MIRAGE
The Love Language of Islam
By: David Ibrahim
CHAPTER THREE
“Loving God and Neighbor Together”
A Christian Response to “A Common Word Between Us and You”
“A Common Word Between Us and You” was written on October 2007. “Loving God and Neighbor Together,” a response to that letter, was written November 2007. In their response, it was heart breaking to see the Yale Academia close their eyes to the harsh facts of Islamic teachings from its inception, the present day persecution of Christians living in Islamic countries, and to the foundation of the Christian Faith in the person of Jesus Christ. It seems like the Yale Academia and the Liberal Church leaders wanted to be politically correct. While perhaps pleasing many, they sadly and willingly compromised The Truth, thus affirming that both religions have the same Abrahamic faith, serve the same “All merciful God,” and follow the same commandments given both by Christ Jesus and Muhammad.
Religious Peace-World Peace (Page 31)
“Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world.
Common Ground (Page 31)
What is common lies absolutely central to both: Love of God and Love of neighbor (?).
Love of God (Page 32)
We applaud that A Common Word Between Us and You stresses so insistently the unique devotion to one God, indeed the love of God, as the primary duty of every believer. God alone rightly commands our ultimate allegiance. When anyone or anything besides God commands our ultimate allegiance we end up serving idols and inevitably get mired in deep and deadly conflicts. Our love of God springs from and is nourished by God’s love for us.
Love of Neighbor (Page 32-33)
We find deep affinities (close relationship; connection) with our own Christian faith when a Common Word Between us and You insists that love is the pinnacle of our duties toward our neighbors. “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself, “ the Prophet Muhammad said. God is love and our highest calling as human beings is to imitate the One who we worship.
We applaud when you state that “justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part” of the love of neighbor. When justice is lacking, neither love of God nor love of the neighbor can be present. When freedom to worship God according to one’s conscience is curtailed, God is dishonored, the neighbor oppressed, and neither God nor neighbor is loved.
Love of Neighbor (continued) [Pages 32-33]
Since Muslims seek to love their Christian neighbors, they are not against them (a mirage).
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…(Matthew 5:44-45).
Jesus Christ Himself prayed for His enemies: “Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34)
The Prophet Muhammad did similarly when he was violently rejected and stoned by the people of Ta’if.
The Task Before Us
“Let this common ground” –the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor – ‘be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us,’” Abandoning all “hatred and strife,” we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other’s good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good.
CRITICISM of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture’s Response To “A Common Word” entitled: “Loving God and Neighbor Together”
R. Albert Mohler Jr: (Page 34)
The document is not specific in any way about what makes up a Christian understanding [of God and Jesus Christ]. We don’t believe that Jesus Christ is our hero. We don’t believe that Jesus Christ is merely our prophet. He is a Prophet, and Priest and King. He is the incarnate Son of God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is the Lord over all. Any minimization of that is a huge problem.
John Piper: (Page 35)
“What’s missing from this document is a clear statement about what Christianity really is and how we can come together to talk with Muslims from our unique, distinctive, biblical standpoint.” The love of God for Christians is starkly different from that of Islam. “The love of God…uniquely expressed through Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins because He died on the cross and rose again. All those things Islam radically rejects, so they do not believe in the love of God we believe in.”
The Rev. Canon Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo: (Page 35)
The Christian response is a “betrayal” and “sellout” of the Christian faith.
The Rev. Mark Durie, Ph.D: (Page 35)
“God Himself is identified in the Scriptures as ‘being love’. This reflects God’s infinite goodness, and means that loving God cannot be separated from God’s love for us. The Christian view is that ‘we love because He first loved us’ (1 John 4:19). In contrast A Common Word put forward the Islamic view that “God loves us because we love him.”
The Yale Response does not make an equally clear affirmation of Christian belief in the incarnation and Christ’s divine Sonship.
Glen Penne: (Page 35)
The pursuit of peace should not be placed over the pursuit of truth. The assumption in the letter is that the God of Islam is the same as the God of Christianity. This is a denial of Jesus Christ as Muslims absolutely refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is God. This is the very foundation of Christianity….”Islam is a counterfeit religion, a distortion and denial of the revelation of God in Jesus and Scripture.”
This letter is a betrayal of Jesus Christ and a slap in the face of those who are dying for their faith in Muslim countries around the world.
The call of the passage in its context (Aal’Imram 3:64-71) “is a call for Christians and Jews to give up the lies of their faith and submit to Islam. It is not a call to find common ground; it is a call to surrender.!”
What one hundred and thirty-eight Islamic scholars, the Yale Academia, and three hundred plus signatories forgot to mention in both letters.
Remember: from Islam’s beginning until the present, the Quran has taught to kill “infidels” (Christians, Jews, etc.).
Quran 4:89 states: “Those who reject Islam must be killed. If they turn back (from Islam), take (hold of) them and kill them wherever you find them…”
Quran 5:51 states: “Take not the Jews and the Christians as Auliya (friends, protectors, helpers)…”
One More Thing No One Mentioned: (Pages 40-41)
Can you imagine having a Christian “reconciliation program” and leaving out Christ? He (Christ) is the means by which God has reconciled the world unto Himself. He is The One we proclaim in “the message of reconciliation.”
When posting the verse from the New Testament of Yale Center for Faith and Culture Reconciliation Program’s webpage, two little words are missing from it!
The verse from the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 5:19, which accurately states,
“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing our sins…and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.”
However, the Yale Center for Faith and Culture Reconciliation Program quotes it like this:
“God was reconciling the world to Himself…”
The phrase “in Christ” is nowhere to be found. Houston, we have a problem.
Disheartened
It’s very discouraging that we well known mega-church leaders and televangelists did not comment about these two letters during their weekly and sometimes daily telecasts. These leaders have huge audiences and could enlighten many to the dangers ahead and “exhort them to earnestly contend for the Faith, which was once delivered to the saints”, (Jude 3).
Encouraged
On the other hand, I was very encouraged to hear a few godly men like Mohler, Piper, Sookhodeo, Durie and Penner boldly speak out. Praise the Lord; they did not compromise The Truth Found in the Word of God.
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