ExclusionandEmbraceisms

So here are the thoughts of THA VOLF from his teaching at ETS. Yesterday.

Please get some coffee, so some more blood would be in your brain, and remove any object you could throw at your monitor… he is stretching the borders… he might make you mad

Here comes his thoughts…

Do Christians and Muslims Believe in the same GOD?

- I don’t want to answer this question. I rather want to research how we can come to an answer.

- There are 4 Issues (at least) we need to research:

1. What is the word used for GOD?

GOD and Allah are meaning the same just in two different languages. When Christians were translating the Bible to Arabic, they were using the word Allah.Which means GOD, just as in english.

So we can overcome this boundary…easily.

2. GOD and Allah are referring to the same “object”? (even though GOD is not an object… but there is no other word to use at this point)

Theological argument:

Christians and Muslims both look to GOD/Allah as the creator, say that GOD is one… etc. So when they are “pointing their fingers” to who GOD is they are pointing their fingers to the same “object”, thing, = GOD.

3. Do they mean the same thing, do these 2 objects have the same characteristics?

As an Example he brought Anthony Hopkins playing in two different movies. He plays two different characters, but Anthony Hopkins stays Anthony Hopkins.

So the bottom question is is their God and our God described with the same characteristics, personalities….?

Is there continuity in the description of God?

He said, he will not answer this question, because we have not thought enough about this, yet.

4. Our stance towards God, our Worship?

There are different ways to worship different gods…

A, Rightly worshipping the right GOD (as described in the book of Revelation)

B, Wrongly worshipping the wrong god(s) (As described in the Prophetic books in the Old Testament OR Serving yourself instead of GOD)

C, Rightly worshipping the wrong god/idol (From Christian perspective this is the most interesting…)

We can easily fall in this one, because Christian worship is two fold:

- Vertical: Regular, normal worship

- Horizontal: Helping our neighbors

D, Partly rightly worshipping the partly rightly understood GOD

Ex: I. Corinthians 13:12, Now we see through a glass, and we do not know GOD in HIS entirety …

THESE WERE HIS MAIN POINTS. After these came the questions.

? The question of the unknown god in Athens (book of Acts) came up. were they rightly worshipping the Unknown GOD?

ANSWER: Volf answered with the example of Peter and Cornelius. When it is said that: Now I see that in every nation there are people who rightly worship GOD. ( I think this is a bit taken out of its context, but I will have to check it…)

? Hebrews 1:3 and Philippians 2 point to us that the focus of our worship IS JESUS, HE is the imprint, how he sees this Issue with the Muslims?

VOLF ANSWER: There are differences, Many differences, and more CHRIST centered we are the less overlap there is with Islam or Judaism or any other religion for that matter.

? The fact that we do not know GOD totally (the unknowability of GOD) does it open a door for the possibility of a partly right worship together?

VOLF ANSWER: NO.

Few more questions…were, but let me share only two more thoughts

1st coming from Zoran Kahvedzic, student from Zenica, Bosnia.

“This whole desire to reconcile the two religions is coming from a global interest. Which was not raised in the first 2000 years of Christianity. Instead we miss treated the Muslims (we do not have to go far back in the history of the Balkans to see this, Orthodox priests blessing the Serbian weapons before going to battle, Croatian Catholics doing the same, and of course Muslims on the Bosnian side doing the same), with all the crusades and everything…Why not instead of trying to reconcile (from global interest) just be truly people of the word of God, showing them true Christ and Christianity instead of again being lousy Christians who try to reconcile, from interest…”

OVER.

Why have I given the title Exclusion and Embrace-ism. Without the last tree letters that is the title of Miroslav Volf’s book that got him famous. he wrote it on the subject of grace… it is indeed a good book (very intellectual), a less intellectual is Philip Yancey’s: What’s so amazing about grace, and an even less sophisticated is: Grace changes everything by Chuck Smith. All 3 are amazing books. written on different levels…and all three are helping to understand GRACE.

Any how. I think this whole issue of him researching this subject, meeting with the main leaders of Islam, is rooted in his desire to research what or where can we Embrace and what are to be Excluded…

Why starting with the Muslims? why not reconcile the Christians first (Protestant, Catholic, orthodox, …)? There were and there are many efforts on that… but not too many people have took it one step further. YET. He is doing that now…

We can agree with his points or not… I personally think that now he might have went a bit too far… but I do not want to draw my conclusions… lets see what he will come up with in few months… a year or two…

Lazo von reporter, out.