Bishop Tiny Muskens and the BBC documentary
Robert T. Miller in First Things writes:
Tiny Muskens, the Roman Catholic bishop of Breda in the Netherlands, says that Dutch Catholics ought to pray using the word Allah rather than God or its synonyms in Dutch. Muskens argues that it makes no inherent theological difference in which language one prays, and he notes that in countries where the word Allah is in common usage as a name for God, Christians already often use the word in their prayers. Adopting the word Allah, Muskens thinks, will eliminate “discussions and bickerings” between Muslims and Christians and so improve relations between the religions.
Muskens is right that, from a Catholic point of view, there is nothing inherently wrong in saying “Allah” for “God,” just as there would be nothing inherently wrong in saying “Miny Tuskens” or “Tuny Miskens” for “Tiny Muskens.” The problem, of course, is Tiny Muskens’ name is Tiny Muskens, and anyone who called Tiny Tuny or Muskens Miskens would be making fun of him. So, too, in theology; despite the conventionality by which strings of phonemes get their meaning, once names have been established, people who change them are doing so for a reason, and the nature of that reason counts in determining whether the change is reasonable or unreasonable, advisable or inadvisable.
In this case, even from a Catholic point of view, the name of God is not a pure triviality. When at the burning bush Moses asked God for his name, the Lord gave a very particular answer. “God said to Moses, I am who am. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (Exod. 3:14–15). Many devout Jews treat this name, especially in Hebrew, with such reverence that they will not speak it aloud. And when Christ appropriated this name to himself (John 8:58), everyone understood that he was proclaiming his own divinity.
...Our blessed Lord told his disciples that he was sending them “out as sheep in the midst of wolves” and so they “should be as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10: 16). I am happy to acknowledge the innocence of Tiny Muskens, but he is exactly the kind of sheep who, if he ever met a wolf, would likely get eaten by it.
I haven't commented on Bishop Muskens calling for the use of Allah by Dutch Catholics mainly because I think it hasn't quite deserved the acrimony it has received. I believe his request is not very prudent and rather naive as a way to eliminate “discussions and bickerings” between Muslims and Christians. Besides considering what has come from Dutch bishops over the years since the infamous Dutch catechism, the use of Allah is rather tame by comparison. At least this time he isn't calling for the use of condoms.
But debating the merits of Muskens’ suggestion misses the larger point here. Muskens makes it sound as if the problems in Muslim–Catholic relations were merely silly arguments about semantics that distract from the truly important things on which we all agree. In fact, there is a serious, substantive problem dominating Christian–Muslim relations at the moment, the same problem that dominates Muslim–Jewish, Muslim–Buddhist, Muslim–Hindu, and Muslim–Orthodox relations, and that problem is that Muslim fanatics keep murdering innocents of all faiths, including their own, in terror attacks.
Christians using the Arabic word Allah for God is not going to help change things for the better and I think in fact can just be seen as just more capitulations and weakness. Using Allah instead would not have kept a Muslim fanatic from killing filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Holland or even improve dialogue among saner Muslims. The problem is not the use of the word Allah, but the naivety in display in the reasoning for its call to usage.
In another story:
There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.
With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.
The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea ... Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don't know that."
...However, Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon and spokesman for the Barnabas Fund, which works with persecuted Christians, accused broadcasters of double standards. Mr Sookhdeo, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity in 1969, said: "How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?"
I am shocked I tell you that such a documentary is to be made. I mean it isn't even Christmas or Easter the traditional time for such shows.
Though it is interesting to see the Muslim perspective on Jesus, but of course there is not one Muslim perspective since some claim that it was Judas who was crucified in a last minute switcheroo. Since Islam is cobbled together from Catholic sources such as early heresies and other religious ideas at the time of Mohammed you can expect a lot of inconsistencies in the Islamic view of Jesus. Hilaire Belloc writes about Islam in The Great Heresies as being a great and enduring Christian heresy.
Islam views Jesus as one of God's most beloved messengers and the Koran has stories of Jesus performing miracles when he was still a child (which was probably taken from Gnostic gospels).Once inconsistency I have been curious about is the Muslim respect for Jesus's mother Mary and their belief in the Virgin birth of Jesus. In Islam there are miracles associated with both the birth of Jesus and his early childhood and then his death. Yet Mohammed who is suppose to be the greatest thing since toast bread prophet-wise was orphaned at a young age with no miraculous birth, no miracles as a child, and then dies after falling ill and suffering for several days with head pain and weakness. Just from an Islamic view Mohammed seems to be sort of a let down after Jesus. You would think for the "last messenger and prophet of God" that God could have come up with a finale to at least equal the Islamic view of Jesus.
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The simplest way to eliminate discussions and bickerings is to convert to Islam.
Because, after all, "Christianity and Islam are very much alike - especially Islam" (pace Chesterton).
You have a very good commentary on all of this stuff so I only have one, teeny little comment:
I just love saying "Tiny Muskens" over and over in my head. I think if I met someone named that, I would have to pinch them on their little, elven cheeks!
"I am shocked I tell you that such a documentary is to be made. I mean it isn't even Christmas or Easter the traditional time for such shows."
Maybe they've got something even "better" scheduled for Christmas and Easter. Or maybe there's so much anti-Christian material, so little time...
The accounts of the child Jesus making miracles is quite common among New Testament Apocrypha (not necessarily Gnostic). The one that is said to have influenced Muhammad is the Arabic Infancy Gospel, wherein:
-A woman with palsy comes near the cave/stable, noticing the light that comes out of Mary and the newborn Jesus. Mary tells her to place her hands upon the Infant; she was cured immediately.
-Jesus was circumcised inside the very cave where He was born. The woman cured of palsy (who became Mary's maid) took either the foreskin or the umbilical cord and placed it in a jar of nard, which was the one used by the sinful womanto anoint Jesus.
-The Magi was given by Mary Jesus' swaddling clothes which was not harmed even during a 'trial by fire.'
-When Jesus came to Egypt, the idols of Egypt was shattered and Satan speaking through the idols proclaims to the priests that that God, the Son of God has come in their midst.
That's only some of the miracles in it, but there are more.
P.S. I've created a new blog to replace my old one.
When the Muslims call God "Allah," they're addressing a God whom they deny is a Trinity of persons. For Christians to start to call God "Allah" would be a grave error.
True inter-religious dialogue doesn't mean giving up our own beliefs. Why is it that Christians are always expected to bend over backwards to accommodate the beliefs of others? Realistically, would anyone expect Muslims to start to address God in a Christian way? No way!
You know, Franco's policy of declaring Muslims "honorary Christians" and then using them to overthrow the secular, democratically elected government worked well.
And is what happened in Spain applicable everywhere?
" Since Islam is cobbled together from Catholic sources such as early heresies"
We're sorta possessive about our heresies aren't we?
Why is it that Christians are always expected to bend over backwards to accommodate the beliefs of others?
The only possibly good reason I can think of is that Christians are less threatened by them.
I think I've finally figured out why the liberal media is so friendly and accomodating towards Islam even though it would turn back the clock on women's rights and gay activism. It's a very simple Aristotlean Syllogism:
1. God is Allah (Roman Catholic Bishop)
2. Allah is not Our Father (Koran)
Therefore: God is not Our Father! Quite a feather in the feminist cap.
And by the way, Bishop Tiny Muskens also promotes the use of condoms (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06090506.html) as condom use is a lesser evil than the greater evil of AIDS. (Never mind that Uganda and only Uganda promotes chastity at a national level to combat AIDS and has a tremendous success story).
I am not tempted by the name 'Allah'. Tiny Muskens, on the other hand...Well, you can sing it to the tune of "Tiny Bubbles", you can redefine a 'musken' according to whatever goofy idea is associated with the name currently, you could stick it to a comic strip and see if the picture pulls off with the name, you could go on playing with it for...DAYS; now, THAT's tempting!
I guess we'd better start burning the Sistine Chapel because it is forbidden to depict Allah in a painting. Islam would probably welcome such a gesture.
It would be fascinating to see an analysis of the programming decisions at the BBC and its better known affiliates (Panorama, for example) over say, the last five or seven years, on programs regarding faith issues in Islam and in Christianity. Secondarily, it would be instructive to see a comparative analysis of the
BBC programming on rights issues in the Catholic Church (including female ordination, gay rights principles of religious freedom) compared to the BBC's programming record on human rights (including women's rights, Sharia law, religious freedom) under Islamic theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Is there a graduate student in all of the hallowed halls of Oxford, Cambridge, etc. brave enough to do that?
"Since Islam is cobbled together from Catholic sources such as early heresies and other religious ideas at the time of Mohammed"
Bravo. Not many people are aware of this. I heard a Theology on Tap about this once. After the various Councils, those who did not agree with the councils, were exiled outside the empire(s) (Nestorians Aryians, monophosites, etc). To be a heretic was also to be a traitor, as there was no church/state separation at that time; so out you went to the hinterlands...
Thus, as Mohammed's sphere was outside the empire, his understanding of what Chistianity is, and what it believes about Christ, would have been based on those Christians he would have come in contact with (Jesus was not God, etc).
When he created his own version of monotheisim, based on a distilation of Judaisim, and what he interpreted to be Christianity, for his own people, in the long-run he most likley expected both faiths to join his.
He was disappointed on both points. With regard to Judaisim, they stayed with the gal that brought them to the dance, so to speak (which he found particularly galling). With regard to Christianity, when Islam bumped in to true Orthodox Christanity (as compared to heretical versions of Christianity) they would find the two Christologies (Islam vs. REAL Christianity) irreconcilable.
Tiny? Tiny? Is there a Saint Tiny he was named after?
"You know, Franco's policy of declaring Muslims "honorary Christians" and then using them to overthrow the secular, democratically elected government worked well."
Would you PLEASE take some accredited classes in Spanish history, not just random garbage you read online? I had one rather poor teacher during my studies, but even HE didn't spew such nonsense.
Or are you merely hoping that no one has done undergraduate work in contemporary Spanish studies?
Why not the other way around? Why we have to adapt to Muslims? After all, Christianity is older and in the Neederlands they are a minority.
I have a question for a Muslim. According to the Koran Mary (Miriam) conceived Jesus (Isa) without knowing a man. The Koran does not says that she conceived Jesus from the Holy Spirit, since they do not accept the Holy Trinity, but somehow Jesus was conceived from a Virgin and she stayed a Virgin. However Mohammed had a mother and a father. How come he is greater than Jesus?
Koran never states that Mohammed is greater prophet than Jesus! It states that That knowledge lies only with Allah as to whom is the greater prophet!