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The Myth of "The Myth of Moderate Islam" 26

In a recent arti­cle in The Spec­ta­tor mag­a­zine in the UK, the evan­gel­i­cal leader Patrick Sookhdeo takes a swipe at Mus­lims and their reli­gion. Does his case stand up to scruti­ny ? Patrick Sookhdeo’s arti­cle (July 30, 2005) in London’s The Spec­ta­tor, The Myth of a Mod­er­ate Islam” reflects a dan­ger­ous trend in the war on ter­ror. Under the guise of inform­ing West­ern­ers about Islam, he is in fact spread­ing the very same dis­in­for­ma­tion that anti-Islam­ic polemics have been based upon for over 1,000 years. This plays direct­ly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zar­qawi and oth­ers, for it encour­ages the clash of civ­i­liza­tions” they so appalling­ly desire. It is indeed of the utmost impor­tance that we learn more about Islam and fight the scourge of extrem­ism with all the tools pos­si­ble. But Sookhdeo and those like him cor­rupt this process, seek­ing to advance their own agen­da by turn­ing the war on ter­ror into an ide­o­log­i­cal war against Islam.

The Apotheosis of Jesus of Nazareth 27

A spe­cial gift” for the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies on occa­sion of Good Fri­day. I wish to show by an analy­sis of Wis­dom Chris­tol­ogy in Matthew’s gospel chap­ter 23, that the evan­ge­list took the dra­mat­ic step of chang­ing Jesus’ meta­phys­i­cal sta­tus from crea­ture to Cre­ator by alter­ing the Q tra­di­tion, and to reflect on the the­o­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions of this meta­mor­pho­sis for Chris­tian­i­ty, and where we go from here.

Islam and Christianity

The Inter­faith Coali­tion of Nashville orga­nized this year’s inter­faith con­fer­ence in the Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty, Nashville, USA. Judaism was rep­re­sent­ed by Dr. Don­na Whit­ney, Chris­tian­i­ty by Dr. Tom Davis, Hin­duism by Dr. Howard J. Resnick (HD Goswa­mi), and Bud­dhism by Pro­fes­sor Win Myint. Dr. Habib Sid­diqui rep­re­sent­ed Islam. This is the tran­script of his speech on Islam.

The con­fer­ence was opened by Dr. Jawaid Ahsan. Dr. Charles Hem­brick, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Reli­gion at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty, mod­er­at­ed the conference.

In Hans Kung’s address to this con­fer­ence he has once again proven him­self a pio­neer of inter­re­li­gious dia­logue. What he has been doing through­out most of his the­o­log­i­cal career, he was doing again-explor­ing new ter­ri­to­ry, rais­ing new ques­tions in the encounter of Chris­tian­i­ty with oth­er reli­gions. Although Kung made his great­est con­tri­bu­tion in the inner-Chris­t­ian, eccle­sial are­na, he has always real­ized-and increas­ing­ly so in more recent years-that Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy must be done in view of, and in dia­logue with, oth­er reli­gions. As he has said, Chris­tians must show an increas­ing­ly greater broad-mind­ed­ness and open­ness” to oth­er faiths and learn to reread their own his­to­ry of the­o­log­i­cal thought and faith” in view of oth­er tra­di­tions. As a long-time read­er of Kung’s writ­ings, and as a par­tic­i­pant with him in a Bud­dhist-Chris­t­ian con­fer­ence in Hawaii, Jan­u­ary 1984, I have wit­nessed how much his own broad-mind­ed­ness and open­ness to oth­er reli­gions has grown. He has been changed in the dialogue.