Letter to the editor: Response to ‘Aslan in the name of Tash’
In the last edition of the Chimes, articles were written espousing the view that truth is not specific to Christianity but is present in Islam and the Jewish faith. The implied or stated conclusion by these writers was that Christians should look for truth in these religions.
Yet the Bible has a different perspective. Truth, as one editor of the Chimes put it, “belongs to God” and God defines truth in the Bible very clearly. In 1 John 4:1-6 we read, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world … And this is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”
The Islamic and Jewish faiths both deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh as God, the only savior of sinners. Thus, we know these religions are spirits of falsehood. Although some of these religions have good teachings, at the core, these religions are anti-Christian and should be condemned, not admired. Truth without Christ is not truth at all. I look forward to hearing the next Chimes article describing the benefits of Mormonism.
Daniel Hickey • Apr 20, 2018 at 10:03 pm
Nathanael, thanks for voicing your opinion/concern. You clearly care a lot about the subject at hand, which is all well and good. However, I do think that you, as one espousing whatever Christianity means to you, ought to be more careful in your estimations of the validity of other faiths.
Writing off an entire tradition because it does not affirm the identity of Christ seems like an overreaction. Did you happen to read the recent article about the Christian minister serving in Oman who gave a lecture on the need for Christian communities to learn from the hospitality of the Muslim folks there? There’s a prime example of one faith tradition having an opportunity to learn a new, improved practice from a different tradition. This type of move/adaptation, from what I can tell, is what the article you are critiquing was actually about. Learning does not imply conversion.
Also, I think we should be mindful that “All truth is God’s truth” does not mean that all truth must be found or rooted in the biblical narrative or the Christian tradition. Let’s remind ourselves: Jesus was a Jew & God is not a Christian. Let’s be humble and listen, committing to the hard work of dialogue in lieu of the quick fix of generalized claim-laying.