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http://www.adventistworld.org/issue.php?issue=2010-1002&page=11
Adventists and Muslims: Five
Convictions
How to build on
what we have in common
By William G.
Johnsson
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I read this article with interest. I would like to know more
about the sheik’s vision.
I hope that Johnsson isn’t taking us in
the direction of the “interspiritual” agenda of
modern Christendom’s Contemplative Spirituality. The Spiritual
Formation crowd has been storming nominal Christianity with an advanced
ecumenism that now embraces also the non-Christian religions.
We must be careful in our eagerness to be accepted by other groups
that we do not overstep into error, nor draw back in fearfulness.
There was a time in Adventist history, in the 1950’s,
when we were so eager to be accepted fully by the Christian world (Babylon, in
reality) that in meetings between our leaders and theirs, we compromised
important distinctive truths and the church has been hopelessly fractured
and divided, since. Now, I am no expert on the Islamic faith, yet I
know enough to warrant concern that there are hints of a dangerous
compromise in the idea that “Allah” really just means “God.” I am
troubled by the sheik being told in his vision that Adventists are
“people of the book” which is defined as a reference to those who would
be “followers of Allah who are not Muslims.” I protest this idea
because their Allah is NOT our God. Allah is a false god – a no
god. Of course, we do not come out against a Muslim saying
this, but we had better be straight in our own minds about it.
Allah does not have a Son, the Divine Bread of Heaven, God in the flesh,
given to humanity for eternity, Jesus. Allah has only a prophet,
Mohammed, who was not God. In Islam, there is no redemption of
humanity by the grace of God in the shed blood of the Lamb in our
place. There is only a system of works in that religion. It
is false religion. Because neither of us eat pork and we can
identify other seemingly common elements between Islam and Adventism does
not mean there really is any kind of unifying basis from which those
elements spring, or any genuinely shared faith. In truth, we are as
far apart from the Imam as we are from the Pope; as Ishmael from Isaac;
as East is from West.
I am not comfortable with taking such an overeager approach to
“winning” the Muslim that they are not led to a complete coming out of
false religion and into the full light of the atonement, the truth as it
is in Jesus and as it has been committed to the final generation with the
oracles of God, which are the Law, the Sanctuary, and the Sabbath.
We have to be careful about the idea of being “accepting of Muslims,” in
the same way that we would be careful about being “accepting of Wiccans,”
or “accepting of gays.” We are not to assimilate false religions
and belief systems, but to make disciples for Jesus Christ.
That’s how it looks from here.
~KS
Note by Ron: The World
Council of Churches admits to membership the non-Christian religions of
the world.
Indeed, the Allah of
the Muslims did not give any son in sacrifice for man’s sin. He did not
give Muslims the Holy Spirit of his son to empower in overcoming sin.
Mohammed admitted that he received his message from a Jinn.
As Dr. Walter Veith
says, the Muslims are a very devout and loyal people. He said that they
are more loyal than any people he has known. The same could be said of
many Catholics and Dr. Veith makes a direct connection between the
Catholics and the Muslims. But the God of the Muslims is not the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Great I AM preceded any god. Adventist
leaders have bedded down with Catholicism and now they are bedding down
with the Muslims. If you will watch Veith’s –
The Catholic—Muslim Connection, you will see that to align with one is to align
with the other. And this is one reason Adventist leaders hate Dr. Walter
Veith!
And as Fred Wright
proves in his book Behold Your God,
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob kills no man. That would be against
God’s law, His own character. Ellen White said God kills no man. This is
an important distinction at the end-time.
"God destroys no
man." COL, 84.
Therefore when Ellen
states that to God the work of destruction is a strange work, she is not
attributing that work to Him. She is just simply stating that to God
the work of destruction is a strange work.
However, there is a work
which He Himself does and which is truly His strange work:
"God's great and
strange work is to redeem and save and thus repair the ruin that sin has
made." Review and Herald,
Vol. 3, p. 583.
Does Allah = Yahweh?
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125988
—rb
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