Sorry, But I am Not Buying Into Chrislam

Chrislam, as the name suggests, is a growing movement wherein some Christians are seeking to find common ground with Muslims. Indeed, it actually seeks to combine Christianity with Islam. It is a syncretistic movement that speaks about “spirituality without boundaries”. Whenever you hear that sort of talk, you should start heading for the hills.

Yet that is what we find in some leftist evangelical Christian circles today. Incredibly, it took place last year at the National Prayer Breakfast in Canberra. I wrote that episode up in several articles at the time:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/11/10/islam-and-fifth-columns/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/11/04/truth-and-tolerance-christianity-and-islam/

But a number of leading American religious leftists are also pushing this cause in varying degrees. For example, Tony Campolo has argued that “interfaith prayers and even mystical unions are critical for all true peacemakers”. And given that a leftist vision of “social justice” seems to be the most important agenda item for Campolo, it is not surprising that he can praise Islam in these terms: “When it comes to what is ultimately important, the Muslim community’s sense of commitment to the poor is exactly in tune with where Jesus is in the 25th chapter of Matthew.”

More recently emerging church movement leader Brian McLaren has written a five-part blog entry on why Christians should join with Muslims in celebrating Ramadan. In it he said, “We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honouring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighbourliness.”

Once again the emphasis is on getting along, harmony and unity. Fine – to a point. But both these faiths are ultimately evangelistic, exclusive, and mutually incompatible. The heart of the Christian truth claim is that Jesus is God’s son, and he has come to save us from our sins. Islam claims that it is blasphemous to say God has a son.

So how far can two faiths get along when they are at heart directly opposed to each other? And the worrying thing about the McLaren posts is nowhere does he once mention that we in fact should be evangelising our Muslim friends, or praying for their conversion. This is really quite bizarre and worrying.

Of course all Christians should be in favour of making friends with Muslims, building bridges with them, and seeking to get close to them – but for the purpose of sharing with them the good news of Jesus Christ. If we simply aim for a warm and fuzzy ecumenical unity, where biblical truth is watered down or ignored altogether, then we are doing no one a favour, whether ourselves or Muslims.

Joel Richardson has recently written up this story, and is worth quoting from here. He rightly notes that Christians often are involved in concentrated campaigns of prayer for Muslims during their holy month. Many have joined in on these 30-days of prayer and fasting for their Muslim friends.

But what about this interfaith initiative? Is it really what Christians should be involved in? Asks Richardson, “But does such an interreligious observance go beyond mere ‘neighborliness’ and cross the line of religious compromise and syncretism? Does observing the religious holy month of Ramadan create the impression of an endorsement of Islam?”

He continues, “McLaren, a leading voice in the growing left-wing Christian movement, wants everyone to know that he has not converted to Islam, but is a ‘deeply committed Christian.’ But McLaren is not fasting for the salvation of his Muslim friends. Instead he is seeking through the practice of this Islamic ritual to promote ‘the common good, together with people of other faith traditions’.”

While the motivations of McLaren and others might be good, we need to ask some hard questions: “Although McLaren has said that he and his followers ‘will seek to avoid being disrespectful or unfaithful to our own faith tradition in our desire to be respectful to the faith tradition of our friends,’ some have expressed that the very act of observing a Muslim religious season is itself highly unorthodox and contrary to historical Christian practice. While loving and befriending others is paramount to the Christian faith, the Bible is clear that Christians are to avoid actually participating in their religious ceremonies: ‘Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?’ (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)”

Indeed, just how does the Christian gospel fare in all of this? “What is also so concerning to observers of the growing emergent Christian movement is its tendencies to rarely express the Christian gospel while loudly and often proclaiming either a classic humanist message or outright religious pluralism. McLaren and other emergent leaders are often heard expressing the need to de-emphasize ‘doctrinal barriers’ between various religions including Christianity and Islam.”

And Chrislam is not mere theory. It is a burgeoning movement in various places around the world, and liberal denominations are already starting to lap it up. Richardson mentions the story of Episcopal priestess Rev. Anne Holmes who announced in 2007 that she had become a Christian-Muslim. The story back then was reported this way:

“A Seattle priest has become a Muslim while also retaining her clergy status in the Episcopal Church. Her local bishop has described the development as ‘exciting.’ ‘I look through Jesus and I see Allah,’ explained the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding to the ‘Seattle Times,’ which reported that Redding puts on her Islamic headscarf on Fridays and her clerical collar on Sundays. … she still sees Jesus as her Savior, even if not divine, and plans to remain both a priest and an Episcopalian. Bishop Vincent Warner of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia told the Seattle Times that Redding’s embrace of Islam has not been controversial in his diocese.”

That is as good of a summation of where theological liberalism and the interfaith movement are taking us as you will find. In the end it is really an anti-Christ activity, despite any benign motivations. Any movement that takes people away from Christ as Lord and Saviour is a movement which is not coming from God. Christians need to be very careful indeed about getting on board such initiatives.

As I wrote in a comment last year, “Christians in the interfaith movement tend to engage in at least three unhelpful activities. One, they tend to downplay and minimise the exclusive truth claims of Biblical Christianity. Two, they tend to downplay and minimise the horrendous Muslim persecution and dhimmitude of Christians all around the world (while there is no equivalent Christian persecution and dhimmitude of Muslims). Three, they tend to fail in the most important calling of Christians: to evangelise and disciple all nations.”

For all the talk of harmony, unity and friendship, the Chrislam movement is a move in the wrong direction. I for one will have nothing to do with it, and I hope that all serious followers of Jesus Christ avoid it like the plague as well.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107812

[1162 words]

33 Replies to “Sorry, But I am Not Buying Into Chrislam”

  1. Good comment, Bill.
    I have no problem with dialogue per se. But I think we have lost sight, as you suggest, of the purpose of dialogue.
    In the first instance, honesty and charity demand that we do not cover our differences but acknowledge them. To do otherwise is disingenuous and an insult.
    Yes, true dialogue is about gaining understanding – but not as an end in itself – as the true beginning of coming to a relationship where the ligth of Christ can shine!
    Paul Russell

  2. Thanks Bill. Yes there’s a big difference between seeking dialogue and holding to the truth of the gosel, and Chrislam which could never be compatible. I couldn’t imagine this would be acceptable to those in the muslim faith either?
    I think in an effort to love their neighbours some Christians miss the point.
    Scott Haas

  3. A good and thoughtful comment Bill. Both Paul Russell and Scott Haas have got it right when they say that the truth of the Gospel, honesty and charity must not be compromised in dialogue with Islam. Syncretism is not loving our neighbours but rather misleading them and fooling ourselves.
    John McCarthy

  4. While I abhor this movement (it is, as has been pointed out, a compromise and dilution of the Christian gospel) I would be interested to hear of any Muslims who have taken the same approach as that of Rev Ann Holmes.

    I would doubt that such an idea would even take root in the Islamic faith. And if true, that says something about this whole shebang in and of itself, don’t you think?

    Mathew Hamilton, Victoria

  5. Thanks Bill.
    This report of yours is disturbing in all sorts of ways, and what I have to say here you may consider intemperate and ‘over the top’, but here goes anyway:
    1. When one reads the history of Muhammad as told by any objective biographer/historian one can only be repelled by what emerges. He was nothing but a self-styled mystic, claiming to have received ‘revelations’ of God through the angel Gabriel. Then later, in his Medinan phase he became a common bandit-cum-warlord, responsible for the murders of hundreds, even thousands. And we are supposed to accept his claims to special revelation, treat him as a valid prophet, and honour/emulate his example as the highest of virtue?? No way!! I say not “Peace be upon him” as any Muslim does when repeating his name, but “God’s curse be upon him”!
    2. A “Leftist evangelical” who engages in serious dialogue to pool insights is not an evangelical in any sense of the word. This is an oxymoron if ever there was one. What does the Lord say, “I am Yahweh; that is My name. My glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.” (Isa. 42:8) Lest it be objected that Islam is not idolatrous, that Islam rejects it outright, I say that is blatantly false. Every devout Muslim commits idolatry five times a day when he prays and genuflects to a rock (the Qa’aba stone) in Mecca!
    An evangelical will preach the gospel to a Muslim, and invite him to faith in Christ, but in order to do this he will explain that Christ is the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is worshipped and glorified.
    3. The Qur’an says clearly that he commits blasphemy who asserts that God has a son (I can’t remember the sura and verse). This is written on the Dome on the Rock in Jerusalem (in Arabic), Islam’s third holiest shrine. How on earth can any sincere Christian compromise on that issue, especially when Christ Himself said that such a confession (i.e. that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God) was the foundation on which He would build His church (Matt.16:18)?

    What we have here is the demise of evangelical Christianity, not a variation thereof. These people you mention are not evangelicals at all; they are at best liberals or broad churchmen, with a pietistic streak.

    Murray Adamthwaite

  6. Excellent commentary, Bill.

    Unfortunately syncretism is found to be practiced by many Christians who are unaware of its dangers.
    In Catholicism, syncretism has been used to blend local folk-religions with aspects of Christianity, particularly in Haiti, Central and South America and in Asia. The ‘reward’ is more Catholic converts. But are they truly Christian? They are usually truly ignorant, and do need the light of the Word to set them free.

    Freemasonry only seems credible to some because there is a Bible in most ‘temples.’

    However, one of the most blasphemous things a man can do is when the supplicant curses himself and his family to four generations, and ends up devoting his ‘works’ to Jahbulon (an unholy trinity which as inducement includes one of the names of God, Jah or Yah married to Baal and On).See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahbulon

    Most Christian Freemasons won’t learn this from their friendly syncretistic pastor/rector/priest (who may have been the one who nominated them).

    Michael Evans

  7. Why does Brian McLaren want to join Muslims in Ramadan – We have our own time to fast and pray and it is called Lent.
    Jane Petridge

  8. Bill,
    Great and thoughtful article.

    I am constantly surprised that Jews and Christians choose to join together in interfaith with Muslims under the “Abrahamic” banner, given that Judeo-Christian ethics are diametrically opposed to Islamic ethics, which mandate that non-Muslims must be subjugated and are inferior.

    For me as a Jewish person, Ramadan marks the time when Mohammed tried to usurp Jewish fasting customs in Medina in order to persuade Jews to follow his new “religion.” We all know about the wholesale slaughter that ensued with their refusal.

    So why would anyone who obeyed the Ten Commandments want to join with an ideology which mandates servitude or death for infidels?

    Pam Renton

  9. Pam, it is not that they obey the Ten Commandments – these days people don’t even know that there are anything like that.

    Christianity has been so debased in the (general) public’s mind that even many christians don’t have a clue.

    The fact that a so-called evangelical leader sees nothing wrong in recognising muslim rituals demonstrates that.

    Debra Franklin

  10. What is being expresssed, in the acceptance/rejection of Jesus’s divinity, has been put thus: that Islam and Christianity are mutually blasphemous. I distinguish firmly between Inter-faithism (co-operation between different faith groups to foster good relations, and peaceful communities), abd Multi-faithism, which is the blending together of theological ideas, or syncretism – and multi-faithism is actually almost always practised by revisionist former-Christians. Do you ever hear of a Muslim, Hindhu or Buddhist offering to scrap one of their core doctrines, in order to allow their faith to blend with any other? Are Muslims becoming Chrislam? Of course not! All these tendencies are symptons of kinds of sickness among former-Christians/post-Christianity.
    John Thomas, UK

  11. I would only point out (and not disagreeing with anything written here) that there is also an approach which should not be confused with the above, which some Christian missionaries are taking in the spirit of Mateo Ricci and Hudson Taylor. That is to adopt those aspects of Arabic (or Central Asian or Malay, Uigur, or Indonesian or etc) culture that are not incompatible with the Gospel, in order to minimise the cultural distance between the communicator and the audience. This is well documented and studied in missiology. Where this is being done it can be very effective, and indeed some are risking their lives by taking this approach. I only mention this to point out that we should be careful to distinguish a sound Pauline approach to contextualisation from the errors described above.
    Mark Burnard

  12. How many Christians were talking about interfaith dialogue before Constantinople fell – with the help of the poor stolen Janissary children of Christians. Plenty I bet.
    Phil Twiss

  13. Sadly there is only one quote adequate to this situation:
    2 Cor 11:13-15
    “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
    And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
    It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”
    John Angelico

  14. While Jesus tells us to love our enemies, Jesus also doesn’t hesitate to rebuke the wrong doing people, Jesus doesn’t appease them. For example, Mat 23:1-37.
    Abu Taleb

  15. ““A Seattle priest has become a Muslim while also retaining her clergy status in the Episcopal Church. Her local bishop has described the development as ‘exciting.’ ‘I look through Jesus and I see Allah,’ explained the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding to the ‘Seattle Times,’ which reported that Redding puts on her Islamic headscarf on Fridays and her clerical collar on Sundays. … she still sees Jesus as her Savior, even if not divine, and plans to remain both a priest and an Episcopalian.”

    I would have left that congregation had I belonged to it. What a disgrace.

    Jay Kott

  16. Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

    Thanks Mark (16/9). Yes contextualisation is a vital area, and much thought and prayer has gone into the topic over the years. How far do we go in indentifying with, and accommodating to, a non-Christian culture in order to best reach it with the Gospel? There are areas of disagreement here. But the end of the exercise is to more effectively reach people for Christ.

    Unfortunately in this situation, it is not at all clear that people like McLaren in fact want to reach Muslims with the Gospel. They seem more interested in feel-good ecumenicalism and simply getting along for the sake of getting along. As I said, there is a place for seeking more harmonious relations with other groups, but it should never be at the expense of the Christian gospel.

    That clearly seemed to be the case with the Pastor and the Imam presentation last year at the National Prayer Breakfast, and it seems to be the case here with McLaren. It is certainly the case with advocates of Chrislam.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  17. Chrislam — not so strange, I suppose, when one realizes that Islam is basically a syncretization of belligerent Arab supremacist imperialism with militant Gnosticism! (It depends on whether one affords Gnosticism the honor of being considered “Christian”). This pandering to an ideology which condemns all other ideologies as ones of kufr (unbelief), offensive to Allah, inherently sinful and illegitimate, and which aims for the destruction of the Dar al-Harb and its replacement by “divine” Islamic despotism–while most Muslims in the west do not adhere to such a doctrine, it has its many mujahid adherents, and the only way to defeat it is to defeat multiculturalism and the censorship that this liberal doctrine has imposed on objective analysis of Islam’s key texts and its (often brutal) imperialist history.

    As for Orthodox Islam [Shari’a adherent, supremacist-imperalist Islam, whether Sunni or Shi’a or Ibadhi or even Sufi], it is intrinsically genocidal…

    “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”–Qur’an:9:5 [Sura 9 is chronologically the last to have been “revealed”, thus abrogating {principle of “naskh”} any earlier contradictory suras, according to widespread historical mainstream theological interpretation]

    “Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful.”–Quran 62:6

    “The Jews [of Banu Qurayza] were made to come down, and Allah’s Messenger imprisoned them. Then the Prophet went out into the marketplace of Medina, and he had trenches dug in it. He sent for the Jewish men and had them beheaded in those trenches. They were brought out to him in batches. They numbered 800 to 900 boys and men.”–Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of Allah) by Ibn Ishaq/redacted by Ibn Hisham, p464

    “The Messenger of Allah commanded that all of the Jewish men and boys who had reached puberty should be beheaded. Then the Prophet divided the wealth, wives, and children of the Banu Qurayza Jews among the Muslims.”–Ta’rikh al-Tabari (History of al-Tabari) VIII:38

    “The Messenger commanded that furrows should be dug in the ground for the Qurayza. Then he sat down. Ali and Zubayr began cutting off their heads in his presence.”–Ta’rikh al-Tabari (History of al-Tabari) VIII:40

    “Allah made the Jews leave their homes by terrorizing them so that you killed some and made many captive. And He made you inherit their lands, their homes, and their wealth. He gave you a country you had not traversed before.”–Qur’an:33:26

    “It was Allah who drove the [Jewish] People of the Book from their homes and into exile. They refused to believe and imagined that their strongholds would protect them against Allah. But Allah came at them from where they did not suspect, and filled their hearts with terror. Their homes were destroyed. So learn a lesson, O men who have eyes. This is My warning…they shall taste the torment of Fire.”–Qur’an:59:2

    “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘You Muslims will fight the Jews till some of them hide behind stones. The stones will betray them saying, “O Abdullah (slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.”‘”–Sahih Ahadith of al-Bukhari:V4B52N176

    “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”‘”–Sahih Ahadith of al-Bukhari:V4B52N177

    “The Believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.”–Qur’an 9:112

    “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax [jizya] in submission [under Islam, under Shari’a, as non-citizen semi-slave dhimmis].”–Qur’an 9:29

    “So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims], or non-Islamic non-Shari’a [therefore supposedly “oppressive”] law, or impediments to non-combative Islamic totalitarian conquest) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).”–Qur’an 8:39

    “Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we [the ummah al-islamiyya–>global Islamic transnational community] live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace.”–Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of Allah) by Ibn Ishaq/redacted by Ibn Hisham, p587

    “Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.”–Qur’an 9:123

    “Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: ‘Whoever amongst us is killed as a martyr shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.'”–Sahih Ahadith of al-Bukhari:V4B53N386

    “Just issue orders to kill every Jew in the country.”–Sahih Ahadith of Bukhari:V1B1N6

    “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”–Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of Allah) by Ibn Ishaq/redacted by Ibn Hisham, p327

    “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror.”–Sahih Ahadith of al-Bukhari:V4B52N220

    “I heard the Prophet saying, ‘Islam cannot change!'”–Sahih Ahadith of Bukhari:V9B88N174

    I think I’ve made my point…

    Of course we know these quotes really mean “give those nasty, filthy [najis] kuffar [unbelievers] a big hug and a box of chocolates”! Or, I’m taking them “out of context”, which means that 99% of classical, authoritative Islamic theologians have taken them out of context as well! Throughout history, the Dar al-Islam has followed these exhortations and commandments pretty well, as they have been codified in the Shari’a by the four schools of Sunni and four schools of Shi’a jurisprudence and motivated centuries of fanatical mujahidin and ghazin, through today.

    Thank God most western Muslims/Mohammedans are munafiqun [hypocrites–>moderate Muslims] according to the Qur’an, Sahih Ahadith, Sirat Rasul Allah, Ta’rikh al-Tabari, Tafsirun [commentaries] and the Shari’at [Umdat al-Salik, “Reliance of the Traveller”]. Oh, except for CAIR, ISNA, Muslim Students Association, and all the other Ikhwan front-groups!

    Philip Daniel

  18. Yes Phillip Daniel, thank you for reminding us of the law of abrogation; this is not only practised by Muslims but also by the homosexual lobby who also espouse love, peace, tolerance, diversity and inclusion – that is until they gain political power. Then all Christians and those who oppose them are to be publicly humiliated, intimidated and harassed by the police, made to lose their careers, made to shut down their businesses, dragged before the courts, fined crippling sums of money, have their children torn from them and finally thrown into prison.

    Ironically W.H. was a homosexual, but I have take the liberty of changing his poem, “Refugee Blues” ever so slightly.

    Say this city has ten million souls,
    Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
    Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

    Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
    Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:
    We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

    In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
    Every spring it blossoms anew:
    Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

    The consul banged the table and said,
    “If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:
    But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

    Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
    Asked me politely to return next year:
    But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

    Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
    “If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread”:
    He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

    Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
    It was the Gay Parades , saying, “They must die”:
    O we were in their mind, my dear, O we were in their mind.

    Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
    Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
    But they weren’t us , my dear, but they weren’t us .

    Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
    Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
    Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

    Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
    They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
    They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

    Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
    A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
    Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

    Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
    Ten thousand police marched to and fro:
    Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

    David Skinner, UK

  19. Good article.
    two opposing beliefs cannot be both true. one must be a lie.
    christian’s belief that jesus was crucified is opposit to muslim belief that he was neither killed nor was crucified (quran).
    christian’s belief in the Father and the Son is opposit to the muslim’s belief because islam condemns such belief.
    1 John 2:22 clearly states that the one who denies the Father and the Son is antichrist and a liar.
    aziz tayyab

  20. This is completely anti-christian. Christians are regarded by Muslims as “kuffar”, which means they are 1 of 10 “najis” – filth. If you truly want to see what Christians are to Muslims, look at how they fare in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey. The Hagia Sophia was once a Byzantine Christian gem, it is now a mosque and Christians in Turkey are now just 1% of the population. In Thailand, 3000 buddhists have been slaughetered and if that doesn’t make Islam’s intention clear I don’t know what will. Jihad is being waged on you. When Muslims become a majority you will be offered to convert, live as Dhimmis and pay the jizya or fight and die as directed in 9:29 of the Qur’an. You cannot appease Islam with “If we’re nice to you maybe you’ll be nice to us”. Christians and all other dirty kuffars including atheists have to fight Islam hard or they will perish. History teaches that quite clearly.
    Peter James

  21. There is no middle road and Islam has declared the war – Jihad. Islam is purely and simply a satanic gerrimander of massive proportions. Lucifer knows that this Time of Mortality had a start and will have an end. He knows the end is drawing ever nearer – and by the signs now is.
    Never in History was Satan idle in his attempts to lead astray the Children of God. Always his favourite ploy was to mount counterfeit ‘belief systems’, permitting those who do not follow the One True God to comfort themselves, “We are in good company anyway and we have many of the trappings of the Faith.”
    In Islam, Satan has excelled himself. The Allah of Islam is Ar Rahman, the idolatrous pagan god of Yemen, where Mohammed used to visit, and Islam is a foetid and disgusting sham – a pseudo religion at who’s heart is the sole aim, to remove from Mankind their sense of ‘Choice’. God gave Man his Agency and Satan desires to steal from every individual their right of Choice.
    Choose The Son. What price is death here when Eternal Life awaits? Love Life and Love Family and protect both. Freedom is not free – it is bought by copious quantities of blood. We stand at the door, unwilling perhaps but compelled to go in. God has stated Islam and its disgusting god will not come out.
    Guran Walker

  22. Bill,
    How is it that McLaren’s books are sold even in Christian book shops. Every bus takes you to Rome, just a matter of your preferred route, that’s the emergent gospel. It is clearly a different gospel from the one the apostles preached. He does’nt seem to fear the double warnings in Gal 1:8,9 . Sad case indeed.

    Barry Koh

  23. david skinner — Good insight into the homosexual lobby and its atrocious double standards. However, the gay activists and their ilk, to their great detriment, always side with the Mohammedans, falsely convinced that these victimizers of 14 centuries are actually “victims”, like the repressed homosexual, when the reality couldn’t be further from this assumption. [Truly devout Muslims (as opposed to moderates) are only victims of “not getting their way” as colonists in the Dar al-Harb–being impeded from imposing Shari’a and establishing a Caliphate (the duty of Da’wat al-Islam–>deceptive proselytizationwarfaremujahidin doing Allah’s work/acting as Allah’s sword of wrath based on Mohammed’s example<–, according to Islamic jurisprudence on the institution of Jihad–unless they pay Jizya and accept the dhimma] as well as being homosexuals. One of the possible punishments for homosexuality, according to some schools of thought, is throwing them off tall buildings!

    Homosexuals clearly don't realize how great they have it here.

    Philip Daniel

  24. Well, to be fair, we all know that Aslan is Tash and Tash is Aslan. Right?

    Less snarkily, where does this urge to reconcile the irreconcilable come from? If I, as a Christian, take my faith seriously, then I must also take the faiths of others seriously. Which means that I must give full weight to the differences in core doctrine.

    Matthew Asnip

  25. I am fairly sure that 17 year old Rifqa Bary might have an opinion on this kind of nonsense. She is currently fighting for her life in Florida, US. A few weeks ago she fled from her family as her father discovered she was a Christian (she converted secretly 4 years ago) and threatened her with death. She knew enough about her father, the mosque her family go to (one of the most radical in Ohio) and history about ‘honour killings’ of westernized Muslim girls to flee via a 20 hour bus journey. Many of those girls simply became too independent for their fathers, not surprising as they grew older. But Rifqa has committed that worst of crimes to Islam – she is an apostate. Unbelievably, most news outlets – those who bother to report it – endorse her going back to her family, and therefore very probably, her death.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09WjFwe8pUk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne0MdUyJ1GU

    There is quite a bit written up on these blogs:
    http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
    http://www.jihadwatch.org/

    Can you imagine if this would happen if it was a girl in a Christian family who became a Muslim? The blindness and double standards of the media and others is staggering. Hands up those who heard it on the news earlier this year about the Muslim guy who setup and ran the TV network ‘Bridges’ in the US specifically to show the nation there how ‘tolerant’ Islam was – and hacked off his wife’s head in his office? That’s right – not reported in the mainstream news. Imagine this if the guy was Christian.

    http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=32179
    http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/14/the-barbaric-muslim-beheading-in-buffalo/

    As an aside, it is interesting that after the recent weekend protest march on the Capitol, there is talk of the destination of the next marches – one, or even all of the major TV networks. People are beginning to see through the filtered and skewed versions of news they get. Confidence in the media is at an all time low and still sinking. The protest march was easily one of the biggest – if not, the biggest – ever in Washington D.C., and crowd numbers were sometimes almost hilariously underreported (ie. 1-2 million as 60,000 or less) or it was just ignored, because too many pictures would obviously give lie to that kind of ‘journalism’.

    http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2009/09/photos_of_dc_te.html
    http://factreal.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/912-tea-party-march-on-washington/
    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/09/14/leftwing-blogosphere-dreams-bizarre-conspiracy-theories-explain-away-d

    Also, an excellent read about the current state of mainstream media here:
    http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/15/media-malpractice-tom-brokaws

    I absolutely implore people to avail themselves to a cross-section of alternative news sites like Bill’s to get a bigger picture of what is going on in the world today. One thing you will almost certainly learn – the willingness to live in harmony with Muslims is not reciprocated – the goal of Islam is world domination with little or no rights whatsoever for those who do not to bow to Allah. Jesus came with outstretched arms and asked people to “Follow Me”. Mohammed will wait until he is strong enough and just kill you.

    http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

    Meanwhile Obama sends Muslims a ‘Happy Ramadan’ video message, but made a mockery of the Christian blessing at his inauguration, did not attend the National Day of Prayer, and literally bowed to Muslim heads-of-state. If he is not a closet Muslim, he is content in ignorance and is dragging his country down with him. (But thankfully not many Americans want to apologize for their Constitution as the most successful attempt in the history of the world to secure men’s freedom.) Obama is to Islam as Chamberlain was to Hitler. Interesting that both hate(d) Jews.

    I used to respect Campolo, but this and the gay marriage acquiesence thing with his wife is about 300 stops too far for a Christian leader. I consider McLaren an apostate, pure and simple – his ideas on the atonement, for example, make a mockery of the sacrificial work of Jesus, literally the only hope in this world. The best rule of thumb with him is to listen if you must and assume the opposite is true; he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Christians should be aware there are plenty of books on the shelves of Christian bookshops that are far from helpful. But we have been warned already:

    “Watch out for false prophets…” Mt 7:15

    “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Mt 10:16

    …and for good measure, consider the report card Jesus gives on the 7 Christian churches in early chapters of Revelation. I see nothing from my Lord and Saviour about following ‘interfaith’ practices, indeed he told us to be very careful who we listen to. He didn’t hang on a cross and shed his blood for it to mean so little. One day the report card will be about my life – as Larry Norman used to sing “I wish we’d all been ready.”

    Life was filled with guns and war,
    And everyone got trampled on the floor,
    I wish we’d all been ready
    Children died, the days grew cold,
    A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold,
    I wish we’d all been ready,
    There’s no time to change your mind,
    The Son has come and you’ve been left behind.

    Tash-lan indeed, Louise! (The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, in case people aren’t aware of what we’re referring to here.)

    Mark Rabich

  26. Thanks Matthew and Mark

    Yes Matthew, if we are to take Muslims seriously and with respect, then we should acknowledge that for them there can be no compromise or syncretism either. So why should it be expected of Christians?

    Also thanks Mark, you raise a lot of good points in your comment. And yes, Tash and Aslan cannot be joined, as Murray reminds us with the Isaiah 42:8 quote: “I am Yahweh; that is My name. My glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.”

    That is the verse I shared with the head of the National Prayer Breakfast last year when they had that ghastly Muslim/Christian dialogue taking place at the nation’s capital at what was supposed to be a Christian event.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  27. Surely these ‘interfaith’ trendys should study the seven Jewish festivals. They are certainly more practical, and theologically sound than ANYTHING found in Islam.

    It might even get them to read some of the Old Testament.

    Maybe they could consider having one of the fine folks from Jews for Jesus (or one of their teaching DVDs) explain things in a manner which shows the Old Testament as a pattern for the N.T. Particularly, Messiah concealed in the O.T., and Messiah revealed in the N.T.

    Mike Evans, Alice Springs

  28. I left the Christian church in 2005 because their “liberal” views. ..I believe in every word in the BIBLE. Why would I have anything to do with the religious cult of Muslims that murder God’s chosen people ( Jews ), who I believe must be respected and treasured….PRAISE THE LORD, JESUS, who also is a JEW.
    Shirley Muffy Halewood

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: