William Kilpatrick: 'The Prophet Who Stole Christmas'

Do Muslims truly "love and revere" Jesus? Do we really, as one Muslim apologist insists in his annual holiday message, “have more in common than you think?” Not if you compare the Muslim Jesus with the true Jesus in the Gospels.


The Prophet Who Stole Christmas
by William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine, December 16, 2016:

Behold! The angels said: O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.

“Before searching for this quote in the New Testament, you might first ask your Muslim co-worker, friend, or neighbor for a copy of the Qur’an … the quote is from verse 45 of chapter 3 of the Qur’an.” So writes Ibrahim Hooper, the communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It’s the introduction to his holiday message and it’s offered as proof that “Muslims also love and revere Jesus.”

Every year around Christmastime, Hooper’s message is reprinted and with it his assurance to Christians that “We have more in common than you think.” But there’s a hitch to this message of hope. That’s because every year during Christmastime, other Muslims have a tradition of slaughtering Christians and burning down their churches—preferably on Christmas Day. If you’re a Christian living in Nigeria, Egypt, or Pakistan, Christmas Day brings both joy and trepidation. Other Christians in the Muslim world live in constant fear of abduction, rape, forced marriage to Muslims, confiscation of property, beatings, and blasphemy convictions. As Raymond Ibrahim has ably demonstrated in his monthly series on Muslim persecution of Christians, the Muslim world is permeated with a climate of hatred towards Christians.

Which raises a question: why haven’t they gotten the message—that is, the message that Muslims “love and revere Jesus”? Well, they have. Except that the Jesus they revere is not Jesus of Nazareth, but the Jesus of Muhammad’s imagining.

Has Your Bible Become A Quran?

"The Quran is what a misinformed desert preacher thought the Christian and Jewish holy books looked like. It is a poor substitute and a caricature of those writings."

by Fr. Stephen Freeman — Glory To God For All Things
October 1, 2014

Those who engage in debates on a regular basis know that the argument itself can easily shape the points involved. This is another way of saying that some debates should be avoided entirely since merely getting involved in them can be the road to ruin. There are a number of Christian scholars (particularly among the Orthodox) who think that the classical debates between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages had just such disastrous results for Christian thinking.

Now when engaging in religious debates it is all too easy to agree to things that might make for later problems. It is possible, for example, to agree to a comparison of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and the Book of the Quran. After all, Muslims have a holy book – Christians have a holy book. Why should we not debate whose holy book is better?

It is even possible to agree with the Muslim contention that Christians (and Jews) are “People of the Book.” Of course Muslims meant that Christians and Jews were people of an inferior book, but were somehow better than pagans. Again, it is possible, nevertheless, to let the matter ride and agree that Christians are “People of the Book.”

And it is also possible to give wide latitude to the Muslim claim that the most essential matter with regard to God is “Islam,” that is “submission.” After all, if God is the Lord of all creation, then how is submitting to Him, recognizing and accepting that He is God, not the most important thing?

But each of these proposals had disastrous results in the history of Christianity and may very well be the source of a number of modern distortions within the Christian faith.

Thus, at the outset I will state:

1. The Bible is not the Christian Holy Book.
2. Christians (and Jews) are not People of the Book.
3. Submission to God is not a proper way to describe the Christian faith

Further, any and all of these claims, once accepted, lead to fundamental distortions of Christianity. An extreme way of saying this is that much of modern Christianity has been “Islamified.” Thinking critically about this is important – particularly in an era of renewed contact with Islam.

St. Gregory Palamas - Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy Against Islam

by Ralph Zosimas Sidway

I. Introduction

St. Gregory Palamas is one of those profound and pivotal saints with whom one becomes better acquainted over time, and who often surprises with his insights, message and significance. While rightly revered and commemorated in Greece and elsewhere in the Orthodox world and by Orthodox monastics generally, in America, the relatively recent publications of his life and sermons, and studies of his significance, has led to a growing appreciation in the English-speaking world over only the last few decades for this “Light of Orthodoxy,” who is honored on the Second Sunday of Great Lent (often called a “Second Triumph of Orthodoxy”).

In this essay, I intend to explore a lesser known episode from St. Gregory’s life, which is no less significant than his dominant legacy, especially for our troubled times. In a manner similar to St. Gregory’s handling of the Hesychast Controversy, this episode from later in his life is rich in theological insights, and reveals much about the saint’s strength of Christian character; I believe these two lessons are providentially intended for us today, as a model of missionary pedagogy towards Muslims, and as an example of being a faithful confessor of Jesus Christ.

II. Captured and Held Hostage by Muslim Turks

The capture by the Muslim Turks of Archbishop Gregory Palamas when he landed at Gallipoli on March 10, 1354 while on a political mission of reconciliation for the Emperor John V Paleologos, set the stage for an unexpected and providential chapter late in the revered archpastor’s life.  

Archbishop Gregory was held as a hostage by the Muslims for an entire year, suffering considerable hardships, sometimes beatings, chains and deprivations, which left him greatly weakened by the time he was ransomed by the Serbs. [1]

In spite of being a prisoner (his status was somewhat more rigorous than house arrest; he was not locked up in a prison), he used the opportunity to encourage the Orthodox Christians he encountered in the various towns he passed through, who had only recently been conquered by the Ottomans. At the same time, he engaged in several discussions with his Muslim captors, which were preserved by a certain Dr. Taronites from Nicaea, or by Gregory’s biographer Philotheos. These accounts present a dynamic image of St. Gregory, who, in a manner sometimes similar to the Apostle Paul, takes spontaneous advantage of opportunities to engage with his captors in order to share the Orthodox Gospel. In one instance, after seeing a Muslim funeral, Gregory asks the Muslims what was said. On learning that they were asking Allah to forgive the sins of the deceased, he praised their initiative and their beseeching God, pivoting from this starting point to speak of Jesus Christ as the only Judge, using that to lead into the teaching of Jesus as the Logos of God, undivided from Him yet eternally begotten. [2]

Report recommends changes for translator that altered Bible to appease Muslims

This is a very significant story, as it points to the danger of Christians being so concerned about not offending Muslims that they wind up teaching false theology:

Report recommends changes for translator that altered Bible to appease Muslims

h/t Creeping Sharia, original in World Magazine

An update on this post, New Bible appeases Muslims, yanks ‘Father,’ Jesus as ‘Son of God’

After a year’s work, a World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) panel has released its report on the Muslim-context translation practices of Wycliffe Bible Translators and its partner SIL International. Wycliffe requested the audit of its policies after controversy erupted last year over the world’s premier translator supporting translations that altered the phrases “Son of God” and “God the Father” in Muslim contexts.

Western mission agencies have been concerned about literal translations of “God the Father” and “Son of God” in Muslim contexts because the terms imply God had sexual relations with Mary. One SIL-supported translation of Matthew in Turkey rendered “God the Father” something along the lines of “the great protector,” according to locals. (See “The battle for accurate Bible translation in Asia” from the Feb. 25, 2012 issue of WORLD Magazine.)

Both the Assemblies of God and the Presbyterian Church in America threatened to withdraw support from Wycliffe over the issue. Western mission agencies have also felt backlash from local believers in Muslim contexts who felt the agencies were changing the terms out of impatience over church growth. Frontiers, a missions agency that funds translation work, has also supported translations that alter the divine familial terms, but unlike Wycliffe it has not publicly submitted to an audit of its practices or policies. The WEA report may set the standard for Frontiers whether it officially adopts the recommendations or not.

The report never overtly rebukes Wycliffe/SIL, but it does draw clearer lines for the organizations’ translation practices. (Download a PDF of the report.)

Wycliffe’s earlier standards said translators should use a literal translation of the divine familial terms in a “majority” of cases, but left open the possibility of using an “alternative term with equivalent meaning” when the literal translation might “communicate wrong meaning.”

The new report is clearer. “The WEA Panel (hereafter referred to as ‘Panel’) recommends that when the words for ‘father’ and ‘son’ refer to God the Father and to the Son of God, these words always be translated with the most directly equivalent familial words within the given linguistic and cultural context of the recipients,” the report says.

The panel says where the familial words had a sexual implication, the translators should add qualifying adjectives to the familial word rather than change the word itself, using terms like “anointed Son of God” or “heavenly Father.” They also recommend that translators use “paratext” (footnotes or commentary) to explain the terms rather than alter the text itself.

[Let the Scriptures be translated accurately!  Qualifying adjectives like "anointed Son of God" are in danger of presenting a false Christology like that of Paul of Samosata or adoptionism, rejected by the early Church Fathers. - zosimas]

The report notes “the centrality of the word for “son” in the biblical presentation of salvation,” and says the centrality “demands that translators render the word with the most direct equivalent possible.”

The report also recommends standards for local involvement in translations and urged Wycliffe to set up a process for handling controversies over the familial terms. The panel says Wycliffe should be transparent about the translation decisions it makes.

Wycliffe had suspended the controversial translations while the review moved forward. A Wycliffe spokesman said that all the suspended translations (and all future translations) would meet these new standards prior to publication.

Critics of Wycliffe’s translation practices were cautious about embracing the report until they had studied it more fully.