Explaining Catholicism to a Muslim

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DevotedChild

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What would be the best way to explain God and Catholicism to a Muslim?
 
I suggest you get the Beginning Apologetics series if workbooks by Frank Chacon and Jim Burnham. The series is a structured approach to teaching you how to evangelize and one of the books in the series is specific to Muslims. But the foundational workbooks sbould come first.

You can get them on Amazon.
 
DevotedChild said:
What would be the best way to explain God and Catholicism to a Muslim?
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This is the ‘blurb’ that accompanies ‘Beginning Apologetics 9: How to Answer Muslims’:

‘Catholics should understand that Islam today poses a challenge to the Church that is perhaps the most serious threat it has ever faced. A galvanized, confident, rapidly expanding Islamic world confronts an exhausted, indecisive, rapidly declining secular West.

‘Catholics have a duty to meet the challenge of Islam. We need to know our own faith well so we can show our Muslim brothers that the Catholic Church, not Islam, is the true fulfillment of Abraham’s prophetic line.

‘Beginning Apologetics 9’ examines Islam’s major beliefs, and shows how to charitably refute them using Christian teaching - the Scriptures, history, and, of course, common sense.’

‘Catholics should understand that Islam today poses a challenge to the Church that is perhaps the most serious threat it has ever faced.’

No. The greatest challenge faced by the Church today is indifference.

‘We need to know our own faith well….’

Indeed. And if you wish to ‘explain God’ to Muslims it would help to understand how they perceive Him, and why.

‘Beginning Apologetics 9’ examines Islam’s major beliefs, and shows how to charitably refute them using Christian teaching - the Scriptures, history, and, of course, common sense.’

Which implies that Muslims are idiots to believe as they do!

Several decades ago (I was a Catholic for over forty years) I read a blurb that accompanied an Evangelical Protestant training course. It said: ‘When a Catholic tells you that he is a Christian, do not contradict him immediately, instead, use the Scriptures to gently persuade him that he is wrong!’

Guaranteed to win a Catholic’s ear!

Practise on me, if you like.

Have a great day.
 
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Start by telling them that no matter how big the differences seem to be, in the end all differences are reconcilable except one: the crucifixion. This is really the only real point of contention between Muslims and Christians, with muslims generally believing that Jesus was not actually crucified. (But note that there are minority views among muslims who do believe it.)

This is the real difference between a true Christian and a Muslim: can you accept that the God-man ended up getting executed like a lowly criminal, by secular authorities, at the request of fanatics of his own religion? Is the world really that rotten? It’s hard to swallow. But that’s what Christians accept, and (most) Muslims don’t.
 
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Exchanging angel names is the best start. We both have Michael and Gabriel. We also both have Jesus, who is also in the Quran.
 
The best way by far to explain God and Catholicism to a Muslim is to turn to the Quran. You just have to ask them: According to the Quran, who is Jesus? They probably have never looked into the answer, but if you look in the Quran, Jesus is called the Word of God, the Messiah, God’s Messenger, was given the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, performed miracles, raised the dead, etc. None of this is said of Mohamed in the Q. Jesus is mentioned 26 times, Mary is mentioned 26 times, but Mohamed is only mentioned 4 times in the Quran. The Quran gives no details about Mohamed. No lineage, no miracles, etc. but many details of Jesus and Mary. Mary is the only woman mentioned by name, says she was ever virgin, without sin, taken to heaven, etc. It mentions her lineage and Jesus’ lineage.

The titles of the chapters of the Q clearly talk about Christian teachings, including “The Cow” (named after the yellow heifer of the OT, a prophecy of Jesus, Heb 9), the Family of Johakim (ie Mary’s dad), The Table (because it talks on the Eucharistic Banquet), Purgatory (mentions a place between heaven and hell), The Cave (about the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus), The Byzantine Romans (how the Christian Byzantines will rise again after losing to the Persians).

The Quran was originally a Catholic Liturgical Book, and many of those details still remain. I have an upcoming article on this with more details, but for now here is an older article that gets at this:

 
Depends on the Muslim. Are they Shia or Sunni? Are the from somewhere with a large Christian population? Someone who is Muslim, that does not know very many Christians probably isn’t going to be very receptive to Christianity. HOWEVER, ask them what they would like to know about Catholicism, and what questions they have.
 
Since your desire is to best explain God and Catholicism to Muslims, try introducing them to ‘CATHOLICISM Pure and Simple’ by Fr Dwight Longenecker; and ‘The Catholic Catechism: A Contemporary Catechism of the Teachings of the Catholic Church.’ By Fr John Hardon, SJ.
 
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