Islam and Christianity - Estranged siblings or polarized worldviews?

Key verse(s)/quote(s):

“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” - Jude 1:3

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - C.S. Lewis

Key takeaway(s):

1. Although some similarities exist (as some Muslims would like us to focus upon) between these two monotheistic faiths - Christianity and Islam are indeed polarized worldviews.
2. Jesus is regarded as highly esteemed

…

Bible Contradictions

Key verse(s)/quote(s):

• even prophets show interest in correct biblical understanding

“They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.” - Nehemiah 8:8

• Jesus corrects wrong scriptural understanding

“So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” - John 6:30-33

Key takeaway(s):

1. It is important to understand the difference between: Exegesis (Good): Draw meaning out of text, Eisegesis (Bad): Read one’s ideas into the text.
2. Context is necessary and without it something can easily become a pretext.
3. A proper/complete view of biblical study is key to an accurate understanding of what the text says
4. Developing a reflex to research and not to doubt is mandatory for any sound pursuit of Truth.

Overview:

This post serves as a practical extension to the topical discussion on the “Validity of the Bible”. Beyond understanding the tools, approaches, and broader questioning of the Bible the attached documents address more specific examples of “apparent contradictions”. …

Faith vs. Reason?

Key verse(s)/quote(s):

“I don’t want to believe, I want to know.”  –  Carl Sagan

“The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotions and imagination on the other…”  –  C.S. Lewis

“We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency to work up a subjective state which, if we succeeded, we should describe as “faith”, with the idea that this will somehow insure the granting of our prayer.… The state of mind which desperate desire working on a strong imagination can manufacture is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics.” - C.S. Lewis

Key takeaway(s):

1. God requires belief and trust in moments of human weakness, but faith is what makes us strong. Faith is the state of being convinced about what we hope for.
2. Faith never means gullibility
3. It is possible to increase your faith
4. Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted

Overview:

One warm evening in May, I had ventured downtown with my fellowship to visit the ROM (Free night ). After parking in Yorkville and walking south to Bloor and Avenue on the North East corner we passed by this sign outside a church.

As a few of us walked by and continued to cross the street I commented that the sign irked me. It was a horrible message to be sending out to the world about God and not only that… it came from the “church”!

Ironically, they had quoted the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal who was the member of a small …

Validity of the Bible

Key verse(s)/quote(s):

“What we really need, after all, is not to defend the Bible but to understand it.”  –  Millar Burrows

“If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came  —  and the Scripture cannot be broken”  –  John 10:35

Key takeaway(s):

1. Understanding the Bible in context and being able to gain and communicate its validity is paramount to the Christian faith.
2. One can easily say they “believe” in the Bible or claim the opposite naming it “myth”, each is without veracity as one must understand “what” the Bible says completely and “why” we can have assurance it is actually the Word of God.
3. Basis for trust is rooted in:
   • Third-Party Verification
   • Historical Reliability
   • Fulfilled Prophecy
   • Archaeological Evidence
4. God can produce both a Person and a Book that are without error.

Overview:
This topic is one that sometimes seems bland and often ignored yet ironically in my view it is arguably the most or second most paramount aspect of the Christian dialogue. As Paul states that Christianity itself stands and falls on the resurrection of Christ, it is of utmost importance that prior to generating thoughts and basing our world views on the teaching of a book we must put to rest the discussion on the validity of such a book. More simply put, how can we live by the word of a book if it’s just a book and yet we think and say it is the word of God yet we don’t know it to be so?

Secondarily, how can we respond to the popular …

Today’s Religions: There is no neutral ground.

Key verse(s)/quote(s):

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan” - C.S. Lewis

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  –  1 John 4:9-10

Key takeaway(s):

1. With such an array of beliefs how can all religions lead to the same point?
2. Objective analysis of a religion is key and sincerity alone has never been and should never be a mark of authenticity
3. All religions & cults seem to do one or more of the following…

• Strip the deity of Christ
• Bring God down to our level
• Lift us up to God’s level
• Focus on self and not God
• Negate God’s existence altogether
• Dismiss our sinful nature

Overview:

This topic requires a holistic evaluation of several fundamental questions. The 4 main areas that serve as a starting point for an introductory discussion on comparative world religions begins with:

1. Why are there so many religions?
2. Don’t all religions point to God?
3. What makes Christianity unique from other religions?
4. What does all this mean to you?

In order to objectively compare religions and understand what worldviews they present, one must read from their own texts. Each of the facts presented in this presentation will be readily attested to by each faith group as they are taken from their …