Increasingly Superficial Answers

A cou­ple of days ago Brian McLaren was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tion on his blog, “… third, that you believe (based on some of your lat­est com­ments) that the god wor­shipped by Mus­lims is the same God that Chris­tians wor­ship. Are these assump­tions true?” In typ­i­cal fash­ion, McLaren has pro­vided non-answers in the form of fur­ther ques­tions. Those ques­tions and the point they are try­ing to get across, how­ever, are extremely super­fi­cial, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the posi­tion McLaren is in (at least as I under­stand what McLaren is saying).

On your ques­tion about the God wor­shipped by Chris­tians and Mus­lims, here’s what I would say:

1. Do all Chris­tians hold exactly the same con­cept of God when they wor­ship? For exam­ple, does the con­cept of God held by Pros­per­ity Gospel Pen­te­costals dif­fer greatly from that held by double-predestinarian Calvin­ists? Does the con­cept of God held by a paci­fist Men­non­ite dif­fer greatly from the con­cept held by a pro-war believer in Man­i­fest Des­tiny? Did Mother Teresa’s con­cept of God dif­fer from Jerry Falwell’s? Of course, there are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences, so sig­nif­i­cant that some Chris­tians deny that other Chris­tians are truly Christians.

The answer is, I believe, no, Chris­tians don’t dif­fer greatly where God is con­sid­ered. Of course, this requires cre­at­ing a dis­tinc­tion between first-tier beliefs (nec­es­sary beliefs) and second-tier beliefs (non-necessary beliefs). When con­sid­er­ing first-tier beliefs, it doesn’t mat­ter if one is Protes­tant (or the dif­fer­ent denom­i­na­tions of Protes­tantism), Catholic or East­ern Ortho­dox, the same first-tier beliefs are held: belief in the Trin­ity, the deity of Jesus, sin and the fallen nature of man, the nec­es­sary work of Jesus on the cross, sal­va­tion, the exclu­siv­ity of Jesus and the inspired nature of Scrip­ture. Second-tier beliefs would entail the work­ing out of those above beliefs, the ‘pros­per­ity Gospel,’ pre-destination or double-destination, beliefs which dis­pose one to paci­fist or pro-war incli­na­tion, etc. What we have is dif­fer­ent views regard­ing agreed upon con­cepts of God. What we don’t have is dif­fer­ent views regard­ing dif­fer­ent con­cep­tions of God. To return to McLaren’s ques­tion, “did Mother Teresa’s con­cept of God dif­fer from Jerry Falwell’s?’ the answer is no. They both believed in the per­son of Jesus, in the sin­ful and fallen nature of mankind and in the neces­sity of Jesus Christs work, both pro­fess­ing Him as Lord and Sav­ior. These are the core beliefs which all Chris­tians accept and on which Chris­tians don’t differ.

From this the rest of McLaren’s answer more or less falls apart.

2. If Chris­tians dif­fer so greatly from one another in their con­cepts of God, then of course Mus­lims and Chris­tians have sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences too. Yes, both groups have impor­tant con­cepts in com­mon — for exam­ple, both believe God is omnipo­tent, all-merciful, and with­out any imper­fec­tion. Both claim to believe in the same God that Abra­ham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets believed and fol­lowed. But Chris­tians believe that God is revealed most fully and glo­ri­ously in a cru­ci­fied per­son, and Mus­lims believe God is revealed most fully and glo­ri­ously in an inspired book. (Actu­ally I’ve met a few Chris­tians who seem to have a con­cept closer to Islam’s, sub­sti­tut­ing the Bible for the Quran.) So there are real and sig­nif­i­cant differences.

3. This raises a fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tion: how mer­ci­ful is God in hear­ing the prayers and receiv­ing the wor­ship of peo­ple whose con­cepts are less than fully accu­rate? If God requires 100% accu­racy, we’re all hope­less since we all fall short in our under­stand­ing of God. In fact, I agree with C. S. Lewis in this beau­ti­ful poem …
+++++
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the inef­fa­ble Name, mur­mur­ing Thou,
And dream of Phei­d­ian fan­cies and embrace in heart
Sym­bols (I know) which can­not be the thing thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blas­pheme
Wor­ship­ing with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their pray­ing, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in mag­netic mercy to thy­self divert
Our arrows aimed unskill­fully, beyond desert;
And all men are idol­aters, cry­ing unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our lit­eral sense. Lord, in thy great,
Unbro­ken speech our limp­ing metaphor translate.

Regard­ing what McLaren has said in his sec­ond point, both groups don’t hold to the same ‘impor­tant con­cepts’ (empha­sis on impor­tant). The Chris­t­ian def­i­n­i­tion of omnipo­tence is quite dif­fer­ent from the Islamic def­i­n­i­tion of Omnipo­tence, as is their ideas of ‘all-merciful,’ respec­tively. Mind you I do agree that in both Islam and Chris­tian­ity we see a view of a per­fect God. How­ever, these are not impor­tant com­mon con­cepts. If Chris­tians and Mus­lims affirmed exactly the same ideas of omnipo­tence, per­fec­tion and mercy, this would not mean that Chris­tians and Mus­lims wor­shipped the same God. The same can be said regard­ing the claim that both say they fol­low­ing the God of ‘Abra­ham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets’. What McLaren says in pass­ing which is actu­ally the sig­nif­i­cant thing, is the dif­fer­ence in views con­cern­ing the per­son of Jesus. Chris­tians believe God became incar­nate in Jesus while Mus­lims do not. It’s this belief in who Jesus is that deter­mines whether or not you’re wor­ship­ing the same God. It’s not a mat­ter of ‘same con­cept, dif­fer­ent expres­sion’. It’s a mat­ter of dif­fer­ent con­cept, dif­fer­ent expres­sion, as some of the Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors noted in a pre­vi­ous post. I think what McLaren has neglected to do is read and study his Old Tes­ta­ment.  It’s not sim­ply a mat­ter of claim­ing, ‘We wor­ship the same God!’ and claim­ing that as a sort of exemp­tion, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t com­pletely accu­rate in wor­ship­ing you!’ The real­ity is that God has revealed Him­self to us and to deny that rev­e­la­tion is a seri­ous offense. We can­not claim we were ‘less than accu­rate’ where God has revealed Him­self. If we reject that, then we reject God.

As for Lewis’ Foot­note to All Prayers, Lewis was either very naive in writ­ing, or McLaren is very much taken it out of con­text. All in all, another ques­tion to McLaren with no answer. Noth­ing surprising.

Related posts:

1. The Search for Answers and Meaning
2. Are Allah and YHWH the same God?
3. Gen­tle, Rev­er­ent Answers
4. McLaren, again?!
5. Hosea 4:6 — Lack of knowl­edge is an understatement.