Central to both Christianity and Islam is the belief that
God intervened in human history. Furthermore, that God revealed himself to
mankind at a specific time and place, directly and decisively, once and for
all. Does this suggest there will be harmony? Let's take a closer
look.
On the one hand, Christians believe that God, in the form of
Jesus Christ, became a human being and redeemed human nature by taking it on
for himself. This was how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was born.
On the other hand, to Muslims as well as to Jews, the notion
of the Trinity seems blasphemous because it detracts from the absolute oneness
of God and thus opens the door to idolatry. Muslims believe that the Word of
God was communicated to a human being. And, they believe that the
chosen human being was the prophet Muhammad, who thus became the
"messenger" of God.
While Muhammad is believed to have possessed some special
talents, no Muslim believes that he was anything other than a man, or that he
actually was the author of the Word of God (which in time was transcribed as
The Koran, or Qur'an). They believe he merely passed along the Word of
God initially by reciting it to his fellow human beings.
Thus, Muslims do not regard themselves as followers of
Muhammad, but only as people who have accepted the Word of God as given to
Muhammad, and surrendered themselves to God's will. "Islam"
translates as "surrender," and a Muslim is one who "surrenders."
The importance of Muhammad is that he was the human vehicle through which
the Word was communicated.
QUESTION: How have Christianity and
Islam handled the relationship of church and state?
Jesus of Nazareth was born into a community whose religion
was an expression of its national independence, at a time when that national
independence was in the process of being crushed by the Roman Empire.
Given the overwhelming power of the Roman Empire, a revival of the Jewish
religion in its nationalistic form was bound to lead to disaster ---- and did
so forty years after Jesus' death.
In his book, Faith & Power: The Politics of
Islam, Middle Eastern scholar Edward Mortimer suggests that Jesus offered a
way out of this blind alley by expounding a non-political interpretation
of Judaism: "My kingdom is not of this world." Claiming
not to be the national warrior leader (Messiah) whom Jewish prophets had
predicted, Jesus offered salvation only in the world to come, to be
achieved by individuals through faith, hope and charity, rather than by the
nation through organized revolt. By implication, salvation in this sense
was not reserved for Jews only. After Jesus' death, Christianity became
an invitation to all who suffered under the Roman Empire to hope for a better
world after death.
Yet the notion of a non-political religion was a novel one,
which the Roman Empire itself could not take at face value. The
expression of allegiance the Roman Empire expected from its subjects was to
acknowledge the divinity of the emperor. Christians who refused this were
persecuted, with varying degrees of intensity, until the day came (three
centuries after Jesus) when the emperor himself became a Christian. Once
that happened, Christianity was no longer non-political. A Christian
ruler was naturally expected to follow Christian precepts, to advance true
Christian doctrine, and to suppress heresy.
It was more than a thousand years before a school of
political thought arose suggesting that religious belief was a matter for
individuals, with which the state need not concern itself. Yet all this
time, says Edward Mortimer, Christians kept alive the notion of "the
church" as something distinct from the state. Though church and
state might be composed of the same people, they had separate leadership whose
roles were in theory distinct and complementary, even if in practice
overlapping and often conflicted.
While for many centuries a number of European countries
declared their monarch to be the head of the Christian church in that country,
as countries evolved a parliamentary form of government, the power of the
monarch was diminished and "the church" became less and less an
agency of the state. Even our Founding Fathers included in the U.S.
Constitution wording that to this day requires the separation of church and
state.
Because church and state have been moving apart over the
past 200 years in many Christian societies, many people of Christian background
have expected something similar to happen in the world of Islam. But
Edward Mortimer says that involves a profound misunderstanding, since in most
Muslin societies there is not and never has been such a thing as a
church. Mortimer believes that the community of believers founded by
Muhammad was virtually from the beginning, what we should call a state.
Therefore, it is fair to say that the conflicts today
sponsored by many Muslim groups flying the flag of Islam, are simply attempts
to gain or retain political power. They seem to be using dedication to their
particular interpretation of the Word as a sort of smoke screen to boost their
political power. While not all Muslim groups are motivated in this way,
the radical Muslim group ISIS is a fine example of how extreme the political
side of Islam can become ----- they even describe the territory they now have
taken and rule, as "The Caliphate Restored.".
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual
growth this winter at CPC.
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