Brutally Frank: The Heresy of "Chrislam"

While Judaism is the Old Testament foundation on which Christianity is built, the only role for Islam is eschatological.     

     The Bible is fairly brimming with parallels – and ironies. One of the most ironic – in fact, the most basic and essential – is the Old Testament prophecy made New Testament fulfillment, the word made flesh, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the new Adam, restoring us to the graces of our Heavenly Father.     In some quarters of recent Christianity, there’ve been those so possessed by the demons of “political correctness” that they’ve thought it a good idea to water down and corrupt the Gospel message of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by seeking to blend it with Islam. They seem to have the proverbial good intentions, those same stones, as literally as proverbially, with which the road to Hell is paved.     Probably the most overt and concerted expression of the blasphemy of “Chrislam,” as it’s called, is The Yale Covenant, nothing less than a complete and appalling vacillation of Gospel values and the basest betrayal of centuries of martyrs’ blood. The Yale Covenant lists among its signatories pastors and theologians from across the denominational board, most prominently Rick Warren, founding pastor of the Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Church; Robert Schuller, founding pastor of the now-defunct Crystal  Cathedral and former host of the Hour of Power television show; as well as Leith Anderson and Don Argue, current and former presidents, respectively, of the National Association of Evangelicals.     And it’s not just evangelicals who bear the blame for The Yale Covenant. Two Catholics who’ve signed on are Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and his wife, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, a “feminist theologian,” also at Harvard Divinity School.           The Yale Covenant opens with a preamble which includes an apology to and a plea for the forgiveness of Islam. It opens quoting Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:5, “First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye,” followed by, “we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we ‘shake your hand’ . . . we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”    Excesses of the “war on terror”? Following such logic, the signatories to this “covenant” would have Jews apologize to Germany for the Allies’ defeat of Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1945. In the thirteen years since the 9/11 attacks, nowhere on record can be found any apology by any Muslim for the almost 3,000 lives ended that day. The signatories of The Yale Covenant, however, would surely be among those who regard Islam as a “religion of peace.”    The Qur’an, the “sacred scripture” of this religion of peace, contains at least 109 verses charging Muslims with waging war on infidels – nonbelievers – for the purpose of instituting global Islamic rule under Sharia law, the law of the Qur’an.~Among the verses are commands to chop off heads and fingers and and to kill infidels wherever they hide.~ Muslims not fighting the infidels are considered hypocrites who’ll be consigned to Hell for not joining in the slaughter.     "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve,” declares the Qur’an in 8:12. “Therefore strike off their heads.”    “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger,” it states in 5:33 of the Qur’an, “and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off.”    “Fight those who believe not in Allah,” encourages the Qur’an in 9:29, “nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book.” “People of the Book” is an Islamic reference to Jews and Christians, about whom the Qur’an further declares in 4:89, “[T]ake not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. [I]f they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.”      In the Hadith, a writing separate from the Qur’an that is considered an account of the deeds and sayings of Muhammad, 53:177 states that “the Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him’.”    Religion of peace?     From merely a practical and political perspective, those like Warren, Schuller, et al. would naively and ignorantly seek peace with those who are sworn to either converting or striking dead every last follower of Christ and child of Israel. They’d effectively lay bare – in quite literal terms – every Christian and Jewish throat to the mercy of an Islamic blade. Worse, from a spiritual and theological perspective, they’d seek to blend Christianity with Islam. While there most assuredly is a foundational basis for Christianity in Judaism – the foundation, in fact – there isn’t the slightest contribution to Christianity to be found in Islam. Islam, remember, didn’t exist until more than six centuries after Jesus suffered and died on the Cross, was buried, and rose from the dead. The Bible – Old and New Testaments – in the form with which we’re familiar, was in existence for over three centuries before Islam. The Old Testament itself existed as a codified text for centuries prior to the birth of Jesus. Any elements of the Old or New Testaments to be found in the Qur’an could very easily have been gleaned by Mohammed before he wandered into his cave and allegedly met the angel Gabriel – yes, conveniently enough the same angel Gabriel that visited the Virgin Mary prior to Jesus’ conception.      This so-called “religion of peace” is nothing more than an Achmet-come-lately cult of death-worhippers, and could very well be history’s biggest sham.     Judaism is the foundation of Christianity. For there to be a New Testament, there must be an Old. Again, the Old Testament has prophecy, the New Testament is fulfillment; Word made flesh; original sin and the loss of paradise by Adam and Eve, and ultimately our restoration to grace by the paschal sacrifice of Jesus Christ.      So is there a role for Islam? Certainly, but it’s not a pretty one, it’s not foundational to Christianity, and it’s most assuredly not a role justifying the watering-down of the Gospel message of our Lord and Savior.     Is there a connection between Judaism and Islam? Surely. The Old Testament is abundantly clear about that. Abram made a covenant with God, according to God’s promise in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, “Look up to heaven and number the stars, if thou canst . . . So shall thy seed be.”    But despite God’s promise and covenant, Abram allowed himself to be tempted by his wife, Sarai, who was beyond childbearing years, and accepted her offer of her servant, Hagar the Egyptian, as a concubine. Just as Adam, despite the word of God, accepted forbidden fruit from the hand of Eve, so did Abram. The result was Ismael, the illegitimate child of Abram and Hagar, and the father of those who would come to be called Arabs.      The Lord promised Abram, with regard to Ishmael, that He would “increase, and multiply him exceedingly.” The Lord’s assurance, however, came with a dire warning, one that’s borne the bitter fruit of truth over the centuries.     “He shall be a wild man,” the Lord told Abram in Genesis 16. “[H]is hand will be against all men, and all men' s hands against him: and he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren.”    “But my covenant,” the Lord continued in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, after changing Abram’s and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sara, “I will establish with Isaac, whom Sara shall bring forth to thee at this time in the next year.”      So while the Lord increased and multiplied Ishmael exceedingly through his descendants, His covenant with Abraham is through Isaac, continuing through the centuries and to this day with the children of Israel. Ishmael, through his Islamic descendants, continues to be “a wild man . . . his hand against all men . . . pitch[ing] his tents over against all his brethren,” as demonstrated by jihadist terrorism and the ongoing struggle over the Holy Land that the Lord bequeathed to the children of Israel, as if there’s some sort of Islamic “acting-out” stemming from a centuries-old, cultural inferiority complex.     For Christianity, any significance or relevance with regard to Islam is after-the-fact at best. All things, it’s said, happen for the manifestation of God’s will. So with the covenant established with Abraham, why would the Lord allow relations to occur between Hagar and Abraham, begetting Ishmael? Why would the Lord “increase, and multiply . . . exceedingly”  such a “wild man” whose “hand will be against all men”? Could the purpose be eschatological? Certainly, especially with so much going on in the world – particularly with regard to Israel – the fulfillment of end times prophecy could well be the purpose of the Ishmaelite legacy. Anyone well-versed in the Bible, especially Revelation, Ezekiel, and Daniel, might reasonably see the pieces falling into place, most especially in the years since Israel was reestablished as a nation in 1948. Those descended from Ishmael are the Cain to Israel’s Abel. To this very day, they wear a cultural “mark of Cain.”      For Islam to be sold as being in any way a complement to Christianity is ludicrous. Worse, it’s the worst, most blasphemous, of heresies.      “[W]hether prophecies shall be made void,” St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, “or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.”    That which is perfect. Jesus Christ is perfect. The Gospel – His Word – is perfect. Our Lord and Savior is the perfect fulfillment to Old Testament prophecy. Mixing Islam with Christianity would only pollute and corrupt that which is perfect. The spring of living water of which Jesus spoke in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John is purest water. There could be no adding to it that would amount to anything but corruption.     Playing into the notion of Chrislam are the efforts of three organizations to remove from their versions of the Bible references to “Father” and “Son” so as not to offend Muslims. In Islam, Allah had no son, and Jesus is regarded merely as a prophet – not the Son of God – and didn’t die on the Cross and rise from the dead. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), and Frontiers produce Bibles that have been sanitized of these references for the purpose of evangelizing Muslims without offending them. If the intent is to make Christians of these Muslims, however, wouldn’t it make sense to actually preach Christianity rather than adulterating and corrupting the Gospel message?     The Book of Revelation, in the closing verses (18-20) in chapter 22, addresses this most abundantly:     “For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book. He that giveth testimony of these things, saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
© 2014 Brutally Frank, Inc.