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Introduction
Abraham in the Koran
The
Galatian Test
Conclusion
Footnotes
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Conclusions
This paper has been an
exploration. When in 2006 I saw the Heythrop College advertisement in the
Tablet weekly magazine for their BA course in ‘Abrahamic religions’ and
read their reasons for it, it left me feeling very uneasy. It appeared that
that they were ascribing to Islam a status
theologically similar to that of Christianity and Judaism; ascribing
to it a role in Revelation; claiming for it the same origin or source ie
Abraham as that of Christianity and Judaism; treating it as essentially
theologically different and distinct from all other non-Christian
religions. My inquiries to the college produced no helpful information as I
have mentioned above. I therefore began to research the matter myself. Because of al the other things I had to
do it has taken me a very considerable time and there have been many
interruptions; and in that period the college itself produced the article
which I discuss in section 4 and I came across the interview given by Pope
John Paul II on the subject of Islam which had been published in the Tablet
in September 2000.
My two principal conclusions
are:
- Islam fails the test of
what in the Christian faith it means to be Abrahamic as set out by
Matthew in 1.1 and in Gal. 3.14, more explicitly in the latter.
Abraham getting an approving mention, or indeed lots of approving
mentions, in a religious text does not make that text, or the religion
the text belongs to, Abrahamic. Any more than making approving mention
of Jesus or Moses or Noah or Ishmael in a text such as the Koran makes
its religion Christian or Mosaic or Noahite or Ishmaelite. What it
means to be Abrahamic is to lead to Christ, ‘to be baptised into union
with Christ and to put Christ on as a garment’ (Gal.3.27). Abraham has
no other offspring or purpose.
- For the same reason
Islam has no special theological status in relation to Christianity,
no status more than any other non-Christian religion; and Mohammad has
no more status in God’s saving design or in God’s revelation of
himself than any other non-Christian religious person or leader. Just
as, indeed, Christianity has no special status in relation to Islam.
Mohammad drew upon many different sources in framing his religion, and
certainly not just upon Judaism and Christianity. For example, he
adopted the Kaaba, which has immense significance in Islam, from the
animism and polytheism history and traditions of his fellow Arabs; and
he incorporated the mores, some wholesale, some amended, of his time
and place into his moral code. Mohammad expressly repudiates the
fundamentals of both the Christian faith and the Jewish faith. In
addition to the insights of Pope John Paul II about how Islam ‘sets
aside the richness of God’s self-revelation’, for Mohammad to claim
for himself the status of being the prophet of God’s final revelation
could not contradict that most basic, most fundamental tenet of the Christian
faith given in John 1.18 more explicitly; or the fundamentals of
Jewish belief. A religion cannot contradict and repudiate the very
foundational beliefs of another religion and somehow be regarded as
having a particularly special and intimate and theologically more
significant relationship with it than any other religion. Islam is a
non-Christian religion, no more and no less than any other
non-Christian religion. It is
not a revealed religion.
In making these statements I
am conscious how stark and forthright they are. However, religion is not my
only experience. I have been active in English politics for the past forty
years, in the Labour and Trade Union Movement. In that time I rubbed
shoulders with scores of other activists of all political parties and
movements. The experience has opened my eyes to one core principle of our
English political and civic society learnt in the theatre of hard knocks
which radically distinguishes it from our religious society and which
religious society must start to adopt. That principle is the maturity of
being able to disagree, and disagree in a forthright manner when required,
being able to state differences and argue and campaign for them openly and
publicly without fear or threat of giving offence or of violent response.
There is in sharp contrast a tragic, and very harmful, immaturity about
religion and religious debate, an attitude that religion has to be treated
with kid gloves, that disagreements should be avoided, only areas of
agreements explored, that pointing out differences and arguing over them is
insensitive and offensive.
Religion should never be so
precious. People in equal numbers, and throughout history, have held with
as much passion to their political beliefs as any religious person has ever
held to theirs. I have seen it, time and time again. They have asserted
them and died for them with equal fervour. They fought to the death over
politics in this country, for instance in the Civil War. We have now learnt
from such hideous catastrophes. We have grown up. Politics mean no less to
many people as religion did then and does now. But with their political
beliefs they do not take almighty offence and don’t go crying for the law
to protect them and don’t threaten violence when people disagree with them,
even when they mock, maybe insult as well, their political beliefs and
their political leaders. Religion has got to grow up. Religious people must
be able to disagree and speak their minds to each other in the way people
do when it comes to politics. Firmly and forthrightly. Anything else is
sheer childish immaturity based upon a wrong idea of God. God is not
offended in the slightest by error or hurt by ridicule. Not in the
slightest. He knew the consequences of creating creatures with free will
and intellect. Religion has got to mature enough that it can conduct its
differences with all the cut and thrust of a prime minister’s question
time. It and its leaders have got to stop being so precious, stop being so
pompous. God isn’t. The incarnation, life, suffering and death of his Son
teaches that if it teaches anything at all. They should stop thinking they
are high and mighty. They are anything but. Just a light excursion into
history will show that up well enough.
There are real differences
between religions as well as areas of agreement. That includes Christianity
and Islam. Any dialogue that tries to blur differences will do both an
immense disservice. It is required of all Catholic theology faculties to
‘speak the truth in love’ (Eph. 5.14). If we do not speak about what we
believe, we may as well not believe at all.
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