BLOG 1/28/15. CHRIST, ISLAM, AND ‘MOTHERLESS CHILDREN’
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog describing some conversation partners whose spiritual emptiness and agnosticism reminded me of the old spiritual song: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child … a long way from home.” And, yes, there are those profound questions, often buried deep in our sub-consciousness, that leave a sense of somehow being orphaned in a strange universe, and which cry out for answers and resolution.
A study of comparative religions makes it abundantly clear that folk in their quest for those answers and resolution may be creating their own designer gods, or becoming conformed to the gods of their cultures, … or maybe trying to be their own gods. This reality needs to be before us as we look at the world today. I cannot speak as a knowledgeable person about Islam, but I know enough to know that a large swath of the world in the Middle East and in Indonesia, and now in most nations, Islam is a factor. Islam has certainly been much in the new of late.
Christianity and Islam have common roots through Abraham—Christianity through Isaac and the Jewish people—and Islam through Ishmael into what is now Islam. Here’s a reality to keep in mind: in every human heart there is some kind of longing to know the meaning of life, some center, some guiding line. That is where the ‘motherless child’ longing is explained. Jesus came with the affirmation that he had come from God the Father to seek and to save the ‘motherless children’ of this world, to show his love, to reconcile them to God their Creator, to set them free—yes, to know their human nature fully, and to be in an intimate relationship with God.
Both Christians and the followers of Islam acknowledge that they are a “people of the book,” Christians through the narrative of the Bible, which confess is our authority and our guiding line. Islam, through their prophet Muhammad, likewise acknowledges the Quran as their authority. In broad strokes, there is a significant difference between the teachings of Jesus, and those of Muhammad. Jesus came as the incarnation of the love of God for his rebel creation, to convey his grace, and to offer himself as a sacrifice in order to forgive those were so lost and messed up, and to create them new, and make them his children through unmerited grace.
Muhammad and the teachings of the Quran offer a way to paradise, but it is a religion of law. You are a good Muslim by keeping the religious rules set forth in that book, … but there’s not much grace or forgiveness there. There can also be the criticism of current violence by some of the Islamic sects. All that may be true (we Christians have some ‘dirty linen’ too, alas!). But this unmistakable teaching of Jesus I want to herald here is: that Jesus came teaching us love for our enemies, the doing good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We worship Jesus who forgave those who were executing him. But he also taught that “no man comes to the Father but through me.” He came in love saying that he was the door into the forgiving embrace of God the Father, … and that to have seen him is to have seen the Father.
What is fascinating to catch glimpses of, is that there is a growing movement in Islamic cultures, especially the Middle East and in Africa, of those of Islam who have tuned-in to the teachings of the Prophet Isa (Jesus), and to the love and grace and forgiveness of the God who sent his Son Isa. These folk are part of an Islamic culture and are not at all interested in becoming Western Christians, but are forming colonies of those who are responding with faith in the Prophet Isa, and learning and practicing his teachings of love and grace right in the midst of Islamic cultures. (Remember Jesus word: I will build my church … ?)
God so loved the world—all of it, all those ‘motherless children’ whether Muslim, agnostic, Hindu, New Age, … whatever—that he gave his Son, that whosoever believes in him shall no longer be ‘motherless.’ May all in the Christian community get that message.
