Syncretistic prayers with Muslims... any advice?

[rinnie]

Of course rinnie. Do you think they live in a vacuum? The truth is apparent in the OT. That same truth is reinforced in the NT. It is further reinforced through the Sacred Tradition and the Holy Fathers…and they consciously and knowingly reject that truth…the truth of Jesus Christ.

Oh my goodness Mickey, Please get into reality. If a Muslim gets caught with the bible in their home they are killed!!

Alone have someone with the Authority to interpret the word of God to TEACH them.

 

[Mickey]

“3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”

This is interesting because:

1. It does not say that Islam worships the God of Abraham. It says that Islam takes pleasure in linking itself to the God of Abraham.
2. It states that they do not acknowledge Christ…therefore…their god cannot be the God of Abraham…unless the Catholic Church is saying that the God of Abraham is without Christ!

 

[jam070406]

Oh my goodness Mickey, Please get into reality. If a Muslim gets caught with the bible in their home they are killed!!

Alone have someone with the Authority to interpret the word of God to TEACH them.

Why would the one true God want those who read His Word killed?

 

[jam070406]

This is interesting because:

1. It does not say that Islam worships the God of Abraham. It says that Islam takes pleasure in linking itself to the God of Abraham.
2. It states that they do not acknowledge Christ…therefore…their god cannot be the God of Abraham…unless the Catholic Church is saying that the God of Abraham is without Christ!

Are the 5 pillars his inscrutible decrees? What is that???
Is traveling to Mecca before you die to bow before the big black box a requirement of the one true God?

 

[Mickey]

Okay Mickey then as I asked you earlier, show me where you have the authority to teach in the name of Christ

Please stop being silly. I take great pleasure in relaying important teachings in the name of our Lord.

So then if a Muslim denies the Trinity and says NO WAY what is the difference?

I can’t believe you asked that question.

Do you get my Point?

No.

You have no authority to teach

Really?

 

[rinnie]

Why would the one true God want those who read His Word killed?

What are you talking about, the ones who do not want the One true Word of God read is not God. Its the radical Islams for goodness sakes, Where did I EVER say they were God. Wow!

 

[Mickey]

If a Muslim gets caught with the bible in their home they are killed!!

Some of them…yes…now you are starting to understand.

 

[rinnie]

Please stop being silly. I take great pleasure in relaying important teachings in the name of our Lord.
I can’t believe you asked that question.
No.
Really?

And where do you get those teaching’s Mickey? From the Church. The bible says we have no authority to teach, only the Church can.

 

[jam070406]

What are you talking about, the ones who do not want the One true Word of God read is not God. Its the radical Islams for goodness sakes, Where did I EVER say they were God. Wow!

According to you, those are followers of the one true God.

 

[rinnie]

No Mickey I think I can ask the question. Because to me as a Roman Catholic, I cannot understand how Christ can be denied in the Eucharist any more then I can understand how he can be denied in the Trinity.

But the fact remains that he is denied in the Eucharist by Christians.

 

[couponfit]

Hello everyone,

A case has come to my attention recently of a Catholic community here in Jerusalem that prays together with Muslims.

Does anyone know of a Magisterial document that says that this is wrong so that we could take action and write to the superior of the community?

thanks in advance,

Ariel
Catholics for Israel
www.catholicsforisrael.com
catholicsforisrael.blogspot.com/

I have responded to your question referring to Nostra Aetate. I mentioned the clear distinction of the word Syncretistic would imply merging and would not be allowed. But in every response I have made to this question to you an other comments I have not addressed the issue from a Muslim perspective. I am enclosing some links to give you a view of how interfaith prayer with Catholics impacts on individual muslims who attend. While there are Catholics who criticize interfaith prayer regardless of the Popes efforts, publications in Pro Dialogo, and the Declaration of Nostra Aetate there are also Muslims who disagree as well. The intention here is to show how such an assembly of interfaith prayer affects those who attend such prayer. Some articles also show the criticism and misunderstanding muslims face for praying with Catholics. So far in this question we have been asking whether we should pray with Muslims, but the other question is whether Muslims should pray with Catholics.

soundlyjewish.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=222&Itemid=56

tandemproject.com/issue_statements/statements/2010/101910_issue.htm

youtube.com/watch?v=dBXJJlEqslc

 

[Mickey]

The bible says we have no authority to teach

Nonsense.

 

[passer_by]

WHere was the question asked if they FOLLOW the true word of God? I never saw that questioned addressed. The question was do they PRAY to the ONE TRUE GOD, the GOD of Abraham and the answer taught by our CCC is Yes.

As I stated earlier if we can only pray with those who have the Fullness of the Truth, then we have many problems in this world.

Catholics and Protestants disagree on many things. As I mentioned in my eyes is there really a big difference in denying Christ in the Eucharist as denying him in the 3 persons of the Trinity. I don’t think so, Are they both a denial of Christ.

The fullness of the truth reveals that Christ is indeed the living bread from heaven and the Living Eucharist, and is indeed the 2nd person in the Trinity.

So to the point why can I pray with a Christian who accepts Christ as the 2nd person in the Trinity, but who deny’s him in the Eucharist. But then NOT be able to pray with a person who deny’s him in the Trinity, but accepts the One True God of Abraham.

Why the double standard here then. Do not both in thier own way deny Christ in a sense, according to the CC?

There is a difference between denial and fabrication. This is why the earlier comparison of Muslims and Jews was a failure.

The Jews believe in actual Divine Revelation, they just don’t accept the entirety of it. But what they believe as Divine Revelation is actually true.

The Muslims believe in the Koran as Divine Revelation which is at best a fabrication. They believe in the God as revealed through the Koran.

I don’t know about you, but the basis of Christianity is that we can only KNOW specifics God through Divine Revelation. In other words, God has to reach down to us. In that sense, the God of Christianity, the God we know, is the one true God because we actually follow Divine Revelation.

The Muslim God is some non-existent entity because God did not reveal him-self through the Koran.

Now you might say when they pray, it is the One true God that listens to them. But this can be said about every pagan God, Gods and Goddesses i.e. Hinduism to Zoroastrianism. One just say that they all just have distorted views of God but in essence they are following there natural knowledge to worship a transcendent being.

So I really don’t see your logic.

The only reason prayer is allowed with non-Christians is for Ecumenical reasons. It has never been due to a recognition that they also follow the one True God.

 

[couponfit]

I agree, I have been stressing this point throughout this thread it keeps getting lost.

We have both said numerous times that although we do not agree that Muslims have the fullness of the truth, the truth we do agree on is the God Of Abraham. Do Muslims proclaim to have the same God as us, the God of Abraham and according to our Church teaching the answer is yes.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

But this isn’t true. It has always been taught. You can find plenty of harsh things said by Christians about Muslims, but the only place where you can find Christians saying that Muslims worship a false god is in medieval Byzantium, and that was based on a mistranslation of the Qur’an into Greek, which led Byzantine theologians to think that Muslims worshiped a solid metal sphere.

To say that Muslims worship a false god is to make nonsense of classical Christian monotheism. It reduces the New Testament, the Fathers, and the scholastics (not that you care about the last, but RCs do) to gibberish.

No, nothing of the sort is admitted. The God Muslims worship is certainly Triune.

Muslims just don’t recognize this fact about the God we all worship.

Now if you want to argue that they don’t “know God” in a salvific sense, that’s a different issue. Obviously I stand with Vatican II in taking a more generous view even there, but I grant that this is a bit iffier in terms of the Tradition (though it has some precedent).

Thank you!

You’ve identified what we’ve left undiscussed so far: the philosophical ramifications of the very belief system of monotheism. If there aren’t many superhuman beings known as ‘gods,’ but truly only one Supreme Being who is also totally transcendent… then the idea of “whether they worship the true God or not” becomes nonsensical… there are no false gods, and if there were (Zeus, Thor, whoever…), those creatures aren’t really divine in the philosophical sense or Jewish sense anyway: they are non-transcendent through and through, subject to all sorts of earthly desires and limitations, and they have a beginning in time.

Once you acknowledge the possibility of a One True Transcendent God in the Jewish sense, even if you don’t know Him salvifically, there’s just no more logically tenable possibility of your god being “a false god” … it’s now a matter of basic definition.

You accused me of dismissing a council. Which is false. Apology please.

Ok, not only did you not apologize for insulting me before but you ramped up the insults by accusing me of lying. Please point to where I am not allowed to interpret the documents in light of Tradition and previous Teachings? But DO NOT accuse me of lying.

I’m sorry you’re mad, but it remains incontrovertibly true nonetheless that what you claim this passage of Lumen Gentium teaches is just not compatible with what can be validly conveyed by the actual words therein. For instance:

Upon conversion, yes. Otherwise those that reject Jesus are no different then those in John 8:44.

The document doesn’t say that. You have inserted that condition, when the teaching of the document makes this claim *unconditionally *rather than conditionally. Please. Just look at what it says. Twisting it so much to fit one’s position is just sad; it’s pitiful… please look at the relevant paragraph which I quoted in full, from the Vatican’s own website. You will not find in its words nor its context the conditions you have added and seem to be claiming are taught.

What falsehood? That Muslims reject Jesus!?

No, the falsehood that the Church does not teach that Christians and Muslims have the same God.

I will repost the quote from the Church’s teachings in Lumen Gentium:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

The antecedent of “these” is self-evidently the phrase “those who acknowledge the Creator.” Thus the document asserts “among [those who acknowledge the Creator] there are the Mohammedans.”

Sorry that you don’t like that the Church says so.

Of course they don’t think God is Triune. I think they are wrong. Why does this simple way of looking at the matter not commend itself to you?

Edwin, I’m starting to think they’re incapable of understanding that way of looking at it. They literally do not understand that position, no matter how clearly you (and others) explain it.

Every time they point out God commanding nasty things in the Qur’an, or teaching that He has no Son, or things like that, they think they’ve proved that our God and theirs cannot possibly the same. For some reason they seem incapable of understanding that it can be the same God, and that the Qur’an is simply dead wrong on those counts.

Anyone who approaches this matter from the “whose god is whose/whose god is right” perspective is doing so from an intellectually primitive perspective philosophically wedded to early western polytheism. In truth, there is only one God.

If you believed in all the doctrines of the Nicene Creed, but ascribed approval of Nazi genocide to that God, then yes, I would say that you believe something horribly wrong about the true God rather than that you believe in a false god altogether.

Precisely.

 

[rinnie]

Nonsense.

Nonsense Mickey really?

113 CCC Read the scripture within the living Tradition of the whole church. According to the Fathers SS …and it is the Holy Spirit who gives HER the spiritual INTERPRETATION of the scripture.

 

[rinnie]

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[rinnie]

There is a difference between denial and fabrication. This is why the earlier comparison of Muslims and Jews was a failure.

The Jews believe in actual Divine Revelation, they just don’t accept the entirety of it. But what they believe as Divine Revelation is actually true.

The Muslims believe in the Koran as Divine Revelation which is at best a fabrication. They believe in the God as revealed through the Koran.

I don’t know about you, but the basis of Christianity is that we can only KNOW specifics God through Divine Revelation. In other words, God has to reach down to us. In that sense, the God of Christianity, the God we know, is the one true God because we actually follow Divine Revelation.

The Muslim God is some non-existent entity because God did not reveal him-self through the Koran.

Now you might say when they pray, it is the One true God that listens to them. But this can be said about every pagan God, Gods and Goddesses i.e. Hinduism to Zoroastrianism. One just say that they all just have distorted views of God but in essence they are following there natural knowledge to worship a transcendent being.

So I really don’t see your logic.

The only reason prayer is allowed with non-Christians is for Ecumenical reasons. It has never been due to a recognition that they also follow the one True God.

No it can’t. Abrahamic Religions are Monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham.

The 3 Abrahamic Religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

 

[rinnie]

According to you, those are followers of the one true God.

Post 380.

 

[jam070406]

Thank you!

You’ve identified what we’ve left undiscussed so far: the philosophical ramifications of the very belief system of monotheism. If there aren’t many superhuman beings known as ‘gods,’ but truly only one Supreme Being who is also totally transcendent… then the idea of “whether they worship the true God or not” becomes nonsensical… there are no false gods, and if there were (Zeus, Thor, whoever…), those creatures aren’t really divine in the philosophical sense or Jewish sense anyway: they are non-transcendent through and through, subject to all sorts of earthly desires and limitations, and they have a beginning in time.

Once you acknowledge the possibility of a One True Transcendent God in the Jewish sense, even if you don’t know Him salvifically, there’s just no more logically tenable possibility of your god being “a false god” … it’s now a matter of basic definition.

I’m sorry you’re mad, but it remains incontrovertibly true nonetheless that what you claim this passage of Lumen Gentium teaches is just not compatible with what can be validly conveyed by the actual words therein. For instance:

The document doesn’t say that. You have inserted that condition, when the teaching of the document makes this claim *unconditionally *rather than conditionally. Please. Just look at what it says. Twisting it so much to fit one’s position is just sad; it’s pitiful… please look at the relevant paragraph which I quoted in full, from the Vatican’s own website. You will not find in its words nor its context the conditions you have added and seem to be claiming are taught.

No, the falsehood that the Church does not teach that Christians and Muslims have the same God.

I will repost the quote from the Church’s teachings in Lumen Gentium:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

The antecedent of “these” is self-evidently the phrase “those who acknowledge the Creator.” Thus the document asserts “among [those who acknowledge the Creator] there are the Mohammedans.”

Sorry that you don’t like that the Church says so.

Edwin, I’m starting to think they’re incapable of understanding that way of looking at it. They literally do not understand that position, no matter how clearly you (and others) explain it.

Every time they point out God commanding nasty things in the Qur’an, or teaching that He has no Son, or things like that, they think they’ve proved that our God and theirs cannot possibly the same. For some reason they seem incapable of understanding that it can be the same God, and that the Qur’an is simply dead wrong on those counts.

Anyone who approaches this matter from the “whose god is whose/whose god is right” perspective is doing so from an intellectually primitive perspective philosophically wedded to early western polytheism. In truth, there is only one God.

Precisely.

Again,
Muslims do not know the Creator, Jesus Christ.
Nostra Aetate affirms this by stating Muslims believe the Creator is “one god living and subsisting in himself”
This is not the same God, the Creator, whom is 3 persons subsisting in one Godhead.
It goes on to say that they try to profess that this “one god living and subsisting in himself” is the God of Abraham. It is not. The God of Abraham is the Holy Trinity. Jesus said, “Before Abraham I I Am”
Furthermore, if you read the footnote of section 5 from Nostra Aetate you will realize it is a Pope admonishing a Muslim leader that those lacking love do not know the Father. Ie: Muslims.