St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol.

II (December 2006)

A Dangerous and False Theory:

Positing Equivalence between Christianity & Islam
By Rev. Bassam M. Madany

Radio, television, and the print media, brought us several articles and commentaries on the
occasion of the Fifth Anniversary of September 11, 2001. The New York Post Online edition
published an article by Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, with this title,
“Islam-Haters: An Enemy Within.” He referred to “a rotten core of American extremists,”
without naming them, “who are standing in the way of properly dealing with the global menace
of jihadism.”

On September 12, 2006, Robert Spencer, an
authority on the history of Islam, and author of
several books on the subject, responded on
FrontPageMagazine.com, with an article entitled,
“Ralph Peters’ Fog of Confusion.” For a full
text of the article, please go to:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArtic
le.asp?ID=24330
anything in the Koran (which is simply stream-of-
consciousness nonsense--Mohammed should sue
James Joyce for plagiarism). We could compile
endless volumes of Christian hate speech that’s
stacked up over the past thousand years (it really
hit its stride in the tenth century). Unfair to cite
only the Muslim hate-mongers without noting that
we’ve had plenty of our own.”

It is not my intention to deal with all the charges
of Ralph Peters, but I restrict myself to a comment
he made about God, as He is revealed in one of
the historical Books of the Old Testament. In his
article that appeared on the New York Post Online
edition, on September 7, 2006, Mr. Peters
criticized those he termed as “Islam-Haters” for
pointing to references in the Qur’an that support
violence against non-Muslims:
It is so unfortunate that a retired United States
officer who has had some experiences overseas,
including tours of duty in Muslim lands, and who
regards himself as “a believing Christian,”
manifests such an ignorance of both Christianity
and Islam. Not keeping his confusion to himself,
he goes public by equating Christianity with
Islam, as far as encouraging violence towards
those who don’t belong to their communities.

“As for the books and Web sites listing all those
passages encouraging violence against the infidel,
well, we could fill entire libraries with bloody-
minded texts from the Christian past. And as a
believing Christian, I must acknowledge that
there’s nothing in the Koran as merciless as
God’s behavior in the Book of Joshua.”
A few days later, Ralph Peters made similar
remarks during the “Symposium: 9/11 Five
Years Later,” that was presided over by Jamie
Glazov of FrontPageMamazine.com published on
9/11/06
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArti
cle.asp?ID=24313)
“Blanket hatred is blanket hatred, no matter how
piously it’s couched in terms of patriotism or
‘defending our civilization.’ I cited the Book of
Joshua because of the grotesque thirst for blood
of our own Old Testament deity--far uglier than
Some of his sentences were extremely shocking,
in fact revolting. “I cited the Book of Joshua
because of the grotesque thirst for blood of our
own Old Testament deity…”
“And as a believing Christian, I must
acknowledge that there’s nothing in the Koran as
merciless as God’s behavior in the Book of
Joshua.”
I don’t know how much Mr. Peters knows of
Church History, but his views are identical with
those of the notorious Second Century heretic,
Marcion (110-160) who held that the God of the
Old Testament was “jealous, wrathful, and
legalistic.” This early heresy was thoroughly
condemned by the early church.
While a Westerner who appears frequently on
television, speaking on matters of war and peace,
claims that Christians have been as violent as
Muslims; some liberal Arab writers affirm that

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

www.stfrancismagazine.info - www.interserve.org - www.arabvision.org
Islam, both in its sacred texts, and throughout its
1400-year history, has been a violent faith.
Recently, on a Kuwaiti Arabic-language website
devoted to dialogue, modernization, and
reformation, an article dealt with the theme, “Is
Islam a Tolerant Religion?”
An English-language website of ex-Muslims,
www.faithfreedom.org, quoted at length from the
above mentioned article, adding some pertinent
comments; after which I will make my own
observations.
The moderate Arab Muslim writer began,
“I do expect to get responses from those who
claim that Islam is a tolerant religion, and who
would refer me to several religious texts, in the
Qur’an, and the Sunna, that prove their point. On
the other hand, there are many more texts that
prove the very opposite. So, the problem that
faces Muslims today is that those who yield
authority in Muslim countries refer to the second
set of texts, namely to those that advocate
intolerance
vis-à-vis the ‘Other,’ or, the ‘Different.’
“In order for the Muslim world to live at peace
with the other civilizations, it is of utmost
importance that the religious leaders of Islam face
honestly this question: ‘Is Islam a religion of
peace?’ We need a serious response from them in
order to curb the activities of the Jihadists and
Irhabists (terrorists) who have highjacked Islam.
They must clarify Islam’s position regarding this
mad violence that has gripped the Muslim world,
and spilled into many other lands. They have to
cleanse Islam from all the vestiges of terrorism;
otherwise, all of us will be paying a heavy price
for their inaction. Is there anyone, anybody
listening to me?”
Another article appeared on the same website
dealing with the necessity of reformation in Islam.
Its author’s thesis was that those chapters (surahs)
of the Qur’an that were revealed to Muhammad in
Mecca (610-622) had a peaceful message, when
the Prophet was weak. But after his migration to
Medina in 622 and until his death in 632, when he
assumed the role of prophet and ruler of the
nascent Islamic Umma (community), the tone of
the revelations changed, becoming intolerant of
opposition, and advocating violence towards non-
Muslims. Thus, to bring about a reformation in
Islam today, it is necessary to regard the Meccan
2
surahs as normative; while considering the
Medinan surahs as no longer applicable to the
here and now.
A frequent commentator on the site of
FaithFreedom.org, analyzed the article on
reformation in Islam, and wrote his evaluation of
about the impossibility of separating the two parts
of the Qur’an:
“While the goal of these reformists is laudable,
unfortunately it is simply a shot in the dark. Islam
is firmly entrenched in the entire Qur’an, the
Hadith, and the Sunna. Neither these authoritative
texts, nor the way they have been expounded
during the last fourteen centuries, allow for any
disjunction between the teachings of the “Meccan
Surahs” and the “Medinan Surahs” of the
Qur’an. The orthodox doctrine regarding the text
of the Qur’an is its uncreatedness. There can be
no pick and choose between the revelation that
‘descended’ in Mecca, and the revelation that
came later on in Medina.
“Unfortunately for Muslim reformers, they do not
have the same tradition vis-à-vis the Qur’an as
Christians have regarding the Bible. What I mean
is that in the Christian tradition, the teachings of
the Old Testaments must be interpreted in the
light of the New Testament. Thus, since the New
Testament clearly teaches two distinct and
separate realms: the realm of God, and the realm
of “Caesar,” it leaves no room for the
establishment of a theocracy in areas of the world
where Christians dominate. Furthermore, such
parts of the Old Testament that deal with the
conquest of the Promised Land, and the various
aspects of the Mosaic law, excepting the Ten
Commandments, are regarded as pertaining to a
specific temporary era, and thus, are not
normative for the present.
“What I mean is that the Christian Scriptures
themselves describe two phases of revelation, the
first being preparatory for the second phase,
which is final. As mentioned above, it is the New
Testament itself that authoritatively endorses this
view, and is not a later addition to the Christian
tradition. It is true that after the conversion of
Emperor Constantine, the lines of demarcation
separating Church and State became blurred. And
after the fall of Rome, the Western Church began
to interfere in the affairs of the State. However,
such changes were contrary to the teachings of
the Bible. So the Reformers of the 16th Century
simply called for a return to the Biblical
teachings, not only regarding spiritual matters,
but equally in connection with the affairs of the
state.
“Muslim scholars today, interested in some kind
of reform, don’t have the ‘luxury’ that Luther,
Calvin, and Knox had, almost five hundred years
ago. Their Holy Book doesn’t allow for such a
radical hermeneutic as called-for by the author of
the article” i.e., considering only the early parts
of the Qur’an (revealed in Mecca) are normative
for the present. Thus far the quotations from the
FaithFreedom website.
My Observations
It is too bad that Ralph Peters, who regards
himself as a believing Christian, doesn’t seem to
know enough about his faith as not to make
irresponsible comments about the God of the Old
Testament, making Him altogether different from
the God of the New Testament. He must have
never heard of the well-known adage of St
Augustine, “In the Old Testament, the New
Testament lies concealed, but in the New
Testament, the Old Testament is revealed.”
Another basic error of Ralph Peters is his
ignorance of the history of Islam during the last
fourteen centuries. In this connection, I would like
to quote from an excellent book, “ISLAMIC
IMPERIALISM: A HISTORY” The author,
Ephraim Karsh, is Professor and Head of the
Mediterranean Studies Programme, King’s
College, University of London. It was published
in 2006 by Yale University Press, New Haven and
London.
Writing in his Introduction, Professor Karsh
contrasts Christianity and Islam, “The worlds of
Christianity and Islam, however, have developed
differently in one fundamental respect. The
Christian faith won over an existing empire in an
extremely slow and painful process and its
universalism was originally conceived in spiritual
terms that made a clear distinction between God
and Caesar. By the time it was embraced by the
Byzantine emperors as a tool for buttressing their
imperial claims, three centuries after its
foundation, Christianity had in place a
countervailing ecclesiastical institution with an
abiding authority over the wills and actions of all
believers. The birth of Islam, by contrast, was
inextricably linked with the creation of a world
empire and its universalism was inherently
imperialist. It did not distinguish between
temporal and religious powers, which were
combined in the person of Muhammad, who
derived his authority directly from Allah and
acted at one and the same time as head of the
state and head of the church. This allowed the
prophet to cloak his political ambitions with a
religious aura and to channel Islam’s energies
into ‘its instruments of aggressive expansion,
there [being] no internal organism of equal force
to counterbalance it.’” P. 5
How tragic indeed that some Western “experts”
spout such irresponsible words positing
equivalence between the Christian Scriptures and
the Qur’an, and go on claiming that “we could fill
entire libraries with bloody-minded texts from the
Christian past.” These are not words based on
genuine historical research, but are emotional
outbursts that do not advance the cause of
peaceful coexistence between Islam and the rest
of the world.
I end my article by quoting these sober words of
Professor Karsh, taken from his Epilogue:
“Contrary to widespread assumptions, these
attacks, [reference here is to 9/11/2001]
and for that matter Arab and Muslim, anti-
Americanism, have little to do with US
international behavior or its Middle Eastern
policy. America’s position as the pre-eminent
world power blocks Arab and Islamic imperialist
aspirations. As such, it is a natural target for
aggression. Osama bin Laden and other
Islamists’s war is not against America per se, but
is rather the most recent manifestation of the
millenarian jihad for a universal Islamic empire
(or umma). This is a vision by no means confined
to an extremist fringe in Islam, as illustrated by
the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks
throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.” P. 234