The Speculist

People who make fun of other people who are trying to make the world a better place are mean.

Just a quick note about the comment I deleted: personal attacks are not necessary for getting a point across, and I won't tolerate them.

I e-mailed the following to Bishop Chane after reading Rod Dreher's comments.

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Bishop Chane,

In your Christmas sermon, you said:

"And what was God thinking ... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad?"

"... was the Angel Gabriel who appears as the named messenger of God in the Jewish Old Testament, the Christian New Testament Gospels, and the Quran of Islam, really the same miraculous messenger of God who proclaimed to a then emerging religious, global community and to us this morning that we are ALL children of the living God? And as such we are called to acknowledge that as Christians, Jews and Muslims we share a common God and the same divine messenger."

These quotes make it look like you believe that Islam is a religion founded and inspired by God acting through the Archangel Gabriel. Do you believe that?

Respectfully,
Mr. Alo Konsen

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The Bishop's one-word-reply: "Yes!" That sounds like his beliefs go quite a ways beyond C.S. Lewis' comment about many non-Christian religions containing "some hint of the truth." If Bp. Chane believes that, fine. He should now be open and honest by renouncing Christianity openly and stepping down from his post as a minister.

Hi, Alo

Well, I would say that the Bishop's glibness is unfortunate. He should clarify his position beyond what he said in the sermon and beyond his one-word response to you. However, I think you have to pre-load several assumptions before you get to this point:

He should now be open and honest by renouncing Christianity openly and stepping down from his post as a minister.

With all due respect, stating that Islam "is a religion founded and inspired by God acting through the Archangel Gabriel" is not a renunciation of Christianity.

I realize that what constitutes "renouncing Christianity" is going to vary quite a bit from community to community. Your point seems to be that, since he has accepted as valid a religion which teaches false doctrines (from the orthodox Christian standpoint), he has endorsed those doctrines and therefore renounced Christianity. If this is the case, he has done a poor job of it, referring to Jesus as "God's Son" and making overt references to the doctrine of the Incarnation elsewhere in his sermon. If he has adopted the Islamic doctrines that contradict these Christian teachings, you can't tell it from his sermon.

Obviously, there are Islamic teachings that are in contradiction with Christian dogma, so anyone who states that both religions are valid has some sorting out to do. But, again, as long as Chane puts Islam in the subordinate position, and does not renounce Christian doctrine, he has not renounced Christianity.

The teaching that there can be no further revelation after the Gospels is considered doctrinal to most Christians, but even renunciation of this doctrine may not be tantamount to renouncing Christianity. If Bishop Chane believes that Islam is "inspired and founded" etc., but also believes upholds Nicene Creed, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that this is a Christian who has adopted some heterodox (or even heretical) ideas than to say that he has renounced Christianity outright?

In the Koran it specifically states that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God. For Bishop Chane to say that Gabriel presented to the Koran to Mohammed implies that he believes the Koran to be the true revelation of God, ergo Bishop Chane believes that Christ is not the son of God, except in the sense that all men are the sons of God. That seems to me to be pretty plain on the face of it. To reject the Divinity of Christ is to no longer be a Christian.

Incidentally C.S. Lewis had a fairly dim view of Islam and refused to consider it a religion, instead he referred to it as a "Christian Heresy"

Also, I would expect a Bishop to have a somewhat better grasp of theology. Nowhere in the Christian Bible does it say that Gabriel gave the ten commandments to Moses. Any Protestant Sunday schooler can tell you that the Lord himself gave the commandments to Moses.

At the very least Chane needs to explain himself, At the worst he needs to buy a prayer mat and point his miter toward Mecca.

I wrote him a similar letter and his only response was to thank me for my interest.

Nowhere in the Christian Bible does it say that Gabriel gave the ten commandments to Moses. Any Protestant Sunday schooler can tell you that the Lord himself gave the commandments to Moses.

Ha. This is by far and away the best point anyone has made in this entire discussion.

For Bishop Chane to say that Gabriel presented to the Koran to Mohammed implies that he believes the Koran to be the true revelation of God, ergo Bishop Chane believes that Christ is not the son of God, except in the sense that all men are the sons of God.

That's your assumption, and those are your words, not Chane's. If he thinks that Jesus is the Son of God only in the sense that all men are sons of God, then what in the world does this mean?

** That an Angel named Gabriel should come into the world and announce to a young, poor, Jewish peasant girl named Mary and to Joseph her betrothed, an itinerant carpenter, and then to nomadic shepherds who lived on the margins of a badly broken, tired, war ridden and religiously divided part of the world ... that this unlikely couple would become the birth parents of God's son. What was God thinking? Many say it never really happened that way! But I say ... it was a miracle! **

It's a "miracle" that Mary gave birth to a child who was the son of God in the sense that we're all God's children? Huh? But if Chane thinks that Jesus is the Son of God in some other sense (which he obviously does) then he has already violated Islamic teaching:

— "Say: He is Allah, The One; Allah, the Eternal Absolute; He does Not Beget, Nor is He Begotten, and there is None Like unto Him." {Koran 112:1} —

(In point of fact, most Muslims would say that using the phrase "Son of God" violates Koranic teaching no matter what is meant by it.)

The Bishop's statement about Gabriel inspiring the Koran doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that he rejects the divinity of Christ. His own statements on the subject make it pretty clear that he does not.

Incidentally C.S. Lewis had a fairly dim view of Islam and refused to consider it a religion, instead he referred to it as a "Christian Heresy"

IIRC, he called it "the greatest of the Christian heresies" [emphasis added] in a passage in which his point was that there are really only a couple of religions to choose from — Christianity and Hinduism. In his view, Buddhism is merely a variant of Hinduism, while Islam is a variant of Christianity. Chane's view is apparently not inconsistent with this; he simply adds the idea that Islam is a valid variant. As I said above, this may be error, but it does not amount to a renunciation of Christianity.

You are dancing around the point. One can make a logical assumption based on the words chosen by Bishop Chane. He apparently assumes that the Koran is a valid religious choice, while it clearly denies the divinity of Christ as well as everything else in the Apostle's creed that mainstream Christians and his own Episcopal church espouse.

Sura 43:59, "Jesus was no more than a mortal whom Allah favored and made an example to the Israelites."

Compare this to John 10:30

"I and the father are one."

Bishop Chane is at a logical impasse. This is a theological question that is black and white when one is differentiating between Islam and Christianity.

Chane seems to be trying to espouse two positions that are logically inconsistent one with the other. Either Christ was Divine, the Son of God born of a virgin as Christians believe or he was merely a prophet whose words were twisted as the Muslims believe. (I of course completely discount the atheistic possibility that he was merely a misunderstood sheep farmer/carpenter from an equally misunderstood semitic tribe )

I'm not saying that Bishop Chane has intentionally denied Christ, I'm saying that I find it very nearly unbelievable that his theology is so sloppy that a man who calls himself a bishop is slipping toward heresies such as Arianism and Socinianism that the Church, both Protestant and Catholic, disavowed 1500 years ago.

One can make a logical assumption based on the words chosen by Bishop Chane.

Yes, but bear in mind that it's only an assumption. Even a logical assumption can be wrong when you're going on incomplete information. That's why a clarifying statement from Chane would be helpful.

...a man who calls himself a bishop is slipping toward heresies such as Arianism and Socinianism that the Church, both Protestant and Catholic, disavowed 1500 years ago.

If you scroll way up, I think I allowed for the same possibility about five postings ago. Although I didn't realize the Protestant Church was 1500 years old. Very interesting! :-)

Gentlemen, you're splitting hairs.

It's all fairly simple:

1. Islam is wrong about Christ* not being divine;
2. Christians are wrong about the Koran* not being divine;
3. Both are wrong in asuming that theology is going to solve this problem.

You have to experience God personally, then you will comprehend that these are just words. Words reflect the mind. But God will always be beyond the mind.

Actually the Koran is quite explicit in calling Jesus 'Word of God and His Spirit' -- a title not given to any other prophet. While Muslims are stuck with the anti-Marianite polemic in their Scripture that has lead them to believe the Trinity is incorrect.

God only cares about worship, cares whether you have love for Him or not. Be assured, there is no other way to Heaven. And everything else are lies invented by unenlightened people today and before, people in charge of our religions and communities, enemies of the original founders of all the religions. How can you be in charge of religion uless you have met God yourself?

A Buddhism represents Buddha as little as the United Nations represents the ordinary people of the world. And then, who of you can honestly say you know Lord Christ personally (in meditation)? Understand him fully? Until then you remain unauthorised and consequently subject to God's non-chalance of you, if not Wrath.

Good luck.

* 'Koran' is derived, on one hand, from Syriac "Kiryana", lithurgy, on the other, from the Arabian Bedouin word (of the same Semitic root) for 'giving birth'. Hence it means 'Logos Incarnate'. The word spoken to Muhammed (pbuh) by Gabriel (pbuh), just like Jesus (pbuh) was the word spoken to Mary (pbuh) by the same Gabriel.

And all is God!
rgds

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