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2/27/2010
I have had enough of people saying that the Christians and the Muslims worship the same God. To repeat this simply shows a complete ignorance of history as well as an ignorance of the two religions. Yet, we hear it constantly. Usually it comes from atheists or agnostics but it has been repeated enough that some Christians believe the propaganda.
So, let’s set the record straight.
Because Ishmael and Isaac where both the sons of Abraham some have assumed that they both worshipped the Judeo –Christian God Abraham worshipped. Nothing is farther from the truth. Isaac’s son Jacob became the father of Israel. Isaac was a direct ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. The descendants of Ishmael in the land of Arabia became pagan worshippers.
Allah was the name of the pagan moon god in Arabia. Worship of the moon god became the prominent religion in Arabia. Archeologists have found temples built to the moon god in Arabia as well as other parts of the Middle East and ancient Mesopotamia. They have also found thousands of clay tablets describing this religion. Let’s take a look at some of the rituals of this religion and see if they sound familiar.
Believers worshipped the moon god by praying towards Mecca several times each day.
Mecca was actually built as a shrine to the moon god.
There was an annual pilgrimage to temple of the moon god in Kabah. Although the Arabs worshipped up to 360 different idols at the temple in Kabah the moon god was the primary deity.
The symbol of the Muslim faith is the Crescent moon which is also the symbol of the ancient moon god.
The Muslim religion practices many of the same rituals as the ancient moon god worshippers. There is little doubt that Mohammed used the moon god as the basis for his new religion of Islam.
Now, I have never heard anyone suggest that the Judeo – Christian God was originally the moon god. In fact the moon god came along much later. So they obviously are not the same. The Bible, in fact, rebukes the worship of the moon god.
Deuteronomy 4:19 (King James Version)
And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.
Jeremiah 8:2 (King James Version)
And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.
Mohammed also took pieces of the Christian and Jewish religions and modified it for Islam. One example is the story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac when God supplied a ram for the sacrifice instead. Mohammed took the same story and replaced Isaac with Ishmael for the Koran. But this plagiarism should not fool anyone into thinking that Mohammed worshipped the same God as the Christians and Jews.
Aside from the factual history we need to look at the teachings of the two religions.
According to the Koran Allah teaches his followers to kill the infidels or those who do not believe in Islam.
The Bible teaches Christians to love our enemies and love our neighbors as ourselves. It doesn’t stipulate that they must be a Christian for you to love them.
Allah and the Koran teaches Muslims to spread Islam through conquest.
The Bible teaches Christians to spread the good news and the Word throughout the world.
Allah wants his followers to sacrifice themselves for him.
Our God sacrificed His own Son for our sake.
The Koran teaches totalitarian rule over the people. Sharia Law controls religious, political, domestic, and private life practices.
The Bible teaches individual freedom as well as individual responsibility.
Muslims believe in the transcendence of Allah, and that he holds himself aloof from man. Therefore, they believe that Allah is unknowable and his full nature can never be known by man. The Koran states his will and commands but does not reveal his nature. A personal relationship with Allah is not possible.
To Christians God reveals His Will and Nature through His Word. We have a personal relationship with God the Father through His son Jesus Christ.
In Islam right and wrong are dictated completely by Allah’s commands in the Koran. There is no sense of morality in men that they should rely on. Therefore the commandments in the Koran often are in conflict with man’s inborn sense of right and wrong.
As Christians we believe that, although we are all sinners, God has put the universal sense of morality in the hearts of men. He did this when He created man in His own image (Genesis 1:26). Because of sin we need to renew that image through Jesus. Therefore we know the difference in right and wrong by nature, even if we sometimes choose to do the wrong things. So there is no conflict between what the Word tells us we should do and that sense of right and wrong that God has given us. The only conflict is in the hearts of men when we want to do what is wrong in spite of knowing that it is wrong.
So, there are no similarities in the Lord of the Christians and Allah. You would have to be ignorant of history as well as the teachings of the religions to make the foolish mistake that they worship the same God.
Chuck Walker - Walker associates, llc (C) 2010
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