Congressman Peter King (R) New York is the chair of the Homeland Security Committee who’s recent hearings —"The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response"— stirred great controversy. One of the reasons that they were controversial is that America is a pluralistic country. We accept all faiths. And most Americans would like to think that there isn’t much difference between one religion and another. But there are significant differences and the confusion over the differences is more widespread than you would think.
This came home to me forcefully one day when I was sitting in our local radio station office, explaining the differences between Christianity & Islam to the station manager and a friend. One statement that stuck with me was, “Hey, one religion is as good as another. The Bible and the Koran are essentially the same kind of book.”
The truth is very different. Christianity and Islam are entirely different religions and the Bible and the Koran are completely different books. But imagine that you are sitting in the office or shop of a friend and that topic comes up. Would you be able to say anything in reply? Would you be able to offer, in simple language that anyone could understand, what distinguishes these two books that are the basis of two of the world’s great religions?
I’d like to make one observation about authorship quickly and then spend more time on the impact of the two books because of its relevance to Mr. King’s hearings.
The Authorship is Different
The Koran was dictated by an illiterate man over the course of twenty-three years who claimed that he was hearing the voice of an angel. The Bible was written by dozens of men over more than a thousand years who claimed to be moved by the Spirit of God to write. Some were scholars, some poets, some Kings, some shepherds, some were priests, and some were prophets. Yet all had a uniform message: That God would save his people from their sins. The Bible is thus connected to thousands of years of human history. The Koran is connected to three decades in the 7th Century. Muhammad believed that he was reciting a book that already existed in heaven. It is like an assortment of instructions and advice not specifically tied to any historical event. The Bible, through all of its authors, tells one story of God’s work over time through actual historical events, most of which have been validated by research.
But most importantly for the King hearings, the impact of the two books is different.
The Impact is Different
In 2006 England arrested 24 suspects in a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound passenger jets with liquid explosives. In 2007 German authorities broke up a “massive” bombing plot against American interests in Germany. And of course, no one will forget the Fort Hood murderer or the would-be Times Square bomber. All of these actions were perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam.
Not everyone who reads the Koran ends up being a terrorist. But that’s not the issue. Why would anyone - why do so many who read it - end up believing that God authorizes terrorism and murder?
I’m a conservative, evangelical Bible teacher. That means I believe the Bible is God’s word and that it is my authority for faith and practice. It also means that I’m very careful about interpreting it. I use the historical, grammatical, critical method of interpretation. I’m looking for historical context – who was the author? When did he write? To whom was he writing? What did he actually say (vocabulary, grammar)? What did it mean then? How does that meaning apply to our cultural context?
Because of what the Bible teaches people from our church and many others participate in: Habitat for Humanity, Samaritan’s Purse, The Good Samaritan, Hurricane recovery, Crisis Pregnancy centers and countless other acts of love and service.
That’s the impact of the Bible – properly interpreted and taught - in our culture. Why does the Koran not have the same affect? I’ll let my friend Samer, a former Sunni radical and now a Christian missionary to the Islamic world, conclude.
"As Christians we must be very emphatic that Christians have and continue to do many shameful things in the name of Christ, BUT the issue is this: Christians who use violence in the name of God to destroy their enemies have no justification for their actions from Jesus Christ, his life and teachings as found in the New Testament. Whereas, Muslims who are engaged in violence and destruction of anyone who opposes Islam, have ample justification for their actions from the Qur'an (using the same Historical /Grammatical /Critical approach to interpretation that I would use were I interpreting the Koran D.S.) and the life and sayings of prophet Muhammad…it is beyond doubt that the prophet of Islam did encourage the killing and intimidation of his enemies, not just in self defense as it is commonly reported by Muslims, but in the promotion of the cause of God and the spread of Islam. Needless to say, the actions of the prophet were in direct contradiction to the teachings and actions of Jesus Christ and his disciples. So the point is not that Christians have never resorted to violence and other horrible atrocities. They have indeed committed many horrible acts, but when they have done this, they have betrayed the very person that they claim to follow. But when Muslims commit such acts, they can in fact claim that they are following the example of their prophet and thus fulfilling the will of God and promoting His cause. That, certainly, is a big difference!"
So hurray for Mr. King, I’m glad that he had the courage to investigate. I hope the rest of us will be as thorough in our thinking about Christianity and Islam.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Where Is God When Disaster Strikes?
Recent stories in the news bring to light how unexpectedly, how quickly disaster can strike. I listened with sadness last week as the morning news reported the beating death of a 28-year-old pastor in Texas and worse, the loss of seven children from one family in a house fire in Pennsylvania. Then Friday I watched in horror as the tsunami swept over northern Japan, carrying all away before it. As Phillip Yancey poignantly asked: Where is God when it Hurts? (That book is worth your while by the way).
The Bible is clear about the ultimate source of suffering – (See Genesis 3:17-19; and Romans 8:18, 22-25). Briefly, it teaches that we live in cursed bodies, with cursed psyches (souls) and cursed spirits, on a cursed planet under a cursed system in a cursed time. Men will commit crimes against one another. Accidents will burn houses down. Even the earth will oppose us and challenge us at every turn until we return to dust.
The Bible is clear about all of that. We should therefore adjust our expectations accordingly. We may not like the answer. But the question is not whether we like it. Rather, does it make sense of reality, as we know it? I believe that it does.
But all of that is abstract. Suffering is very personal stuff. I want to spend the rest of this article being personal.
God’s ultimate answer to suffering is the Cross of Christ.
Nine years ago last month I accompanied my friend Phil Ramsey to the spot where his 18-year-old son Joseph had just died in a totally inexplicable car wreck. My heart wrenched as I watched my friend implode in grief. I spent the next three months so angry with God that I could not speak to him except on a professional basis. How could he let that happen?! Two years later I buried one of my best friends, Steve Kotter, victim of a car hitting his bicycle. Two years after that I answered the phone late one night to the wails of a grieving friend. I then buried her twenty-year old son, a drowning victim. Last August I buried my brother, dead of a sudden heart attack. There was no explanation for any of these losses that made any sense to me. I grieved to the bottom of my soul, just as you do in your losses.
What is God’s answer to that? Where is God when that kind of stuff happens to us? Philosophers offer two basic answers: Either there is no all powerful all loving God. Or there is an all powerful God but he just doesn’t care.
But the Bible offers a third alternative. We can hear it in one of the most important, yet overlooked things Jesus ever said, one of the last things he said before he died. Theologians call it “the cry of dereliction,” something Jesus wailed aloud from the cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!?” (Matthew 27:46).
This is God’s answer to our suffering. He is not ‘up there’, distant, aloof, impassive while we suffer. He is ‘down here’ suffering with us. He has taken every single pain, every ounce of tragedy, every shred of injustice, each moment of mindless terror, ‘rolled it into a ball and eaten it, tasted it, fully digested it, eternally.’ (Peter Kreeft, quoted in ‘The Case for Faith’ by Lee Strobel, pg. 63). God is in Christ, suffering with and reconciling the world to him self. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Where is God when we suffer? Suffering with us.
The Cross is the most stunning proof that God cares about our pain. It is the universal image of Christianity. The problem is that we are so familiar with it that we forget how violent, how brutal it was. But the Cross is one of the vilest tormenting and barbaric forms of cruelty and death the world has ever known. Our word ‘excruciating’ comes from the Latin for crucifixion. Yet we wear it around the neck like a trophy. Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’ met with much criticism because it portrayed the Cross in all its X-Rated gore. “Modern day executions are quick and sterile things. This one stretched on for hours in front of a jeering crowd.” (Yancey, Phillip. ‘Where is God When it Hurts?’ p. 231) In his death Jesus, God in the flesh, fully identified with our suffering. He didn’t have to do that. He chose it. He chose full identification with suffering humanity.
When tragedy strikes the promises of God often seem empty. Words on a page, or even from a friend, can’t fill the breach in our souls. Surely the words of Jesus to his friends must have seemed like empty promises as he hung there and died. They hung back in the crowd and slowly dispersed. It was after all, an empty hope they had clung to.
But that was Friday. Easter Sunday was yet to come. When it did come, the world, suffering, life and death itself was turned on its head. The Cross tells us that God fully identifies with all the suffering of the world. The resurrection tells us that one day he will turn it on its head.
This has had a profound effect on me. It reawakened within me a truth I once knew, a knowledge I once held dear. God, my God, my heavenly father, is not holding me at arm’s length. He is not a careless cosmic thug. He is embracing me. He is beside me holding me up. He is weeping with me. He knows the emptiness of my grief the hollowness of my soul. He knows these things and shares these things with the whole world of suffering. On the cross he absorbed it and through us he absorbs it still.
This knowledge restored my hope in God. It did something else too. It renewed my understanding of the uniqueness of Christianity. If you take the Cross out of the center of Christianity you remove that which makes it peerless among religions. It becomes just another system of morals and principles. But if you embrace the Cross you find a God there who is unlike any other, a God who will go to unimaginable lengths to commune with his creatures. He will commune with us to the death on Friday so that we can conquer death with him on Sunday.
The Bible is clear about the ultimate source of suffering – (See Genesis 3:17-19; and Romans 8:18, 22-25). Briefly, it teaches that we live in cursed bodies, with cursed psyches (souls) and cursed spirits, on a cursed planet under a cursed system in a cursed time. Men will commit crimes against one another. Accidents will burn houses down. Even the earth will oppose us and challenge us at every turn until we return to dust.
The Bible is clear about all of that. We should therefore adjust our expectations accordingly. We may not like the answer. But the question is not whether we like it. Rather, does it make sense of reality, as we know it? I believe that it does.
But all of that is abstract. Suffering is very personal stuff. I want to spend the rest of this article being personal.
God’s ultimate answer to suffering is the Cross of Christ.
Nine years ago last month I accompanied my friend Phil Ramsey to the spot where his 18-year-old son Joseph had just died in a totally inexplicable car wreck. My heart wrenched as I watched my friend implode in grief. I spent the next three months so angry with God that I could not speak to him except on a professional basis. How could he let that happen?! Two years later I buried one of my best friends, Steve Kotter, victim of a car hitting his bicycle. Two years after that I answered the phone late one night to the wails of a grieving friend. I then buried her twenty-year old son, a drowning victim. Last August I buried my brother, dead of a sudden heart attack. There was no explanation for any of these losses that made any sense to me. I grieved to the bottom of my soul, just as you do in your losses.
What is God’s answer to that? Where is God when that kind of stuff happens to us? Philosophers offer two basic answers: Either there is no all powerful all loving God. Or there is an all powerful God but he just doesn’t care.
But the Bible offers a third alternative. We can hear it in one of the most important, yet overlooked things Jesus ever said, one of the last things he said before he died. Theologians call it “the cry of dereliction,” something Jesus wailed aloud from the cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!?” (Matthew 27:46).
This is God’s answer to our suffering. He is not ‘up there’, distant, aloof, impassive while we suffer. He is ‘down here’ suffering with us. He has taken every single pain, every ounce of tragedy, every shred of injustice, each moment of mindless terror, ‘rolled it into a ball and eaten it, tasted it, fully digested it, eternally.’ (Peter Kreeft, quoted in ‘The Case for Faith’ by Lee Strobel, pg. 63). God is in Christ, suffering with and reconciling the world to him self. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Where is God when we suffer? Suffering with us.
The Cross is the most stunning proof that God cares about our pain. It is the universal image of Christianity. The problem is that we are so familiar with it that we forget how violent, how brutal it was. But the Cross is one of the vilest tormenting and barbaric forms of cruelty and death the world has ever known. Our word ‘excruciating’ comes from the Latin for crucifixion. Yet we wear it around the neck like a trophy. Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’ met with much criticism because it portrayed the Cross in all its X-Rated gore. “Modern day executions are quick and sterile things. This one stretched on for hours in front of a jeering crowd.” (Yancey, Phillip. ‘Where is God When it Hurts?’ p. 231) In his death Jesus, God in the flesh, fully identified with our suffering. He didn’t have to do that. He chose it. He chose full identification with suffering humanity.
When tragedy strikes the promises of God often seem empty. Words on a page, or even from a friend, can’t fill the breach in our souls. Surely the words of Jesus to his friends must have seemed like empty promises as he hung there and died. They hung back in the crowd and slowly dispersed. It was after all, an empty hope they had clung to.
But that was Friday. Easter Sunday was yet to come. When it did come, the world, suffering, life and death itself was turned on its head. The Cross tells us that God fully identifies with all the suffering of the world. The resurrection tells us that one day he will turn it on its head.
This has had a profound effect on me. It reawakened within me a truth I once knew, a knowledge I once held dear. God, my God, my heavenly father, is not holding me at arm’s length. He is not a careless cosmic thug. He is embracing me. He is beside me holding me up. He is weeping with me. He knows the emptiness of my grief the hollowness of my soul. He knows these things and shares these things with the whole world of suffering. On the cross he absorbed it and through us he absorbs it still.
This knowledge restored my hope in God. It did something else too. It renewed my understanding of the uniqueness of Christianity. If you take the Cross out of the center of Christianity you remove that which makes it peerless among religions. It becomes just another system of morals and principles. But if you embrace the Cross you find a God there who is unlike any other, a God who will go to unimaginable lengths to commune with his creatures. He will commune with us to the death on Friday so that we can conquer death with him on Sunday.
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