Celebrating the Diversity of Religion

RELIGION IN THE NEWS

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the Newspress.com, October 4th, 2001, with a headline:  “Religious Diversity Celebrated.”  Six leaders of six faiths stood side by side on a high school stage Wednesday, while a choir of students sang of peace.  Some 900 students from various schools gathered at BishopVerotHigh School’s Anderson Theatre for an interfaith prayer service for world peace.  The event had been planned since summer, but the terrorists’ attacks of September 11^th brought more immediacy and meaning to the students.  More students now are seeking to know more about other religions.  “We always see the Catholic perspective, and we want to see the perspective of others,” said KevinLake, a Bishop Verot senior who helped plan the event with a school ministry team.  The service opened with RiverdaleHigh School freshman Steven Stone, blowing the shofar, a ram’s horn used in the Jewish faith to gather people for special occasions.  Prayers and scriptures were recited in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and English.  At one point, all heads bowed in prayer, everyone holding hands.  On stage, Rabbi Albert J. Cohen, held hands with Imam Abdul Hak Muhammad.The Rev. Hans Jacobes of the Enunciation Greek Orthodox Church, held the hand of the Rev. Doug Reed of the First Assembly of God, who held the hand of the Rev. Stan Dumbrowski of the St. Cecelia Roman Catholic Church.  The service was the first time that the leaders of so many faiths gathered at Bishop Verot.  “The more we can understand about each other’s traditions, the more respect we’ll show for each other,” said the Rev. Bob Haniket of St. Hilary Episcopal Church in Ft.Meyers.  Imam Muhammad explained to the mostly Christian crowd, that Muslims, too, believe in one god; believe in doing good for others; believe in the importance of faith and patience.  He explained that Muslims see Jesus and Muhammad as brothers of the same faith.  In the end, students responded with a loud round of applause, hoots, and whistles.  “It was interesting to get to know what each religion is about,” said Bishop Verot freshman, Sheena Williams.  

Tom:

Dave, I just want to pick out two elements, with in this.  First of all, I imagine people hearing this for the first time, and maybe not having thought about before, say, “well, that’s really great—people are coming together,” and so forth.  But this Episcopal priest here says, “The more we can understand about each other’s traditions, the more respect we’ll show to each other.”  And then later this freshman, Sheena Williams says, “It was interesting to get to know what each religion is about.”  Here’s my question:  What happens in trying to understand someone else’s religion, to get to know it better, you find out it’s diametrically opposed to your religion?  Which [this] is the case in many of these who came to worship together.

Dave:

Right.  Unfortunately, Tom, these ecumenical gatherings are not about getting to know anything about someone else’s religion.  It’s just about love, peace, unity, but on a false basis.  Now, since the September 11th attack, everybody’s talking about God.  “God bless America.”  They’re having memorial services, you know, and I’m not opposed to that, but the problem is that you have every religion, or many religions, represented.  You have an imam in the National Cathedral of Washington, D.C., and he’s praying in Arabic, and he’s praying in the name of Allah, the one true god.  Now, Allah is not the God of the Bible.  It’s very clear—sixteen times in the Qur’an; it denies that Allah has a son.  But, Jesus is the Son of God, and we’ve just been talking about that.  If He’s not the Son of God, He’s not born of a virgin and He can’t possibly be our Savior.  Islam denied that Christ died for our sins.  It says He didn’t even die, in fact.  Some traditions say that they call him Issa, and isn’t that wonderful? They call Jesus Issa, that’s Issa is for Jesus.  No, that was because the Jews derogatorily called Jesus “Esau” and Muhammad got it a little mixed up, and so he calls Jesus Issa in the Qur’an.  And some traditions say that Issa was put on a roof to hide him from the soldiers who were chasing him, and one of the solders who came to find him in this dwelling God put a likeness of Jesus on him and he got crucified.  Others say it was Judas who had the likeness put on him and he got crucified.  But, Islam is very clear that Jesus was not crucified.  Well, we’ve talked about the fulfillment of the Scriptures.  He had to be, and He had to die for our sins.  So, as you just said, we learned, “oh, isn’t it wonderful we learned about Islam,” but I can guarantee you they didn’t tell you that about Islam.

Tom:

Well, just the statement here Dave, “This Muslim cleric says, ‘Jesus and Muhammad are brothers of the same faith.’”

Dave:

Absolutely not.  Absolutely contrary.  Jesus said, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.  I came to give my life a ransom for many.”  Peter said, “There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”  Islam says nothing about being saved through Christ, nothing about Christ dying for our sins, in fact it denies it!  Islam is as anti-Christian as you could possibly get.  It denies all of the foundational points of Christianity.  Furthermore, Islam was spread by the sword.  You know, that says an awful lot, Tom.  If you can’t persuade someone with facts, we’re trying to talk about facts, evidence, truth.  But, Islam doesn’t have that, it has no prophesies for Mohammed, it contradicts itself, it contradicts the Bible.  So, if you can’t have an open forum and intellectual discussion, and let’s discuss the issues and the facts, then we point a sword at you and say we will kill you—and they are doing that today in Indonesia, they’re doing it in the Sudan.  People are being killed, Christians are being killed, and they’re being forced to renounce Christianity or die.  No, no, this is not Christianity, this is not peace.  There is no basis for unity with this religion.

Tom:

Well, plus, Dave, this undermines, undercuts any sense of reaching out to Muslims.  If we think they’re ok, if we think they’re just the same as we are, from a biblical standpoint, or a Christian perspective, are we going to witness to them?  Are we going to bring them the salvation that’s only found through Christ?

Dave:

That’s a denial of everything that Jesus taught.