Can Christians be inclusive in their attitudes towards Muslims?

Colin Chapman kindly gave me the permission to post an extract from his presentation at a meeting of the Evangelical Christian-Muslim Dialogue in Toronto in May 2010. It might be of interest as a recent example of an actual engagement of an evangelical Christian with Muslims. You can read the full document HERE.

DOES CHRISTIAN BELIEF NECESSARILY EXCLUDE ISLAMIC BELIEF? CAN CHRISTIANS BE INCLUSIVE IN THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARDS MUSLIMS?

... The short answer probably has to be: ‘It depends what kind of Christians you’re talking to, because different Christians give different answers.’

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These are the four [different kinds of] answers [that are given by different kinds of Christians]:

a. ‘However much truth there may be in the Qur’an, we have to recognise that, taken as a whole, it denies the deity of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection and therefore takes the heart out of the gospel. It cannot be regarded as being inspired by God in any sense, and must therefore have been inspired by the Devil.’

b. ‘We should recognise everything in the Qur’an that is consistent with the revelation of God as we know it in the Bible and in Christ. We should be glad of the common ground there is between the Christian faith and Islam, but help Muslims to see where the Christian understanding of God differs from the Muslim understanding.’

c. ‘Muhammad should be regarded as a prophet in some sense. Since he enabled the Arabs to reject idolatry and polytheism and accept monotheism, he must have received some genuine revelation from God. He can, perhaps, therefore be regarded as being comparable to Old Testament characters like Gideon or Elijah, even though he is not part of the biblical ‘salvation history’ and falls short of the revelation of God given in Christ.’

d. ‘Muhammad should be recognised as a genuine prophet for Muslims. In spite of the differences between the revelation of God in the Qur’an and the revelation of God in the Bible and in Christ, the Qur’an should be recognised as a revelation of God that was appropriate for the Arabs in its original context and is still appropriate for Muslims all over the world today.’

Once again we find that we’re dealing with a spectrum of answers from the most exclusive to the most inclusive. I hardly need to point out that evangelical Christians tend to identify with a. or b., although some would also have some sympathy for c. They would not agree with d. and generally would be very critical of Christians who adopt a pluralist approach.

So when Muslims say to Christians ‘We recognise Jesus as a prophet; why don’t you recognise Muhammad as a prophet?’, the answer that most evangelical Christians want to give would go something like this:

‘If we did recognise Muhammad as a prophet in the way that you do, we would be Muslims. We are glad to accept the teaching of the Qur’an about the one true God which we also find in our scriptures. But we cannot believe the whole Qur’an because its teaching is different at certain points from the teaching of our scriptures.

‘We believe that Jesus was the last of the prophets – God’s final word to the world. We see Jesus as the most complete and fullest possible revelation of God in the form of a human being. We want to say ‘God is like Jesus.’ So if we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. If this is what we believe he was, we cannot believe that there could be any further or new revelation of God after Jesus.’

Conclusion

Does this kind of answer close the door to dialogue? Does it destroy the bridges of faith between Islam and Christianity? My answer as an evangelical Christians would be ‘Most emphatically NO!’. My understanding of both of our scriptures and my reading of history make it difficult for me as an evangelical Christian to sign up for any ‘ecumenical faith community’.  I still have difficulty in getting my mind round some of the ideas implied in the title ‘Islam in Christianity’. But I want to be as open and inclusive as possible in our relationships. Continuing and deepening our dialogue helps to remove misunderstandings, so that when we discover all the areas of common ground we sometimes find that we are nearer to each other than we might have thought. But we also learn to appreciate and cherish even more what we feel are the distinctives in our own faith and want to go on commending them to each other.

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We still have strong bridges of faith, therefore, because having established relationships of mutual respect and trust, the agenda for dialogue will have to include addressing immediate issues in our different contexts, exploring our histories which have made us what we are today and bearing witness to our different understandings and experiences of God. We can continue to do this together for a life-time because the deepest longing and desire of both communities is to ‘let God be God’.

About the Author:

Rev Colin Chapman was until 2003 Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Near East School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon, and now lives in semi-retirement near Cambridge. He has worked for 17 years in different places in the Middle East, and also taught at Trinity College, Bristol and Crowther Hall, Selly Oak, Birmingham. His books include "Whose Promised Land?" (Lion, 2003), "Whose holy City? Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (Lion, 2004); and "‘Islamic Terrorism’: Is There a Christian Response?" (Grove, 2005).