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Xian
Joined: 08 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:04 am Post subject: Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, not Muhammad's |
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Maybe the topic has been done to death already, but anyway, for those interested:
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Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, not Muhammad's
February 8, 2006 — Fresh Words Edition
By John Piper
February 8, 2006
What we saw this past week in the Islamic demonstrations over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was another vivid depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each. Not all Muslims approve the violence. But a deep lesson remains:
The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.
If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised:
"All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads" (Psalm 22:7). "He was despised and rejected by men . .. as one from
whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3).
When it actually happened it was worse than expected.
"They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they spit on him"
(Matthew 27:28-30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he came to do. "Like a lamb that is
led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).
This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was
not crucified.
One Sunni Muslim writes, "Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion."1 Another adds, "We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do. . . . We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross."2 An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the "ignominy" of the cross.
That's the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission.
And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience. "Blessed are you
when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account" (Matthew 5:11). During his life
on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25);
and he promised his followers the same: "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his
household" (Matthew 10:25).
The caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset with sexual lust. Andres Serrano was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.
How should his followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and angered. On the other hand, we identify with Christ, and embrace his suffering, and rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did his work by being insulted, we must do ours likewise.
When Muhammad was portrayed in twelve cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar across the Muslim world was intense and
sometimes violent. Flags were burned, embassies were torched, and at least one Christian church was stoned. The cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before them. What does this mean?
It means that a religion with no insulted Savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that his followers must be willing to "share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:10).
Footnotes
1 Badru D. Kateregga and David W. Shenk, Islam and Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue (Nairobi: Usima Press, 1980), p.141.
2 Quoted from The Muslim World in J. Dudley Woodberry, editor, Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1989), p. 164. |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| interesting view, i enjoyed the read. |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:09 am Post subject: |
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| Fantastic points, indeed. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it:
Christians are better than every one else- Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
but especially Muslims.
What an uplifting message. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it:
Christians are better than every one else- Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
but especially Muslims.
What an uplifting message.
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The problem with the article is that it makes it sound as if Christian thinking on blasphemy goes like: "well, since Christ was mocked in his own lifetime, we shouldn't get too worked up about him being mocked today".
But this ignores the fact that, at various points in Christian history, blasphemy was viewed as a very serious transgression.
From the Catholic Encylopedia:
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| Medieval canon law punished the blasphemer most severely. By a decree of the thirteenth century one convicted of blasphemy was compelled to stand at the door of the church during the solemnities of the Mass for seven Sundays, and on the last of these days, divested of cloak and shoes, he was to appear with a rope about his neck. Obligations of fasting and alms-giving were likewise imposed under heaviest penalties (Decret., lib. V, tit. xxvi). The rigours of the ancient discipline were insisted upon by Pius V in his Constitution "Cum primum apostolatus" (p. 10). According to the law herein laid down, the layman found guilty of blasphemy was fined. The fine was increased upon his second offence, and upon his third he was sent into exile. If unable to pay the fine, he was upon the first conviction condemned to stand before the door of the church, his hands tied behind him. For the second offence he was flogged, and for the third his tongue was pierced, and he was sentenced to the galleys. The blasphemous cleric, if possessed of a benefice, lost upon his first offence a year's income; upon his second he was deprived of his benefice and exiled. If enjoying no benefice, he was first subjected to a fine and bodily punishment; on repeating the offence he was imprisoned, and still persisting, he was degraded and condemned to the galleys. |
Presumably, the people who set and enforced these penalties were well aware that Christ had been mocked on the way to Calvary.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02595a.htm |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:46 am Post subject: |
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And moving now to 19th Century Philadelphia...
In 1844, a dispute between Catholics and Protestants over Bible reading in the schools turned into a sectarian bloodbath...
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The mob marched on to a nearby seminary owned by a Catholic order of nuns, the Sisters of Charity. The nuns had moved their order to Iowa some time before the riots, and the building was vacant except for a housekeeper, Mrs. Baker.
As the mob surrounded the building, Baker opened the door and implored them to leave. She was hit in the face with a stone. Some Catholics who had been posted as guards outside a nearby church fired a volley of buckshot into the crowd. John Wright, identified in press reports as an "innocent bystander," fell dead. Nathan Ramsey received a serious wound and died one month later.
The Protestant crowd dispersed. Sporadic gunfire was heard throughout the night, though the rioting had ceased.
That evening ARP officials circulated a flyer offering a $1,000 reward for Schiffler's killers. The party also called a general meeting for Tuesday afternoon at Independence Hall. At the insistence of the Rev. John H. Gihon, the words "Let Every Man Come Prepared to Defend Himself" were added to posters advertising the event.
Tuesday morning the Native American, the most extreme of the anti-Catholic newspapers, proclaimed, "Another St. Bartholomew's Day has begun in the streets of Philadelphia," comparing the events of the previous day to the mass slaughter of Huguenots in 1572 by Catholics in France. "The bloody hand of the pope," it continued, "has stretched forth to our destruction. Now we call on our fellow citizens, who regard free institutions, whether they be native or adopted, to arm. Our liberties are now to be fought for - let us not be slack in our preparations."
By 3:30 a crowd of at least 3,000 had gathered for the ARP rally. The first speaker was Thomas R. Newbold, publisher of the less rabid Nativist organ the North American. Newbold called for nonviolence, but his words were soon forgotten when the next speaker, attorney Charles J. Jack, unleashed an emotionally charged tirade that whipped the crowd into a frenzy. They soon began chanting, "Let's go to Kensington!"
Jack led the march. Behind him a man carried a tattered U.S. flag that had been damaged during the previous night's disturbance. Attached to it was a banner reading, "This is the FLAG that was trampled UNDERFOOT by the IRISH PAPISTS."
Many Kensington Catholics, warned of the mob, had abandoned their homes, but some armed Irishmen were holed up inside others. As the Protestants entered the neighborhood, they swarmed the Hibernia Hose House, a volunteer fire brigade and Irish meeting place. Catholics opened fire; Protestants shot back.
Four Protestants fell dead; at least 11 were wounded. In an effort to force the Catholic gunmen out into the streets, Protestants began setting fire to houses. The wooden frame structures went up like dry brush.
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http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston3.htm |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:52 am Post subject: |
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| So when are you moving to Saudi (Shangri-La)? |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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What a stupid and incredibly ignorant comment, Caniff.
Because we don't agree with ridiculous Christian dogma we must be wahhabi extremists?
Thank you for exemplifying everything I hate about religion.
Now go pray for your soul. |
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jinglejangle
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Location: Far far far away.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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As regards the [highly interesting] bit about old blasphemy laws, it strikes me that those punishments were rather light ones for the day, back when execution, often by exceedingly brutal means, were standard for myriad, and in modern view minor, crimes.
That said, I quite understand the point. I would however tend to suspect that it had little to do with biblical teachings, and much more to do with the perpetuation of church political power.
If you are running an oppresive and not always popular international regime based loosely off a religion that most of its followers do not understand (the vast majority of the population in those times being illiterate, particularlly in Latin, which was the language scriptures were written in) then you could certainly not afford to have crtics lampooning the basis of your government, nor saying that it was invalid.
I view this as having little reflection on the teachings of the Bible, and a great deal of reflection on a corrupt political organization that had strayed (some might say run flat out away from) those same teachings.
Does the Bible hold blasphemy to be a sin? Yes, unquestionably. Does it call on Christians to practice intolerance and punish those who choose not to believe? Unquestionably not. In fact, it tells us in a few places to not do so. Have various persons in charge under a banner saying "God" acted contrary to these teachings? Sadly so. It happened often. It will probably happen again. That neither makes it right, nor makes it any more 'Christian' than Al Qaeda carbombings in Iraq. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| The essence of being Muhammad? Marry as many wives as possible and kill a bunch of people. And they created a religion around this guy. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| What an endearing thread. Somebody page fiveeagles. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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There is one and only one Supreme God known by different names among the various major religions. In the course of time there have been numerous pure representatives of God, including Jesus and Mohammed, adjusting the same basic message of eternal devotion to God according to the basic levels of understanding among different types and groups of people.
God is the original person, and tolerance is one of the qualities He posseses unlimitedly. Actually, all qualities - both positive and negative - are present in the Supreme personality, but the Absolute Personality is all-good (in simple math terms the absolute value of -1 is 1...) God displays the quality of intolerance when any of his pure representatives is insulted or offended...Therefore, people of faith should be very cautious about offending another's religion...
Furthermore, popular forms of Christianity have blurred the distinction between Jesus and God - which is another form of blasphemy: The savior (son or pure representative) may be considered as good as God - or even more merciful than God - in quality, but God the Supreme Father is infinitely greater...
Unfortunately, people without faith are doomed to the darkest regions of existence until they somehow see the light - usually through the mercy of a pure devotee who has the saintly quality of tolerance (of insults to himself - but not to God...)
Personally, I try not to insult or offend a purported representative of God unless I'm convinced he - or she - is bogus (and I'm confident of winning any ensuing fight...) |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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Have you ever picked up a copy of any Islamic holybook? Muhammad was pure?
Here are some words from islam's holy books about Muhammad. Tell me if he is pure and how you could compare him with Christ.
Tabari IX:128 ��When the Prophet married Aisha, she was very young and not yet ready for consummation.�� This is how it happened: Tabari IX:131 ��My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old.��
Bukhari:V4B52N211 ��I participated in a Ghazwa [raid] with the Prophet. I said, ��Apostle, I am a bridegroom.�� He asked me whether I had married a virgin or matron. I answered, ��A matron.�� He said, ��Why not a virgin who would have played with you? Then you could have played with her.�� ��Apostle! My father was martyred and I have some young sisters, so I felt it not proper that I should marry a young girl as young as them.����
You like that? Pure? If you want to read abut Muhammad and his life then go to http://www.prophetofdoom.net/toc.html and have a blast. Pedophilia, murder, anti-semitism, war, profiteering. Compare that to Christ's simple life of devotion to God. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| If you wish me to view current world events strictly through a religious prism, I can do that: I hope all fervent Christians and Muslims kill each other off, and may the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on your souls. |
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Xian
Joined: 08 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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| [quote="Rteacher"]There is one and only one Supreme God |
Correct
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| ......known by different names among the various major religions. In the course of time there have been numerous pure representatives of God, including Jesus and Mohammed, adjusting the same basic message of eternal devotion to God according to the basic levels of understanding among different types and groups of people. |
(Hoping I didn't misunderstand you Rteacher). While many may call for devotion to God or god or gods, they are not worshipping the same deity. Far from it. If that were correct we could all call God scitzophrenic due to so many contradictions about the path to God. It sounds a bit like universalism and in essence would lead to the ussumption that those who do not believe in God will still come to meet with God when their time is up because it says "all roadds lead to God". Universalism really would defeat the purpose of any religion, apart from giving people a false hope. The messages are not the same and most of them have teachings that are exclusive. |
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