Christianity

As described in Part I, the Yale Covenant was a response to an open letter signed by 130 Muslim scholars from throughout the Muslim world to leaders of Christian churches everywhere. The Muslim scholars pointed to common ground between Muslims and Christians with regards to the commands to love God and to love one’s neighbors. The Yale Covenant was a response to the Muslim letter signed by over three hundred prominent Christian ministers, professors, and leaders from various organizations including Christian churches, ministries, seminaries, Christian publishers, and various quasi-Christian organizations. Most of the signers could be classified as coming from the liberal segment of those entities. However, there were several high-profile and highly influential representatives from major evangelical churches and organizations that signed the Yale […]

The second area that must be examined to determine if there is hope for finding common ground between Islam and Christianity is love. If there are fundamental differences in the concepts and practices of love between Islam and Christianity, then love cannot provide a common ground. Are the Islamic and Christian understandings of love the same? As they did in addressing questions presented in Part II, the Yale Covenant authors point to the difficulties in identifying the similarities between the Islamic and Christian understandings of love. These difficulties include several issues. A major difference noted was whether God’s love was conditional or non-conditional. The Bible says that God’s love is unconditional whereas in the Quran it appears that Allah’s love is conditional. Another concern raised […]

The Muslim scholars in their 2007 open letter to the Christian world (“A Common Word between Us and You”) and the response (the Yale Covenant) signed by three hundred Christian leaders identified two areas that were supposed to be common ground between Muslims and Christians: the commands to love God and to love one’s neighbor.[1] However, the truth or falsity of this claimed common ground can only be determined after a thoughtful examination of the nature of the Islam’s Allah and the Christian God of the Bible and their respective teachings and commandments with regard to love. In other words, the evidence of any common ground between the two religions must ultimately be found in the natures of the respective Gods. If there are essential […]

The Apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy speaks of the last days. This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. [2 Timothy 3:1-5. KJV] Before we discuss the growing apostasy of the church, we must place it in context with the end times. The last days spoken of by Paul include the entire Christian era that began with Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and the […]

Modern trashing of the Crusades, Christianity, and Western civilization We began Part I with President Obama’s description of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant) as a distorted and deviant form of Islam. But he immediately suggests a moral equivalency of Christianity with ISIL, slavery in America, and past racism in the South.[1] But the President’s denigration of Christianity and the Crusades are not a new phenomenon. The historical explanations of how and why the first Crusade began have been perverted by historians, academia, liberal politicians, and others hostile to Christianity for three hundred years. Their new interpretation is much more sinister and contemptuous. This cynical view of the Crusades has been widely disseminated by the progressive education movement in America which wrested education from […]

Muslim conquests and demise of the Islamic empire In Part I the origins and explosive growth of the Islamic empire in the seventh and eighth centuries were described. Muslim domination of its distant empires waxed and waned over the course of its twelve centuries of war on the world. In 1672, the forces of the Muslim caliph Mu-Awiyah (previously mentioned in Part II) ruling from his capital in Damascus decided to attack Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (today known as Istanbul). Sailing from the Syrian coast, Muslim ships entered the Dardanelles and moved north through the narrow strait that connects the Mediterranean with the Marmara Sea. At the north end of the Dardanelles lay Constantinople, gateway to the Balkans from which a Muslim […]

To judge the moral equivalency of Christianity with Islam, we must have a general understanding of Islam and what its followers profess to be truth. This understanding comes as we briefly explore the nature of Islam and its concepts, beliefs, and practices that are fundamental to the Muslim faith. Sources of Islamic belief and law • Qur’an – The revelations of God (Allah) to his prophet Muhammad over a twenty two year period in the seventh century. • Sharia law – the Islamic moral code and religious law which deals with the institutions and daily life of the ummah (Muslim community). • “Hadith” – Other words and deeds attributed to Muhammad but not found in the Qur’an. • The rulings of the Islamic legal authorities […]