My 22-year old son, Simon and myself together with an Egyptian friend were chatting with two young men from Dubai. We had a warm, friendly and very animated conversation which ended up in Starbucks. Rashid’s English was particularly good and, although very likeable, had considerable self-confidence that he had thought things through and was in a position to adjudge that Islam was the best religion and that what Christians believed was wrong. He told us that he loved Isa and had immense respect for him as a great prophet, that as such Isa and Muhammad were equals. However, he said that he had read the Bible and that Isa (Jesus) never claimed to be God. He maintained in support of this, that Jesus never told people to obey him, which we might expect him to do if he was God. I took him to John 14:15: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
Later I also read to him John 10:25-33, emphasising verses 30-33. First, Jesus states, “I and the Father are one.” Then we read:
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you a mere man, claim to be God.”
I asked Rashid if he knew whether he was going to paradise or not. He said, “No one can know this.” We all replied that we were certain that we would go to paradise. He suggested that if this was the case we should leave straight away and go there. Why stick around? We told him we’d like him to come with us. This was all part of a conversation concerning how good does a person have to be to be able to enter paradise. He was banking his hopes on making himself a sufficiently good person to warrant admittance into paradise. I read Revelation 21:27:
Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
He continued to place his hopes on God’s mercy, failing to see that the admittance into paradise of morally imperfect people compromises belief in the moral perfection of God.
Rashid had a particular problem with the idea of Christians being commanded to love their enemies (Matthew 5:43-45) and with Jesus’ teaching that anger with one’s brother makes a person “subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21). He also reacted against my citation of Matthew 20:27, it being inconceivable to him, given his view of Jesus as a Muhammad-like mighty prophet, that Jesus should come as a servant. Privately, I realise that I need to rethink carefully how to deal with this issue since we need to explain this stance of Christlike love for enemies and servanthood in a manner that does not encourage Muslims to think of Christians as backboneless, degraded and humiliated dhimmis, whose spirits have been crushed. For Muslims often appeal to historical examples of Muslim states allowing Christians and Jews freedom of religion as expressions of tolerance. However, a closer look at how Muslims treated such subject peoples or dhimmis, does not support this portrayal of tolerance. For example, it was more common that is generally recognised, that in such societies Christians and Jews, when paying their jizya or head tax were forced to do so in an abject fearful manner, reinforced by physically striking each person who had just paid his jizya. All of this was done quite deliberately by Muslims in obedience to Qur’an 9:29:
Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden - such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the book - until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humiliated.
The question raised by all this is how Christians are to love Muslims and be Christlike servants while at the same time disassociating themselves from any semblance of dhimmitude.
Posted July 9, 2008
Upon clicking 'Buy now' you will be redirected to paypal.com where you can securely and quickly complete your purchase with a few clicks.
Immediately after payment at PayPal you will be redirected to a download page which
provides you instant access to your purchase.
