worship in a Catholic church ? St. Edmund Campion & many more died a hideous death rather become Anglicans: but now see what is done: it is bad that even a High Church Eucharist should be offered in a Catholic church; Rome has rebuked intercommunion between us, & them. So how can allah-worship in a Catholic cathedral be tolerable ?

satan is kitted out as an angel of light - he’s not going to show the cloven hoof; that would ruin his purpose. Evil attracts us by its smiling face, not by scowling; it is no less evil. This looks, & sounds, like syncretism & idolatry (& other evils); how can it not destroy the faith of Catholics ?

…more…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…last bit of two…]

We agree on what we can agree on, we agree to disagree on what we can’t agree on.

We do not stop proclaiming that we believe our religion to possess the fullness of truth, but we recognize that there are truths that we share with other religions.

Like that of Mexico, perhaps - had the conquistadores not destroyed it, some bishop would be singing the praises of human sacrifice even now.​

That we have points in common, is no excuse for the equivocation upon which the CCC 841 is founded - itself taken from the Decree of V2 Nostra Aetate.

We let ourselves be guided by Teresa de Jesus’ counsel: "The important thing is not to think much but to love much…"

Our Holy Father of blessed memory, John Paul II never approached non-Catholics in any other way.

But - how can we know of the primacy of love in the Christian faith, if that very faith is perverted by those who should be most vigilant against all that tends to wreck it ? Yet that is what is happening. Santa Teresa had no love for Lutheranism - yet Luther was no Muslim; he was Christian. JP2 is the author of much of this evil - may God forgive him !​

If Santa Teresa had heard of a Catholic cathedral in which Muslim worship had happened, I don’t think she would have minced her words. The quotation is not relevant to anything that we are discussing, because it is no denial of the unbelievable wickedness of what has happened. It is often because people love the Church, & desire only its health & good & increase in all graces & godliness, that they denounce & abominate & deplore & lament what threatens to ruin it - & good intentions alone do not stop a ruinous idea being ruinous; any more than position in it is a protection against unwisdom or wickedness.

As for thinking - though love is much better even than intellectual brilliance (St. Paul is exceedingly clear on this, & on the primacy of love), not thinking would simply deliver us into the hands of syncretists & idolaters. And thinking is all that some of us are capable of. So we have to use our minds as best we can. And thinking about what has happened leads plenty of people to take a very dim view of what is happening in the Church to the Church.

Why is the lesser evil an evil, & the greater evil a good ? Again, this makes no sense. Though, as none of this does makes sense, why should that ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Fundamentally, there appears little difference between ‘Allah’ and ‘God the Father’. Not sure what all the fuss iz about

The God of Israel is a preparation for God in the NT - or rather, God in the NT can be seen, in hindsight, to have been prepared for by the God of Israel (who - reading the OT under one aspect - began as a tribal God (for Abraham) & underwent development thereafter, until one has the exclusive, ethical, monotheism of the prophet commonly called “Second Isaiah”, round about 538 BC & after.​

IOW, for Christians, the OT leads to the definitive, supreme, & eternal revelation of God in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

The god of the Koran occurs in a book alleged to be even better than the OT & NT - one which lets Jesus play a part, but, as subordinate to Mohammed; who reverses the teaching of Jesus on such matters as marriage, & forgiveness. The god of the Koran is a post-Incarnation version of a deity who is not going to be revealed in Jesus Christ - because that deity’s final & perfect revelation is the Koran itself.

It is though Christianity had developed backwards into the religion of Israel & Judah, then forwards again into some form of Judaism after the return from Exile; & had been finally perfected by the revelation of the OT/Tanakh - instead of in the Person, Life, & Works of Jesus Christ. Instead of a Person, mediated to sinful human persons by a Second Divine Person Who is made known in every age to the world’s end by a Third Divine Person, Islam gives us a book.

So the likenesses (such as they are) between the OT God & the god of the Koran are more seeming than real. ##

 

[nonsumd]

Talk about illiteracy. I was making the point that what you wrote here is illogical:

Muslims who do good believe they are following Muhammad’s teachings just as Christians who do good believe they are following Jesus’ teachings when they do good.

Muslims who commit evil often believe they are following Muhammad’s teaching. Christians who commit evil often believe they follow Jesus’ teaching when they commit evil.

You made the point that Muhammad was at war during his so-called prophet - why did you bring it up to contrast against Jesus? You said it was not justifiable - that is a bit short of calling him evil, isn’t it?

Personally, I believe that Jesus by His words and His life example stands apart from both Muhammad and the Old Testament Prophets.

Jesus was a man of non-violence because, according to our Christian belief, He was fighting the Devil to free humankind from the slavery of sin – that mission required a different type of “warfare” from what both Muhammad and the Old Testament Prophets believed God commanded them to pursue in order to create and defend the divinely ordained politico-religious community (in Muhammad’s case, the Islamic umma/“nation,” in the Old Testament Prophets’ cases, the People fo Israel).

Having said all that, I have to point out that this one-on-one comparison between Jesus and Muhammad of which many of you are so fond misses the basic fact that both Christians and Muslims have sought guidance in political life from a larger range of writings than just the words and deeds of Jesus and Muhammad respectively (not to mention from oral tradition and teaching authorities).

By the nature of His mission, Jesus gave Christians less specific instructions on and models of political conduct than Muhammad by the nature of his mission did. This has not stopped Christians from looking to the Old Testament and even to the language of New Testament books such as Revelation for justifications to wage war.

I can easily imagine (in fact I don’t have to imagine, I can just observe actual history to see) that Christians who have felt themselves to be facing aggression or oppression have invoked their own scriptures in order to justify violent resistance – just as many Muslims have done in history and still do today.

Anyone who looks at history or the contemporary situation and sees Christians only as victims and Muslims only as aggressors/oppressors and from that concludes that Christians are justified to commit violence while Muslims are not, anyone who thinks like that is simply not being objective and is being driven by partisan emotionalism.

Whenever I hear of some Muslims commiting atrocities against Christians somewhere in the world, I too am infuriated and feel the urge to vengeance, but I know I have to get beyond that immediate emotional response if I want to be part of the solution rather than of the problem.

Whatever we non-Muslims may think, many Muslims do see Muhammad as a model for how to be men of peace, interpreting the injunctions about warfare with infidels as pertaining only to specific historical situations in Muhammad’s time, just as, whatever non-Christians may think, many Christians do not take the Old Testament Prophets’ example or New Testament language such as “I have come not to bring peace but the sword” or imagery of the wars of the End Times as commands to wage war in the here and now.

 

[nonsumd]

The God of Israel is a preparation for God in the NT - or rather, God in the NT can be seen, in hindsight, to have been prepared for by the God of Israel (who - reading the OT under one aspect - began as a tribal God (for Abraham) & underwent development thereafter, until one has the exclusive, ethical, monotheism of the prophet commonly called “Second Isaiah”, round about 538 BC & after.​

IOW, for Christians, the OT leads to the definitive, supreme, & eternal revelation of God in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

The god of the Koran occurs in a book alleged to be even better than the OT & NT - one which lets Jesus play a part, but, as subordinate to Mohammed; who reverses the teaching of Jesus on such matters as marriage, & forgiveness. The god of the Koran is a post-Incarnation version of a deity who is not going to be revealed in Jesus Christ - because that deity’s final & perfect revelation is the Koran itself.

It is though Christianity had developed backwards into the religion of Israel & Judah, then forwards again into some form of Judaism after the return from Exile; & had been finally perfected by the revelation of the OT/Tanakh - instead of in the Person, Life, & Works of Jesus Christ. Instead of a Person, mediated to sinful human persons by a Second Divine Person Who is made known in every age to the world’s end by a Third Divine Person, Islam gives us a book.

So the likenesses (such as they are) between the OT God & the god of the Koran are more seeming than real. ##

So you are saying that both the Jews and the Muslims do not and cannot fully know God the Father because they do not accept Jesus as God the Son who reveals to us the true nature of God the Father?

If that is true, how does the One God that the Jews worship (as opposed to the Triune God Christians worship) differ substantively from the One God that the Muslims worship?

 

[nonsumd]

That was a very weird thing to say to Rodrigio. I don’t know if anyone else picked up on it but surely from a reasonable perspective it made you sound like somewhat of an elitist.

Not any weirder than what Rodrigo has been saying.

It is not elitism to point out the obvious, that someone who rants is a ranter. Rodrigo’s record speaks for itself - and posters were criticizing it long before I joined this forum.

He has even publicized his personal investment in these issues. I would no more take the word of someone who “has Muslim relatives” as definitive about Islam than I would take someone who “has Catholic relatives” as definitive about Catholicism? How different would that be from taking an ex-Muslim as an authority on Islam or an ex-Catholic as an authority about Catholicism?

 

[paarsurrey]

Having said all that, I have to point out that this one-on-one comparison between Jesus and Muhammad of which many of you are so fond misses the basic fact that both Christians and Muslims have sought guidance in political life from a larger range of writings than just the words and deeds of Jesus and Muhammad respectively (not to mention from oral tradition and teaching authorities).
By the nature of His mission, Jesus gave Christians less specific instructions on and models of political conduct than Muhammad by the nature of his mission did. This has not stopped Christians from looking to the Old Testament and even to the language of New Testament books such as Revelation for justifications to wage war.
I can easily imagine (in fact I don’t have to imagine, I can just observe actual history to see) that Christians who have felt themselves to be facing aggression or oppression have invoked their own scriptures in order to justify violent resistance – just as many Muslims have done in history and still do today.
Anyone who looks at history or the contemporary situation and sees Christians only as victims and Muslims only as aggressors/oppressors and from that concludes that Christians are justified to commit violence while Muslims are not, anyone who thinks like that is simply not being objective and is being driven by partisan emotionalism.

Whenever I hear of some Muslims commiting atrocities against Christians somewhere in the world, I too am infuriated and feel the urge to vengeance, but I know I have to get beyond that immediate emotional response if I want to be part of the solution rather than of the problem.
Whatever we non-Muslims may think, many Muslims do see Muhammad as a model for how to be men of peace, interpreting the injunctions about warfare with infidels as pertaining only to specific historical situations in Muhammad’s time, just as, whatever non-Christians may think, many Christians do not take the Old Testament Prophets’ example or New Testament language such as “I have come not to bring peace but the sword” or imagery of the wars of the End Times as commands to wage war in the here and now.

Hi

I agree with many points mentioned in your post. People like you are definitely a ray of hope, if this world is to be freed from revenge/hate mongering culture for accusations culture.
May GodAllahYHWH bless you for this positive approach!

I salute you.

Thanks

 

[nonsumd]

Hi paarsurrey,

thank you very much for the words of encouragement.

Following the teachings of my Church, I believe that, while the Catholic Church is the specific means ordained by God to bring his saving grace to humankind, God communicates His grace in many other ways, not the least of which are the other great religions. I know this because the great religions share many of the same ideas with Catholic Christianity and I can see all of them motivating individual human beings to live godly lives.

It would be great ingratitude to ignore the presence of God’s grace anywhere we can see it, ingratitude to His infinite generosity and mercy.

There are important differences. We do not understand God precisely in the same way – some of our ideas about God are strictly speaking incompatible.

But I think we can all agree that God loves peace, not war, that God wants us to be people of peace and not people of war. When any of us, Muslim, Christian, or neither, undertakes the use of force, we should ask ourselves whether it is really God commanding us or our selfish or self-centered interests driving us. How are we defining “self-defence”?

 

[paarsurrey]

Hi paarsurrey,
thank you very much for the words of encouragement.
Following the teachings of my Church, I believe that, while the Catholic Church is the specific means ordained by God to bring his saving grace to humankind, God communicates His grace in many other ways, not the least of which are the other great religions. I know this because the great religions share many of the same ideas with Catholic Christianity and I can see all of them motivating individual human beings to live godly lives.
It would be great ingratitude to ignore the presence of God’s grace anywhere we can see it, ingratitude to His infinite generosity and mercy.
There are important differences. We do not understand God precisely in the same way – some of our ideas about God are strictly speaking incompatible.
But I think we can all agree that God loves peace, not war, that God wants us to be people of peace and not people of war. When any of us, Muslim, Christian, or neither, undertakes the use of force, we should ask ourselves whether it is really God commanding us or our selfish or self-centered interests driving us. How are we defining “self-defence”?

Hi

I agree with most of the contents of you post.

May GodAllahYHWH bless you and help you with your peaceful endeavors.

Thanks