Bibliography
Introduction
Christianity
and Islam have significantly different beginnings. The Christian era started as
peaceful propagation of its beliefs and the ideals commensurate with those
beliefs. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire,
forced conversions and corruption of ideas changed the way it spread. From the
beginning of Islam, its spread was by the sword. Christians living under Islamic
rule historically and currently face persecution and second-class citizenship
with restrictions on their ability to share their faith and even worship.
Muslims living in Western countries had various experiences, from peaceful
relations to severe persecution. Currently, they have freedom of religion and
no reduction in citizenship in most western nations although there is some
cultural bias. Some blame the Crusades for Islam’s bias against Christianity. However,
the ideological differences between Islam and Christianity are the same now as
they were throughout history. Current appeals for peace and harmony by Muslim
leaders do not reflect a significant minority of Muslims’ attitudes. This
paper will examine the beginning and development of Christianity and Islam over
the ages to demonstrate that it is not likely they will coexist peacefully as
equals in the future.
Historical Beginnings
It is necessary to understand the historical beginnings of
both Christianity and Islam in order to demonstrate why conflicts continue. Comparisons
include the founders and their claims, ideals, character, goals in addition to how
the movements expanded after the founder’s death.
Jesus is the founder of Christianity. Being Jewish, he was
without a doubt monotheistic. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that he came not to establish an earthly kingdom but to serve and give his
life as a ransom (Mark 10:45) to bring about his spiritual kingdom. He taught
peace even in the presence of evil rather than retaliation (Matt 5:39). His
theme was love of God and others (Matt 22:37-39). Jesus asked his opponents who
could convict him of sin (John 8:46). Their only charge against him was that he
made himself to be God (John 10:33) and the Messiah (Luke 22:67). After his crucifixion,
he only had about 120 followers (Acts 1:15). After his resurrection, his
disciples asked if he would restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:7). Rather
than establishing a ruling kingdom on earth, he directed them to make disciples
and teach them his commandments (Matt 28:19-20).
In obedience to that command, Christianity spread throughout
the Roman Empire and beyond. Christians suffered persecution from both Jews (Acts
8:1) and the Romans. They were persecuted by Rome not because they were in
violent opposition to Rome but because of their exclusive allegiance to Jesus
Christ instead of the Roman emperor.
Even though the Bible commands subjection to the government (Rom 13:1-7),
Christians’ unwillingness to violate their conscience continued to generate
persecution. It was not until Edict of Milan by Constantine in A.D. 313 that
persecution ended.
In the following three hundred years before Islam came on
the scene, Christianity merged with the state. Even though the emperors and the
heads of the church remained separate, their influence on each other blurred
the distinction between the advance of the secular and the religious kingdom. For
instance, Emperors called church councils in A.D. 449 and A.D. 451, the latter
at Pope Leo I’s request.
Christianity and Christian nations were synonymous. This led to the advance of
Christianity less by preaching the gospel but “with political influence,
alliances of heathen princes with Christian wives, and in some cases … by
military force.”
In like manner as Christianity, the beginning of Islam is
associated with the claims and teaching of one man, Muhammad. Muhammad’s claim
is that of a prophet who was the person through whom God’s holy book, the
Qur’an came. His goals were, “to replace idolatry with monotheism; to replace
tribal differences with Arab unity; and to replace tribal rules with a central
state.”
Unlike Jesus, he did not grow up under a unified monotheistic religion. The
surrounding religions were Arab polytheism, Byzantine Christianity, and various
Christian heresies.
Muhammad and his followers related to Christians, and wrongly equated the
Byzantine Empire with Christianity, a poor representative with its propensity
to violent propagation. The Persian defeat of the Byzantines apparently
confused Muhammad, as he believed that God’s people would prevail in sacred
violence.
This undoubtedly affected Muhammad and his later followers’ belief in holy
wars. Muhammad did not start Islam with violence but later changed his view of
religious tolerance to say that unbelievers must follow Islam, pay tribute, or
die.
While in Medina, Muhammad was not only a religious prophet but served as
political leader and judge, thus fusing religion and state from the outset of
Islam.
This is when his violent advance started and He amassed an army of forty
thousand over the next ten years.
Muhammad’s character was not pure. He received revelations
that excused actions even contrary to his own teaching. He obtained fourteen
wives, ten more than allowed for the normal Muslim. One of his wives was nine years
old when he married her. He also had his adopted son divorce his wife and then quickly
married her.
On his better side, he mended his own clothes, and appeared to be a good
husband.
His final commands to his followers before his death were “to protect the weak,
the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury.”
However, he also planned a large crusade against the Greeks.
After the death of Muhammad, his followers continued to
advance Islam by the sword. Within two hundred years, Islam dominated from
India in the East to the Mediterranean. They conquered the southern Mediterranean
from Egypt to Morocco and all of Spain. About fifty percent of the world’s
Christians came under the rule of Islam.
Government and religion were one. Conquered Christians and Jews faced the
choices of conversion to Islam, paying poll tax and accepting a second-class
citizenship, or death.
Historical Subjection
Within Islamic territories, Christians who did not convert fell
under
dhimmi status with restrictions
placed on their religious activities and citizenship rights. They had the
freedom to worship in their churches as long as they did not proselytize
Muslims. They could also observe traditions and religious laws. While this
appears to provide freedom of religion, the outcome is suppression of
Christians as well as other religions. If a Muslim converted to Christianity,
their penalty was anything from banishment to death,
a powerful deterrent to conversion. Suppression decimated Christianity in North
Africa so that few Christians were there in the tenth century. In 2009, no
churches could trace their past to pre-Islamic times. Islam either converted
Christians or drove them from the area.
The population of Asia Minor changed from a majority of Christian in the tenth
century to 92 percent Muslim in the sixteenth.
A more modern example of Christianity within a Muslim nation
is the case of Pakistan. In 1947, the formation of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan included the promise of freedom of religion.
However, t
he official policy of the government included an
enforcement of blasphemy laws in 1982 to increase the cause of a pure Islamic
state.
At its formation, the nation included twenty-five percent minorities.
Today, minorities comprise only five percent.
The interaction of Muslims within Christian nations after the
rapid advance of Islam is quite different from that of Christians living under Islamic
rule. Not until the First Crusade established Christian states in the Middle
East were significant numbers of Muslims living under Christian rule. These
states generally allowed Muslims to practice their religion and live in peace.
However, they were subject to restrictions and taxation in the same way that
the Muslims had restricted and taxed Christians. Until Muslims reclaimed these
areas, the Christian states provided a better environment for Muslims than did
those living in Islamic states.
Burrell tells of Jews and Muslims mingling freely within the Roman culture in
Sicily.
After the expulsion of the Moors in the late fifteenth Century,
attitudes toward Muslims changed and European non-Christians had no legal
rights. Both the state and the Roman Church sanctioned the Inquisitions. They
identified Islam as one of the heretical elements, which allowed seizure of Muslim’s
property, banishment, or burning.
After the Reformation and as Christianity began to get back
to its original beliefs, the bloody persecution of other faiths and sects slowly
diminished. This fostered an environment where Muslims could freely migrate to
Europe and the United States. While the governments of these areas are secular,
they still appear to be Christian from an Islamic viewpoint. There is still
some cultural bias against them, but there is no widespread persecution against
Muslims as indicated by recent studies. The majority of European Muslims do not
feel hostility toward them.
Seventy-eight percent of American Muslims express that they are happy with
their lives.
Historical Religious Conflicts
Recent history paints a different picture of the historical
wars between Islam and Western Christianity. It is now customary to compare the
crusades and jihad and make them equivalent characteristics of Christianity and
Islam just as is monotheism and other similarities.
Some now believe that because of the Crusades, Muslims began to interpret the
Qur’an in anti-Christian ways.
However, the Qur’an is quite consistent in calling for war against unbelievers
before the Crusades.
Understanding that the root theological positions of Christianity and Islam are
still the same helps predict future interaction.
John of Damascus lived under Islamic rule from the latter
third of the seventh century. He was quite blunt, calling Mohammad a false
prophet who invented his own heresy. His writing describes several claims of
Islamic apologists and his Christian response. John reveals the Islamic claim that
Jews did not crucify Jesus, but only his shadow, that he did not die but God
took him to heaven where he denied being the Son of God. John refuted these
claims while sarcastically attacking Mohammad’s character by marrying his
adopted son’s wife.
This clearly shows that even in the earliest days before the Crusades, Islamic
thought did not include a physical crucifixion of Jesus. The use of the cross
as a military symbol of conquest did not change Muslim’s theology of the cross
as some have claimed.
Thomas Aquinas’
Reasons
for the Faith against Muslim Objections did not engage much in the way of
specifics of Islam. In Chapter 1, he outlined their claims against the Trinity,
atonement of Christ, Jesus’ death, and Jesus being the Son of God in opposition
to their charges based on the Qur’an (6:110, 72:3, and 4:157-8). The remaining
chapters are his arguments simply putting forth the Christian doctrines without
detailed counter points.
While there is little mention of Islamic theology, it is clear that Aquinas
addressed the primary concerns and confirms most of the same errors of Islam as
understood by John of Damascus.
Martin Luther also understood the precepts of Islam in
conflict with Christianity. He listed Islamic denials including, “Christ is the
son of God … that he died for our sins … he arose for our life … by faith in
him our sins are forgiven and we are justified … that he will come as judge of
the living and the dead … the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the Spirit.”
Current Christian apologetics confirm that there is little if any difference
between historical Christendom’s understanding of Islam and that of today. James
White addressed their rejection of the Trinity based on Surah 4:166-172.
Neal Robinson addresses the deity of Christ,
and the crucifixion of a substitute Jesus.
There is not space in this study to go into detail of the
Islamic arguments. However, the historical viewpoints of John of Damascus,
Aquinas, Luther, and the current apologetics of White and Robinson indicate no
substantial changes in Islam over the ages.
Modern Attempt at Cooperation
In 2007, 138 Muslim leaders issued an open letter to Christians,
“A Common Word between Us and You.” This is an attempt to explain why Muslims
and Christians can cooperate for a better world with peace and harmony. The
basis is that both religions have, “love of one God, and love of neighbor.”
While the letter quotes the Bible and Qur’an to show this, it reads more like
Islamic propaganda with references to the oneness of Allah and Muhammad as his
prophet, but no acknowledgment of the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus
and even implies that not all Christians believe in his deity.
The letter ends with an appeal to let differences not cause problems and to
live together doing good works.
Within a year of the open letter, seventy Christian leaders responded favorably
to the letter. As of April 7, 2013, 405 Christian and Muslim leaders have
signed on to the letter.
This proposed cooperation between Christians completely
ignores two basic aspects of Christianity and Islam. Both religions have as
their goal, the complete evangelism of the world. The Christian view is to go
and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). The Islamic view is to make
known all that Muhammad received (Al-Ma’idah 5:67). If both Christianity and
Islam follow the basic tenets of their faiths, then each must try to convert
each other in accordance with the methods ascribed to them by their faith. For
Christianity it will involve peaceful means according to its roots in the first
four hundred years and restoration to that evangelical faith expressed in the
Lausanne Covenant.
However, in accordance with Islam’s beginning and the current working of ISIS toward
an Islamic state
and other militant organizations, it is highly speculative to believe that they
would long work in harmony with Christians. The Qur’an discourages Muslims to
seek support from others (Al-Imran 3:28). In addition there are multiple
references in the Qur’an supporting violent aggression (Al-Anfal 8:12) or
retaliation (Al-Baqarah 2:190-191).
Statistical studies by the PEW Research Center reveal that
while there may be many leaders seeking peace, there are frightening attitudes
among Muslims that may predict the future. The first is that an overwhelming
percentage of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (
sharia) to govern their land.
The second is that while most Muslims do not support suicide terrorism, younger
Muslims aged 19-29 in Western countries support it, as many as twenty-six percent
in the U.S.
As these younger people replace the older generations, it is highly doubtful
that there will be peaceful cooperation between Christians and Muslims.
Conclusion
The significant differences between the historical
beginnings of Christianity and Islam are evident as described. Christianity
developed as a peaceful religion while being severely persecuted. Islam
developed as a violent religion spread by force. Both religions passed through
years forcing conversion by warfare and persecuting opponents. In recent years,
it is clear that Christianity returned to its peaceful roots and methods of proselytizing.
Islam continues with violence against other religions in armed conflicts, as
with ISIS, or suppression of minorities, such as in Pakistan. Studies of Muslim
attitudes reveal that many favor living under Muslim law and younger Muslims
are prone to use or condone violence. Christians will continue to proselytize Muslims
and Muslims, Christians. One cannot be both Christian and Muslim. It is
possible for Christians to work with Muslims. However, the question is whether
Muslims will allow Christians to proselytize them in Islamic controlled
countries while working for a better world. The precepts of Islam indicate that
preventing proselytization and continued minority suppression is the norm. The attitudes
of younger Muslims show that the likelihood of suppression is greater than
meaningful long-term cooperation. Coexistence peacefully as equals while
working to improve the world is highly unlikely.
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