Texas Baptist Forum

Updated: 4/16/07

Texas Baptist Forum

God & Allah

Please let me add my two cents’ worth to the discussion concerning God and Allah. 

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. … We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self.” Bono U2 frontman, urging aid and debt relief for Africa (Time) “Many evangelicals are boarding a new train. It runs along tracks defined by the broad demands of their faith, not by some party’s political agenda.” E.J. Dionne Washington Post columnist, writing about how some evangelicals are in the midst of a “New Reformation” that separates them from partisan politics (RNS) “Every politician says, ‘God bless America.’ But do you really mean that? If you don’t, maybe we should start saying, ‘Have a good day,’ or something like that.” J. Randy Forbes U.S. congressman, R-Va. (Washington Times/RNS)

To me, it’s quite simple. In Exodus 3:6, God identifies himself to Moses: “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

Do Muslims worship this God? Clearly, they do not, because they worship the God of Ishmael, not Isaac.

I can accept the idea that Christians and Jews worship the same God. Most Jews simply don’t yet recognize Jesus as God the Son, the Messiah. But Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God. Allah is not God.

Larry Burner

McKinney

Not so Sweet

I cannot keep silent about Leonard Sweet’s “mantra” that God is “defragging and rebooting” the church and we are to “deal with it, get over it or get help” (March 5). Sweet even purported that “culture has rejected traditional institutions, so the church must change”!

It is alarming how fast “postmodern” churches are buying in to this skewed philosophy as they sweat to keep up with today’s culture. In come coffee bars and ATMs, out go hymnals and denominational name, programs replace prayer meetings and “ministry” is tagged onto everything from entertainment to vacations. Pastors are often CEOs, and sermons are often orchestrated presentations based on the latest best-seller with anemic references to Scripture. We sing repetitious ambiguous words devoid of true theology, and we applaud the performances of man rather than the God of our salvation. Naming sin is taboo, and our pews are playpens for baby Christians who have been nursed on easy-believism.

Rather than change with the culture, the church must influence culture. That influence will be felt when America’s pastors stand firm, fear God and faithfully proclaim salvation’s story unapologetically. The Apostle Paul’s fundamental admonition to Timothy is still true: “Preach the word; be instant in season and out of season,” regardless of the climate of the ever-changing “culture.”   

To use a variant of Sweet’s verbiage, God may be getting ready to “defrag and reboot” the pulpit. It is certain that culture will not change the day of reckoning.

God help our pastors!

Karen Stebbins

Garland

Carter & Covenant

Proponents of the coming January 30-February 1, 2008 “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant” are displaying a great deal of faith . . . in former President Carter, that is. The only thing more disconcerting to me as a Baptist than being identified with a new Carter-called Baptist movement would be to have the fomer President teaching my Sunday School class.

When recently asked by Newsweek magazine, “Do you think a Mormon is a Christian?”, Carter's reported reply was, “Yes, I do. I have a cousin who is a Mormon and she married one of the Marriott family. I don't know anyone who's more devout in their faith than she and her family. I admire them very much.”

In the same interview, Carter indicated that teaching religion in public schools “to compare Christianity with Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and so forth, would be constructive. It would show that there is a compatibility among them all. I can't claim to be a scholar, but when our hostages were being held by Iran when I was president, I read the Quran, and I had Islamic scholars come and talk to me. The basic human-behavior principles were the same. The Islamic Bible, the Quran, teaches peace and justice and care for one's neighbor and helping the poor.”

Will a distinct Baptist witness be heard in this new movement? To me, it sounds like Carter's new “prophetic Baptist voice” could just as well be Isamic or Mormon.

Chuck Pace

Lake Jackson