The quest to sort out competing and comparable religions

May 29, 2010
By

Kathleen Parker writing in the Washington Post, May 9, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050704065.html

.

As thousands prayed across the nation on May 6 in celebration of the US National Day of Prayer, the Rev. Franklin Graham held his own vigil in the Pentagon parking lot.  Oh well, it doesn’t matter where one prays, right? All prayers lead to heaven. Or do they?

Not if you’re Graham, who lost his place at the Pentagon altar after he mocked other religions, specifically Islam and Hinduism. A plea to President Obama to reinstate him apparently fell on pitiless ears.  Graham’s offense was expressing his belief that only Christians have God’s ear, that Islam is evil, and that Muslims and Hindus don’t pray to the same God he does.

“No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me,” Graham said in a USA Today interview, referring to one of the five main Hindu deities. “None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big kumbaya service and all hold hands and it’s all going to get better in this world. It’s not going to get better.”

It’s not? If the whole world prays for a common good, will no good come of it? If so, then what’s the point of a National Day of Prayer? Oh ye of little faith.

Graham isn’t alone in his views. A survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, conducted by an evangelical polling firm, found that 47 percent agree that Islam is “a very evil and a very wicked religion.” But such opinions may be confined mostly to an older generation. Evangelicals under 30 believe that there are many ways to God, not just through Jesus.

Imam tells Italy that wearing of veil is in tradition of the Madonna

May 29, 2010
By

John Hooper writing in The Observer, May 9, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/muslim-women-italy-veil

.

Veiled Muslim women have become the true upholders of western traditions of female dress, says Italy’s top imam, who angrily condemned the decision to fine a woman in Italy for wearing a veil that completely covered her features.  The incident, which took place in the northern Italian town of Novara, was the first of its kind in Europe.

Izzedin Elzir, the president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII) and a former fashion designer, said: “If we go and see the beautiful artistic representations of the Madonna, we see her with the veil. We don’t see her semi-naked, I think.  For that reason, I believe it is the Muslims who are protecting the traditions of our country.”

Four Lions: Laugh? I roared

May 28, 2010
By

Tania Ahsan writing in The Guardian, May 7, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/may/07/four-lions-muslim-chris-morris

.

Four Lions is the first comedy clear enough about the subtleties of the Muslim experience to satirise it properly.  Chris Morris’s eagerly awaited debut feature film, Four Lions, was released on May 7.  Four Lions is a comedy about jihadist suicide bombers. Even the description seems to suggest that Morris has taken to wearing a sign on his back saying “fatwa me” but the film is not about insulting Muslims, it’s about getting laughs. The comic possibilities of the subject matter were just too ripe not to pick and, while Morris may seem utterly fearless at first glance, the film is not as controversial as you’d think. There is very little about doctrine in there and everything about how amusing incompetence can be.

What Morris does is take the liberal motifs that westerners will be most comfortable with (music, dancing, egalitarian relationships with women) and gives them to his terrorists, while the scary fundamentalists become the innocent, law-abiding citizens. These subversions mean that among the many groups targeted for mockery in this film – the police, Muslims, terrorists, converts and more – are the viewers, whose own prejudices are exposed. The end result is not offensive, it is extremely funny.

Mission to Muslims, or Mission with Muslims?

May 21, 2010
By

www.edinburgh2010.org
Edinburgh will soon be hosting delegates from all over the world for the Edinburgh 2010 World Mission Conference “Witnessing to Christ Today”. During the conference the following open meeting will be held. You are welcome to attend.
Friday 4th June 2010
InterFaith public event

Mission to Muslims, or Mission with Muslims?

The pre Edinburgh consultation in Bangalore in summer 2009, posed this challenging question, as it reflected on the theme of Christian mission in a multi faith world.  This question would never have been put in 1910, nor was there the same consciousness of the centrality of engagement with Islam globally and locally as is found in 2010.  On this evening, we will look at questions of mission and conversion, and working together for the common good, with the aid of case studies from St Philip’s Leicester; Gothenburg, Sweden; and Scotland itself.  Delegates and others will be encouraged to reflect on their own context, in the light of contributions from leading Christians and Muslims from these places. The Event will be 7.30pm on Fri 4th June at St Peter’s Scottish Episcopal Church on Lutton Place, Newington EDINBURGH