For many of you, this will be old news. But due to several projects I’ve been focused on the last couple months, I’m just now having an opportunity to respond. Please bear with me.
(First a little background. . . )
This last October, a group of 138 Muslim scholars and clerics produced an open letter to Christians entitled, “A Common Word between Us and You.” The letter was an attempt to bridge the differences between Islam and Christianity, to promote amicable relations, open dialogue, and even cooperation between the two faiths. Part of the letter read as follows:
So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.
On November 18, just a month ago, several Christian scholars from Yale Divinity School responded with a full-page spread in The New York Times. Their response (which was endorsed by over 100 Christian leaders, including Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, and Robert Schuller) expressed delight in the invitation offered by these Muslims. Here is part of that response:
It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities. . . . That so much common ground exists—common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith—gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together.
(Now a few thoughts. . . )
Do Christians actually have “common ground upon which we stand together” with the leaders of a false religion? Is this the type of conciliatory attitude we should have toward those who actively promote Islam? Should we simply overlook our differences and embrace each other in a spirit of ecumenical tolerance?
Obviously not.
Certainly, the New Testament commands us to love other people. But the love of the Bible is not a free-styled, all-embracing, blind acceptance of every wind of doctrine for the sake of dialogue. It is, in fact, just the opposite. It is a love that speaks the truth (or as Paul said, “rejoices with the truth”), not a love that promotes tolerance at the expense of sound doctrine.
Just listen to how Jesus and the apostles responded to false teachers and those who embraced them:
Jesus said: Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
Paul said: If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
Peter said: It has happened to them [false teachers] according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
John said: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
Jude said: Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. . . . [They are] clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
The interchange between Muslims and evangelical Christians is just the latest example of the ecumenical compromise that has plagued American Christianity since the rise of 19th-century theological liberalism. In recent decades, the contemporary church has exchanged expository preaching for seeker-driven programs; doctrinal accuracy for postmodern ambiguity; and biblical precision for cultural popularity. Mainstream evangelicals started by abandoning the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, and along with it, an accurate understanding of the Gospel. Since then, they have capitulated on just about everything else.
It is a sad day in evangelicalism when the most shocking thing about this latest “interfaith dialogue” is that it really isn’t that shocking. In reality, Muslims and Christians have nothing in common. As Paul told the Corinthians:
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be there God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore, “come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean.”
Over 100 “Christian” scholars may have affirmed this latest interfaith group hug. But Paul never would have. And neither would Jesus or the other apostles. As those following in their footsteps, that should make the issue pretty clear for us.
(First a little background. . . )
This last October, a group of 138 Muslim scholars and clerics produced an open letter to Christians entitled, “A Common Word between Us and You.” The letter was an attempt to bridge the differences between Islam and Christianity, to promote amicable relations, open dialogue, and even cooperation between the two faiths. Part of the letter read as follows:
So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.
On November 18, just a month ago, several Christian scholars from Yale Divinity School responded with a full-page spread in The New York Times. Their response (which was endorsed by over 100 Christian leaders, including Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, and Robert Schuller) expressed delight in the invitation offered by these Muslims. Here is part of that response:
It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities. . . . That so much common ground exists—common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith—gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together.
(Now a few thoughts. . . )
Do Christians actually have “common ground upon which we stand together” with the leaders of a false religion? Is this the type of conciliatory attitude we should have toward those who actively promote Islam? Should we simply overlook our differences and embrace each other in a spirit of ecumenical tolerance?
Obviously not.
Certainly, the New Testament commands us to love other people. But the love of the Bible is not a free-styled, all-embracing, blind acceptance of every wind of doctrine for the sake of dialogue. It is, in fact, just the opposite. It is a love that speaks the truth (or as Paul said, “rejoices with the truth”), not a love that promotes tolerance at the expense of sound doctrine.
Just listen to how Jesus and the apostles responded to false teachers and those who embraced them:
Jesus said: Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
Paul said: If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
Peter said: It has happened to them [false teachers] according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
John said: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
Jude said: Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. . . . [They are] clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
The interchange between Muslims and evangelical Christians is just the latest example of the ecumenical compromise that has plagued American Christianity since the rise of 19th-century theological liberalism. In recent decades, the contemporary church has exchanged expository preaching for seeker-driven programs; doctrinal accuracy for postmodern ambiguity; and biblical precision for cultural popularity. Mainstream evangelicals started by abandoning the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, and along with it, an accurate understanding of the Gospel. Since then, they have capitulated on just about everything else.
It is a sad day in evangelicalism when the most shocking thing about this latest “interfaith dialogue” is that it really isn’t that shocking. In reality, Muslims and Christians have nothing in common. As Paul told the Corinthians:
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be there God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore, “come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean.”
Over 100 “Christian” scholars may have affirmed this latest interfaith group hug. But Paul never would have. And neither would Jesus or the other apostles. As those following in their footsteps, that should make the issue pretty clear for us.
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