I've had a talk with Crescentmoon about starting a thread where Christians and Muslims can hold out our hands in friendship to one another. I feel like we have so much to offer one another, and I certainly would love to learn more about Islam, and to understand the ways in which my Muslim sisters live out their faith. Would anybody else like to join?
I'm niminypiminy, and I'm a member of the Church of England, and work, and have two children. I realise that I'd don't even know if there is an equivalent in Islam for the different denominations (aside from Sunni and Shia, which I'm not at all confident I correctly understand the difference between). I'm going to be offline for a couple of days, so can't get back to reply, but if anybody would like to use this thread to come together as Christians trying to live out our faith, and to prayerfully and open-heartedly welcome and understand each other... 
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Christian-Muslim-Jewish friendship thread
niminypiminy · 10/06/2013 11:17
What a lovely thread I'm an atheist but have friends who are practising Muslims, CofE, Jehovah's Witnesses and happy-clappy Nigerian Christians. I think they have more of a problem understanding my lack of faith than I do respecting theirs!
Italian, I think, and it's only my opinion, that the ripping of the veil is one of the most important images in the Gospels. For me, it kind of sums up the whole thing. The barrier between us and God was removed by Christ's sacrifice and we can ALL meet with God face to face without the need for a High Priest or intercessor other than Jesus.
I think that a lot of the Levitical Law makes sense in the circumstances that the early Israelites found themselves in, particularly from a health and safety point of view. A lot of the law is concerned with cleanliness, both spiritual and physical, and following it would have protected the people from a lot of illness and risk.
I think, like you, that Peter's vision is as much about preaching to the gentiles as it is about being allowed to eat all sorts of food. (Noah was allowed to eat anything he liked after the flood, as I recall, there was nothing unclean for him either because that story predates the Abrahamic covenant.) There was massive tension within the early church and much disagreement about whether the gospel should be given to "outsiders". Jesus himself struggled with this before he realised that God had sent him to the world not just Israel.
Matthew 15, vv21ff.
21 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, ?Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.?23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, ?Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.?24 But He answered and said, ?I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.?25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ?Lord, help me!?26 And He answered and said, ?It is not good to take the children?s bread and throw it to the dogs.?27 But she said, ?Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters? table.?28 Then Jesus said to her, ?O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.? And her daughter was healed at once.
Matthew 7 vv6 says
Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces
So, early in his ministry, Jesus did not wish to share the good new of the kingdom with Gentiles. Both these passages are from Matthew's Gospel, which is really a Gospel to the Jews and is very Jewish and reflects, I think, the tension in the early church about preaching to the gentiles and how far they were bound by the Torah. Thankfully, this was somewhat resolved with the council of Jerusalem
crescent, in my understanding, Mosaic Law means the whole lot of it. The 10 Commandments, Levitical Law, the lot. I see the 10 Commandments as being a kind of summary of the rest. I also see them as being part and parcel of Jesus 2 Commandments. If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself, all the things mentioned in the Decalogue are a natural consequence.
I think that the hardest thing about Jesus Commandments is always trying to put the needs and wants of others before your own and putting God before everything else. There are lots of circumstances where that is hard.
Putting God first can mean doing things that you really don't want to do are are even afraid to do, you also have to listen for and recognise the voice of God in your life. On a personal basis, I returned to what had been an abusive marriage to an alcoholic, drug addict because I felt that God was leading me to do so and because I felt that was what was required by Jesus teaching on marriage. I was afraid and uncertain but I did it anyway, and thank God, things worked out for the best. I've also brushed with death during pregnancy when my consultant advised abortion, but I knew that I couldn't just take a life. Thankfully, it all worked out for the best and I have my DS4 now.
Those stories have happy endings but that's not always the case. It takes a lot of faith ad trust to try to put God first in everything.
Always putting the needs of others first is hard as well, even in small things like giving someone else the biggest bit of chocolate or the nicest, sweetest tomato. That's hard enough but the big things are really challenging. It's why I do all the stuff I do with the Food Bank, WA, the BB etc. and why I give sacrificially to church and charities. it's a great ideal, though. If everyone put other people's needs before their own then the world would be a better place.
It's hard always to try to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to try to see the circumstances of their lives and to make no judgements but it's a central requirement of Christianity.
Freewill and predestination is something that has challenged and divided the Christian church for centuries. My particular take on it is that God has a plan for us but that we have choices to make within that plan. Give me a wee while to think about how to phrase things and I'll get back to you
I think niminy's question is brilliant. I talk to God all the time in a kind of chatty way, but I am in awe of the self discipline of Muslim prayer and have often wondered about it. I know that you have your five daily prayers, but do you have other less formal prayer times as well. It must be lovely to have that routine where your day is built around prayer.
Hi all, may I join? I'm jewish. I have lots of muslim friends but no Christian friends and apart from what was taught in schools know very little about Christianity outside of that 
. I'm not uber-frum or I wouldnt be online during shabat 
but nice to 'meet' you all.
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Sorry I didn't get back yesterday, crescent, I had really bad day. Bit better today, so I shall attempt to give my take on predestination.
it's something which has caused untold strife in the Christian faith for centuries and is still really divisive. There are several different strands of though on how predestination works. I am probably a different branch of Christianity from most folk on here, but the statement of faith in my brand is that "we can choose God because He first chose us". There, is , however a lot of interpretation of that.
My church has Calvinist roots and their take on determinism v. freewill was that there was really no such thing as free will and that God controlled and predetermined every single last thing that ever happened. They also had the evil doctrine of double predestination - the belief that God decides before people are even born whether they will go to heaven or hell and that there is nothing that they can do to change that.
It all comes, really, from Augustine and his struggles with the idea of Grace and that it all seems so fickle.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:29?30)
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus?who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ?. (1 Peter 1:1?2,)
These verses and others in the NT, especially the letters, talk about predestination and lots of people take that to mean that God controls everything and that He picks us to be his people (therefore condemning everyone else
) But, my personal belief is that you have to take verses like that in conjunction with verses like
This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3?4)
The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
God chooses us because He knows which of us will choose him, iyswim, he doesn't pick us at random. He wants everyone to come to knowledge of Him and to faith but there is no compulsion. We have to choose to believe.
Away from the hideous belief in double predestination, I don't believe that God controls our every move and I, personally, don't think that there is any grounds for that belief in Christianity. I think that God is outside time and we are inside time - so He can see everything that ever happens and knows all our possible choices and outcomes but it is still up to us to make those choices. Believing completely in Determinism would mean that I had to believe that God chose millions of children to be born just to die of hunger and disease, that He chose people to suffer from illness and disability, that he chose me and millions of others to sexual abuse and violence.....
Verses like -
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future Jer29:11
show us that God's plans for us are good and beneficial, not dire and horrendous. What kind of God would determine the kind of life for His children that some people have. (The root of Augustine's problem, really). Bad things happen, often to good people. That doesn't mean, for me, that God has somehow chosen for that person to suffer. Most of the bad things are a consequence of millennia of bad choices by people throughout the ages.
No, I believe that "God's plan" for us is that we come to know Him and have faith in Him, thereby making our lives better and more bearable in the short term and giving us the confidence in His salvation in the long term. Our decisions are our own as are the consequences of those decisions, nor are the circumstances of our lives dictated by God. However, I realise that this is just my opinion and probably not all that valid theologically.
I hope that makes some kind of sense, my brain is still not functioning to clearly.
I didn't know that neither Judaism or Islam have a concept of original sin. How do you view the Fall of Adam? We believe, in the main, that Adam and Eve were created perfect but with free will. They exercised their free will and choose to disobey God, thereby bringing sin into the world and causing the world to lose it's perfection and people to lose the eternal life that they had in Adam - the wages of sin is death.
crescent - the thing with works is that without them faith is pretty empty. We gain salvation Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solo Christo - by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone. There is nothing we can do to earn God's grace or salvation but by doing good works motivated by our faith, we are showing that we have said faith and we are trying to spread God's love. Nothing we can do can earn us God's love because we have that anyway (God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son...) but we can show God's love to others. I think that that's a fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. I also think that it ties in quite well with the predestination thing.
What's the point in doing good works if God has already decided that your going to Heaven, or worse, hell - nothing you could do would make any difference.
I would like to know what the Jewish take on works is, as well. It's embarassing how ignorant I am about other people's faith. Comes from living in the dark heart of proddy land.
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