Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective
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First we had the Atheist billboard campaign, now we have the Islamic billboard campaign.
I hear advertisements will be appearing on billboards and buses around Sydney next month proclaiming:
Jesus: a prophet of Islam
Holy Quran: the final testament
Muhammad: mercy to mankind
The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Rob Forsyth, has said ”They’ve got a perfect right to say it, and I would defend their right to say it [but] … you couldn’t run a Christian billboard in Saudi Arabia.”
It’s come at last! At last it’s come… The time we thought would come at last… at last, has come!
There are some sectors, maybe large sectors, of the church who are not ready for this era. I would absolutely LOVE to be proven wrong in this purely personal opinion of mine!
I have met Rob Forsyth and seen him “in action”, or lack thereof, in some very tricky circumstances involving Aboriginal people, and truly wonder about the ability of the Anglican Church in Sydney, per se, to meet the current times in any constructive way.
However, I do think he has a valid point in his comment that you quoted.
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I wonder about the ability of any churches in Sydney to meet the current times in a constructive way. When the subject of Islam comes up, most of what I hear coming out of the mouths of Christians are fears about takeover. Bah! How irrelevant for Australia! Rob recognizes this at least. And as far as sound bites go, this one of his ain’t bad. But in and of itself the comment is purely defensive. In my view its not enough to dissuade Australians regarding the life Mohammed offers, we must persuade them regarding the life Jesus offers. Unfortunately, its with the latter that we’re particularly bad. Where is the focus on the fruit of the Spirit? On living and breathing it?
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The trouble with Islam-ism altogether is that it has effectively refused to be modified by other Spiritual influences – it does claim to be the “final” Divine Revelation.
By contrast Christian-ism has always to one degree or another been modified by other Spiritual and cultural perspectives – at least up to a point.
Of course right-wing “Catholics”,in particular, are trying to reverse this trend and attempting to return the church back to the alleged “authority” of the “magisterium” – the dreadful Crisis Magazine exemplifies this syndrome.
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Not sure I can agree with your analysis of Islam. Whilst Islam it is unarguably a ‘transcendence’ emphasizing tradition, much more than Christianity, we must content with the historical emergence of Sufism which shows that ‘imminence’ is not entirely irreconcilable to Islam. It has its spiritual side.
Moreover, given Islam’s historical relationship to Judaism and (unorthodox) Christianity, it could be argued that Islam was highly influenced by alternative spiritualities in its formative years. And moving forward in history we also must contend with the animistic influences that can be found, even today, in folk Islam. The lived religion is more complex that the media portray it. I agree it is more resistant to other religions and other cultures than most other religions, but that’s as far as I’d go. I think we can only speak in relative terms, not in absolutes.
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P.S What’s this Crisis Magazine you’re talking about? Never heard of it.
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P.P.S John, on reflection I note you haven’t actually said how you would respond to the billboards. Are you saying we should just criticize or would you reach out to Muslims in some way? What would Adi Da teach?
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In my early morning breakfasts before work with several Muslims and Greek Orthodox friends at a Muslim owned hallel chicken/coffee shop, we have been having a lot of talks about Jesus. I found my Muslim friends to be very respectful of the other friends views. We also talk about a lot of world issue stuff as well. Have found them to be quite reasonable.
In my view, it is good that they want to atlk about Jesus more. Lets see this as an opportunity for good interfaith dialogue.
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Matthew, That comment was made about and in the context of the political nature and motives of Christian-ism and Islam-ism in the context of the now-time dramatized politics for totalitarian control of humankind altogether.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be much we can do about the Islamic meme and Islamic true believers who are even more impervious to the Revelation of Truth than the usual Christian true believer.
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Today I discussed with my Muslim friend Marty about Sharia law, which he claimed is just and effective.
So I shared with him the story of “The Stoning of Soraya”, which occurred in Iran after the regime change to the Ayatolla system of government.
Soraya was a young mother of 2 sons who was regularly beaten up by her husband. He was having an adultrous affair and wanted to find a way to get rid of his wife permanently. So he concocted a scheme with a corrupt Mullah to manipulate Sharia law, so he could have Soraya executed for adultery. Soraya was innocent, but placed in what appeared to be a compromising situation whereby she became a housekeeper for a recently widowed old man. Through threatening that old man with exposing his past indiscretions, the husband and the Mullah extorted his agreement to confess publicly to lies that he had bedded Soraya. As a result, under the supervision of the local religious watchmen, Soraya was publicly humiliated and then stoned to death by all the men of her village including her father, sons and husband. But everyone there knew that Soraya was totally innocent.
After telling that story, Marty was appalled at Soraya’s unjust treatment and the manipulation of religious laws to enact such harsh treatment of an innocent woman. He agreed with me that there had been no justice, mercy or compassion about that case and Soraya’s execution was religiously sanctioned murder.
I then briefly discussed with him that in order for the law to be just, its application must be tempered by realities of compelling human need, honesty, and that God’s bottom line is not the letter of the law but mercy and compassion in its most practical application. It must be driven by love, justice, mercy, compassion and truth, not hate, intolerance, greed, lies and revenge if it is to do its proper job.
Marty said he agreed with me.
My point being, that if we want to effectively work in mission with Muslims – and Marty is a conservative Muslim – we need to build mutually respectful personal relationships with them. And out of relationship – the sharing of our stories in interaction with our stories from our Christian faith – what it has taught us personally, what we believe and why it is important to us – we build a framework for suitably comparing beliefs, sharing them, influencing opinions (as well as being open to being influenced).
I have found that many Muslims I know do not do debate all that well, especially when they are debating those whom they have viewed traditionally as enemies. But if you are genuine about being their friend, they will do likewise and will meet respect with mutual respect. In fact I have found under those sort of conditions, they do become more tolerant of opposing views being voiced
even if they just can’t agree with them.
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