In "The Muslim prophet born in Bethlehem" in The Guardian (thanks to all who sent this in), predictably enough, lauds Muslims for their alleged openness to Christianity, and scolds Christians for not being similarly open to Islam.
In 632, after five years of fearful warfare, the city of Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz voluntarily opened its gates to the Muslim army. No blood was shed and nobody was forced to convert to Islam, but the Prophet Muhammad ordered the destruction of all idols and icons of the Divine. There were a number of frescoes painted on the inner walls of the Kabah, the ancient granite shrine in the centre of Mecca, and one of them, it is said, depicted Mary and the infant Jesus. Immediately Muhammad covered it reverently with his cloak, ordering all the other pictures to be destroyed except that one.This story may surprise people in the west, who have regarded Islam as the implacable enemy of Christianity ever since the crusades, but it is salutary to recall it during the Christmas season when we are surrounded by similar images of the Virgin and Child.
It will come as no surprise to anyone in the West who reads my book The Truth About Muhammad, as I mention this incident on p. 149. But there is a great deal more about Islam's view of Christianity and Jesus that will surprise many in the West, because they are getting their information about Islam from Karen Armstrong, and she doesn't tell them about it, either in this article or anywhere else. For some specifics, read on.
It reminds us that the so-called clash of civilisations was by no means inevitable.
Right. It wasn't at all inevitable -- as long as Christians acquiesced in their delegitimization and appropriation of their identity by Muslims, which Armstrong slyly endorses here. Again, read on.
For centuries Muslims cherished the figure of Jesus, who is honoured in the Qur'an as one of the greatest of the prophets and, in the formative years of Islam, became a constituent part of the emergent Muslim identity.There are important lessons here for both Christians and Muslims - especially, perhaps, at Christmas. The Qur'an does not believe that Jesus is divine but it devotes more space to the story of his virginal conception and birth than does the New Testament, presenting it as richly symbolic of the birth of the Spirit in all human beings (Qur'an 19:17-29; 21:91). Like the great prophets, Mary receives this Spirit and bears Jesus, who will, in his turn, become an ayah, a revelation of peace, gentleness and compassion to the world.
The Qur'an is horrified by Christian claims that Jesus was the "son of God", and depicts Jesus ardently denying his divinity in an attempt to "cleanse" himself of these blasphemous projections. Time and again the Qur'an insists that, like Muhammad himself, Jesus was a perfectly ordinary human being and that the Christians have entirely misunderstood their own scriptures. But it concedes that the most learned and faithful Christians - especially monks and priests - did not believe that Jesus was divine; of all God's worshippers, they were closest to the Muslims (5:85-86).
Here is the heart of the matter: the Qur'an radically redefines Jesus, and then declares its redefinition to be the genuine article. It is an act of religious imperialism, of religious colonialism: Jesus is expropriated as a Muslim prophet, and a central element of the Christian understanding of him -- that he is the Son of God -- is declared illegitimate.
Armstrong doesn't mention the harshness of this operation, which culminates with Christians who believe in Christ's divinity being called "unbelievers" (Qur'an 5:17), and those who call him the "Son of God" being placed under Allah's curse (Qur'an 9:30). The result is that orthodox Christianity has always been considered by the Islamic mainstream as being not an object of respect, as Armstrong suggests, but as a renegade entity of which the true version was Islam. For Armstrong's statement that the Qur'an "concedes that the most learned and faithful Christians - especially monks and priests - did not believe that Jesus was divine" is true as regards the Qur'an, but false as regards fact -- unless one posits, as she may, that "the most learned and faithful Christians" were never found within the pale of orthodox Christology.
She may indeed think that, despite the overwhelming dominance of that orthodox Christology throughout the history of Christianity, for she then attempts to establish that that Christology is based on a misunderstanding:
It has to be said that some Christians have a very simplistic understanding of what is meant by the incarnation. When the New Testament writers - Paul, Matthew, Mark and Luke - call Jesus the "Son of God", they do not mean that he was God. They use the term in its Jewish sense: in the Hebrew Bible, this title was bestowed upon an ordinary mortal - a king, a priest or a prophet - who had been given a special task by God and enjoyed unusual intimacy with him. Throughout his gospel, Luke is in tune with the Qur'an, because he consistently calls Jesus a prophet. Even John, who saw Jesus as God's incarnate Word, usually made a distinction, albeit a very fine one, between the eternal Word and God himself - just as our own words are separate from the essence of our being.
So in essence what Armstrong is saying is that Christians have for centuries misunderstood their own Scriptures, and that Islam is closer to the truth about them than is orthodox Christianity. And then she scolds Christians for not realizing that.
The Qur'an insists that all rightly guided religions come from God, and Muslims are required to believe in the revelations of every single one of God's messengers: "Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob ... and all the other prophets: we make no distinction between any of them" (3:84). But Jesus - also called the Messiah, the Word and the Spirit - had special status.Jesus, it was felt, had an affinity with Muhammad, and had predicted his coming (61:6), just as the Hebrew prophets were believed by Christians to have foretold the coming of Christ. The Qur'an, possibly influenced by Docetic Christianity, denied that Jesus had been crucified, but saw his ascension into heaven as the triumphant affirmation of his prophethood. In a similar way, Muhammad had once mystically ascended to the Throne of God. Jesus would also play a prominent role beside Muhammad in the eschatological drama of the last days.
"...just as the Hebrew prophets were believed by Christians to have foretold the coming of Christ." There is a fundamental difference, however: Christianity never charged Jews with corrupting their holy texts. Rather, Christians interpreted those texts in a manner that differed from the Jewish interpretation. Both Jews and Christians recognized -- and recognize -- those texts as holy. For this and other reasons, replacement theology and its attendant delegimization of the other, which is mainstream Islam vis-a-vis both Judaism and Christianity, is not the dominant view of Jews and Judaism among Christians, having been thoroughly repudiated in numerous ways.
The influence from Docetism on the Qur'anic view of the crucifixion is in fact very strong. The earliest paper I wrote about Islam was one around 1981 in graduate school, comparing the traditions about the crucifixion in Gnostic Gospels with those in the Qur'an and Hadith. There are numerous strong similarities.
Anyway, Armstrong doesn't bother to detail Jesus' "prominent role beside Muhammad in the eschatological drama of the last days." Maybe that's because Muhammad explains it thusly: "By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, son of Mary (Jesus) will shortly descend amongst you people (Muslims) as a just ruler and will break the Cross and kill the pig and abolish the Jizya (a tax taken from the non-Muslims, who are in the protection, of the Muslim government)" (Bukhari, 3.34.425). By breaking the Cross, this Muslim Jesus will demonstrate the illegitimacy of orthodox Christianity, and by killing the pig (which Christians eat, but Muslims don't) and abolishing the jizya, he will end the limited protection -- dhimma -- that Christians are to enjoy under Islamic rule, and Islamize them entirely. How un-ecumenical.
During the first three centuries of Islam, Muslims came into close contact with Christians in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and began to amass a collection of hundreds of stories and sayings attributed to Jesus; there is nothing comparable in any other non-Christian religion. Some of these teachings were clearly derived from the gospel - the Sermon on the Mount was particularly popular - but were given a distinctively Muslim flavour. Jesus is depicted making the hajj, reading the Qur'an, and prostrating himself in prayer.
Here again, this is not ecumenical generosity, but triumphalist expropriation. Imagine if George W. Bush, in retirement, published a book in which he declared that John Kerry was a secret Republican operative, who threw the 2004 election on the instructions of Karl Rove. Would Armstrong then hail Bush's openness and generosity toward the Democratic Party?
In other stories, Jesus articulated specifically Muslim concerns. He was a great model for Muslim ascetics, preaching poverty, humility and patience. Sometimes he took sides in a political or theological dispute: aligning himself with those who advocated free will in the debate about predestination; praising Muslims who retired on principle from politics ("Just as kings have left wisdom to you, so you should leave the world to them"); or condemning scholars who prostituted their learning for political advancement ("Do not make your living from the Book of God").Jesus was becoming internalised by Muslims as an exemplar and inspiration in their own spiritual quest. Shias felt that there was a strong connection between Jesus and their inspired imams, who had also had miraculous births and inherited prophetic knowledge from their mothers. The Sufis were especially devoted to Jesus and called him the prophet of love. The 12th-century mystic Ibn al-Arabi called him "the seal of the saints" - deliberately pairing him with Muhammad, the "seal of the prophets". Some Sufis went so far as to alter the shahadah, the Muslim profession of faith, so that it became: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Jesus [not Muhammad] is his prophet."
But of course, the Jesus they were revering was not the Jesus of Christianity, but Jesus the Muslim Prophet, who acquiesced in the denigration of orthodox Christianity (cf. Qur'an 5:116). To adduce all this as evidence of Muslim respect for Christianity ignores the fact that the Muslim Jesus is offered in the Qur'an as a rebuke to and corrective of Christianity.
The Muslim devotion to Jesus is a remarkable example of the way in which one tradition can be enriched by another. It cannot be said that Christians returned the compliment. While the Muslims were amassing their Jesus-traditions, Christian scholars in Europe were denouncing Muhammad as a lecher and charlatan, viciously addicted to violence. But today both Muslims and Christians are guilty of this kind of bigotry and often seem eager to see only the worst in each other.
Here all that needs to be said has been said by a commenter at The Guardian site: "The Baha'i Faith stands to Islam much as Islam stands to Christianity (i.e. they claim Muhammad as a prophet, reinterpret him a bit, add a couple of extra prophets). How do you suppose Muslims react to this? They react in just the way that Christians react to Muslims' claim that Jesus was a prophet (and not the son of God). So it's not the case (as you suggest it is) that Christians have been less tolerant than Muslims in relation to one religion's claim to have incorporated the insights of another. Christians have no reason to be tolerant of Islam, nor Muslims of Baha'i - it's not complimentary, but condescending, to tell someone that central features of their religious beliefs are a confused version of your own. If you tell someone that, you should not be surprised when they don't 'return the compliment.'"
Indeed.
Just to wish all JW readers a very Merry Christmas! And a Merry Christmas to Mr Spencer and Mr Fitzgerald. And a Merry Christmas to all the people who write in like Heirophant, MP remote-control, freewomen, pigtails, briars, atheling, wally-uk, joseph, and everyone else - I can't write anymore names I'm going out to celebrate!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!
A further point: KA's association with Christianity is probably of the liberal, relativized, modernist kind, which also radically redefines Jesus and reduces him to a mere man with a merely prophetic office (to the exclusion of his deity and his kingly and priestly offices). Hence, she could care less if traditionalist Roman Catholics or Confessionalist Protestants find Muhammad's redefinition blasphemous. This is clear in her comments on our confession of Christ as God incarnate "simplistic"--when it is her own Unitarianism-Modernism that is simplistic.
In defence of Karen Armstrong I hereby want to announce the following established facts: islam is a religion of peace™, and islam is very tolerant toward other religions (irony on).
hello Robert, thank you and do have a merry christmas and a wonderful new year. i hope our fight against islam will be more visible and God will give us ideas and concept to contend with its madness.
A short little poem
We're invited to take a
Trip down the cloaca
Of Islam's dank bottomless pit.
There waits an assassin,
A Muslim spadassin,
Who'll ruthlessly apportion the hit.
Mz. Armstrong is mawkish
When she should be hawkish
For Islam has withered her wit.
So here is the essence:
Her thoughts are excrescence!
On Islam she's not really fit.
"It's not complimentary, but condescending, to tell someone that central features of their religious beliefs are a confused version of your own."
COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER!
I am so tired of hearing the "we believe in Jesus, too" blather from muslims.
The other meaningless ranting is the insistence on calling Judaism, Christianity and Islam the "Abrahamic faiths."
The Judeo-Christian Abraham differs tremendously from the muslim Abraham but they (KA and all the muslim apologists) keep trying to tell us how much we have in "common."
I wish a Merry Christmas to you Robert, and you too Hugh.
I also wish to send a Merry Christmas to the readers of this site and some sympathies to them also, for my usual rants.
I hope that the coming year will bring a more focused interest in this multifaceted enemy. As we used to say in the military, We have only two enemies. Ignorance and dirt. We can do something about the dirt.
It's not complimentary but condescending, to tell some-one that central features of their beliefs are a confused version of your own.
Jews can say the same thing about christans.
that was a funny article. i can care less what the Qur'an says; i go off what i see today.
google video of how Islam treats Christianity.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4214974207914289532
1)Armstrong must be a nut of some sort. It's as if she longs to be one of Mo's wives and can't get over the fact that it just won't happen. She just goes the extra mile in fawning over Mr. Perfect. I suspect even some Muslims are embarrassed by her.
2)This Muslim version of Jesus is ridiculous-they might as well have him returning in a space suit with aliens to wipe out all the infidels for sheer madness. Passionate Christians should be outraged at the way Islamania has stolen Jesus and distorted him for its own twisted uses.
3)If Islam is a "purification" of Christianity then I'm turning satanist. Its god can't be much worse than the god Islamania worships with its constant offerings of bloodshed.
Hi English Blondie
and a Merry Christmas to you too - please go easy on the Carlsberg! (support Denmark everyone, even though it tastes like shite!)
I think Karen Armstrong's take on things is interesting but she certainly has an agenda!
Many books of the Apocrypha contradict the Gospels especially regarding the crucifixion and the divinity of Christ. The early Muslims were heavily influenced by the Nestorians who were in turn themselves influenced by those "heretical" Gnostic writings.
The problem that I have with a lot of Christians is their literal take on scripture. There is some evidence that a lot of the parables attributed to Christ are copies of much earlier Greek morality tales. There is documentation from the period of the early Christians, where contemporary "Pagan" Greeks dismiss and satirise the Christians for plagiarising their own writings, and passing them of as their own.(Ring any bells?)
As the early church formed there were a lot of sub sects of Christians, and many didn't subscribe to the divinity or to the trinity. Not untill Nicea, was a standardised format established thanks to Constantine's desire to unite the Roman Empire under one religion. This incorporated aspects of the old Osiris/Dionysus theme of the resurecting God-Man impaled on a tree (and born of a virgin-ring any bells?).
The point I'm trying to make is that if we suppose that Christianity is a blend of earlier ideas and that Christ may not after all be divine i.e. the son of God/God incarnate - or even as some scholars say - that he didn't even exist, does this make Christianity weak?
Is it possible to argue that it would make Christianity stronger if Christians were able to question aspects of the Gospels including the crucifixion/virgin birth. I'm sure we are all agreed that the message is more important than the nuts and bolts.
What scares Moslems is having doubt. This is Haram - they do not believe that the Koran was written by men but that it it the direct word of God. This is their weakness. This is why they are "horrified by Christian claims that Jesus was the "son of God" as it contradicts their book.
Muslims are also horrified by Hinduism as they see it as polytheistic and idolatory in nature. They are unable to see through the symbolism of the many different aspects of the Godhead and refuse to accept that Hinduism is esentially monotheistic.
The point I'm trying to make is that by questionining our own traditions it makes us stronger - by debating the spiritual message and not treating books literally empowers us.
Muslims will never be able to do this as they are too superstitious and convinced that they are right(literally) and will chop anyones head off to prove it!
She is absolutely vicious, and has been getting worse with age. Unaffected by her lack of knowledge, perhaps secretly reveling in it (no need to know anything, and no scholarly nuance to worry about, and nothing to check up on, in her own private version of Islam that is indistinguishable, as it turns out, from all the propaganda churned out by Muslims in order to mislead the Infidels. She believes it, or pretends to, and her animus is hatred, as a former nun, of Christianity, hatred of the West, hatred toward everything that is good about the Western world and that she has no conception of, no understanding of, and will continue to work, in her unhinged way, to undo that West. In a better-arranged universe, she would be tried for treason, convicted, and appropriately punished. Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-haw, updated for the times. That is all she is.
"The Muslim prophet born in Bethlehem"
That makes me physically ill. Retch!
You muslims have your prophet = muhamMad
Jesus is Christianity's central figure, so *f* off!
I've read some of the commentary about how muslims view Jesus, and it's not pretty.
The beauty of the Gospels is that what we see in the life of Christ is that he fullfilled what the prophets of the Jewish Scriptures or what we would call the Old Testement prophecies.
Also the parables came about to teach what Jesus taught in the story format so it can be better understood.
Merry Christmas to both Robert and Hugh as well as the other staff members of JW/DW.
Why does Ms. Armstrong pick the weekend of Christmas to write what she writes? Cannot Christians worship the Lord in peace?
You have to hand it to Armstrong; she is a master of misdirection. Here she is, skillfully employing the most crass aspects of Replacement Theology to patronize Christianity and invalidate the core tenet of Jesus as Messiah, and she does it all under the guise of uniting the Abrahamic faiths.
I'm just surprised she didn't refer to Jesus as that Palestinian Arab born in Bethlehem. Perhaps, in her next contribution to The Guardian.
This special contempary Christmas song would blow away anything a Karen Amstrong or anyone else for that matter would contend. It is a special tribute to the mother of the King and the "Great I AM", "Mary Did You Know".
Here is the URL. Enjoy.
http://www.wrensworld.com/marydiduknow.htm
The above song would serve as a needed "corrective" to the silliness of the above article.
"Is this idiotic woman a muslim herself or just an apologist?"
Posted by: StillFedUp
---------
Probably both.
Hmm... a former (disgruntled) nun. That explains a lot. Thanks, Hugh.
StillFedUp
I'm at a loss myself trying to understand how this woman gets any print space at all since almost anything she says is glaring nonsense. Reading the posters'comments is even more infuriating, since many seem to miss the woman's deception altogether.
A great story accompanies that image of Mary on the Kabah, which the masters of revisionist history, Muslims, like to pave over.
It is said that when Muhammad discovered the image, he secretly ordered that it be destroyed so no one would find out it had the image of Mary. They etched it out and it looked like it was gone, but the next day the workers discovered that the image reappeared. So again Muhammad ordered the image of Mary rubbed out. They rubbed it out, but it reappeared a few days later. Infuriated, he ordered the removal of the image for the third time, proclaiming that he doesn’t want to see the image again.
After the image was removed, the Muslims were praying in front of the Kabah. In prayer, they look up, and find themselves facing, guess what, the image of Mary. It startles them, and Muhammad orders everyone to leave. A frustrated Muhammad gives up trying to remove the image, and tells his confidants to cover the image forever in a cloth, and decrees whoever lifts the cloth, or speaks of what’s under it, be punishable by death.
And that is the story of Mary’s image the Muslims like to leave out. Probably very few Muslims even know about it. Which begs the question: how did the image get there in the first place? Some people claim Muhammad stole the Kabah from Jerusalem.
What amazes me about Western Islamic apologists like Armstrong is how limber they are. Imagine bending over backwards to shove your head up your backside!
I suppose having no spine makes it easier, but still...
"Just as kings have left wisdom to you, so you should leave the world to them"
And we wonder why the Islamic world is ruled by dictators.
Jesus talking to the Muslims? Ha ha ha. The Muslims were in Arabia 700 years later! Do you have your brain upside down.
Having read much about Karen Armstrong and her writings, I am convinced Walt Disney is a better historian---and he's dead.
This proves that the gnostic gospels inspired the Koran.
Is Karen Armstrong lying of is she just mistaken?
ARMSTRONG: "In 632, after five years of fearful warfare, the city of Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz voluntarily opened its gates to the Muslim army. No blood was shed and nobody was forced to convert to Islam, but the Prophet Muhammad ordered the destruction of all idols and icons of the Divine."
Let us see what Islamic scripture has to say about it. This is the Hadith from Bukari's collection...
Volume 5, Book 59, Number 582:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
On the day of the Conquest, the Prophet entered Mecca, wearing a helmet on his head. When he took it off, a man came and said, "Ibn Khatal is clinging to the curtain of the Ka'ba." The Prophet said, "Kill him."
CONCLUSION: Karen has written at least two biographies on the Prophet Muhammad. It's hard to believe her statement was based on ignorance.
Jesus, it was felt, had an affinity with Muhammad...
For all those things imbibed by Mohammed? Did Jesus share Mo's thirst for racism, misogyny, pedophilia, slavery, kidnapping, extortion, torture, theft, and murder? Does this mean that Jesus lusted for world takeover by establishing Global Christianic Law?
610 * 623 * 732 * 1066 * 1215 * 1453 * 1492 * 1683 * 1928 * 1938 * 1948 * 1996 * 2001
My theory is that those who study at fancy finishing schools --- Oxford being the example here --- leaves them the ability to turn reality on its head, as if the central curiculum in these Halls of Ignorance is contortionism.
When a normal person is confronted with reality, well, such an ill-trained soul is left little choice but to respond with common sense.
ofcourse,
I'd like some links on your story. However, for me it rings true, truer than the idea that Muhammed would save an image of even a Muslim prophet. Islam is the most intolerant religion when it comes to icons; they are very strict on this, even images of the human form are not allowed. So to me it seemed ridiculous that Muhammed would save an image of Mary and Christ. Of course, no one (even his followers) could predict what Allah would "order" Muhammed to do.
What kind of Christian is she supposed to be?
/rhetorical question
If she really believes Jesus foretold of muhammad's coming, she is very simply a muslim, and she needs to say it plainly.
Firstly, Merry Christmas to Mr Spencer & Mr Fitzgerald & to every christian readers here.
This is an interesting article & Karen's view is always that Islam is coming from the peaceful idealogy & execution. She may be right, but in her process of writing this, she was unnaturally bias towards the facts.
Regarding the story about the fresco in kaba, its just another story made up to lure christians to islam, just like the countless others out there. I will not be taken aback of Taquiya If I were you.
Reason is simple: Kaba was the home of non Abrahamic faiths. Even the footprints & other signs were defined after the mecca conquest.
Somehow stories were made to prove its legitimacy. Nothing beyond this was presented.
Baha'i faith is not accepted/recognized by muslims & muslim goverments as "Any other religion after islam is not a religion". This happened in Egypt recently.
Well, Now nothing after Islam is valid & some islamic scholars even gone as far to say islam is the first religion by Adam, hence any other religion is invalid to islam: The basis of non acceptence.
Im so sorry for karen & many muslims who truely believe in god, but islam has & had been corrupted by muslims all these years.
Hugh hit it on the head. Karen Armstrong is contemptuous of Christianity and the West for purely personal reasons and seeks to facilitate these attempts at historical relativism and interfaith dialogue which are, in reality, nothing of the sort.
Many Muslims do not believe Christ even was crucified, let alone sacrificed himself for the sins of humanity. What more is there to discuss?
You can dress her up however you like;you're still taking the same girl to the dance.
BTW, there are times when "getting along" just isn't possible.
Read my profile...
-Isaiah 5:20 says: Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!..
Armstrong exhibits a similar haughty contempt (hatred) for Judiasm, btw. I am still reeling after reading a "forward" written by said wretch to a text entitled "Jewish mystical testimonies." This hideous "forward" of hers completely ruined, marred, and diminished an otherwise beautiful text (I have no idea why on earth the editors would have chosen to include such a monstrous piece of writing /filth.)
It would be more interesting and illuminating to read her income tax return than anything she has written.
For centuries Muslims cherished the figure of Jesus, who is honoured in the Qur'an as one of the greatest of the prophets
So cherished that all that is recalled in Islam of this "great prophet" (Isa) is his denials of the central tenets of Christianity and some stupid made up stories of competitive clay animation, etc. Does the Qur'an record "Love your neighbor as yourself", "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you", "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"? Why not? Were these so opposed to the ayat written as Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim? Does Al-Azhar have manuscripts from antiquity showing Jesus did not really say these? Karen?
It has to be said that some Christians have a very simplistic understanding of what is meant by the incarnation. When the New Testament writers - Paul, Matthew, Mark and Luke - call Jesus the "Son of God", they do not mean that he was God.
Oh really?
Matthew 1:23
"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" —which means, "God with us."
Matthew 9:6
But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home."
Matthew 12:8
For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
Matthew 13:41
The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.
Matthew 14:33
Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
Matthew 16:27
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
Matthew 19:28
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Matthew 22:44-45
'The Lord said to my Lord:
"Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet." '[Psalm 110]
If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"
Matthew 24:30
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
Matthew 25:31
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory."
Yeah, just a regular Joe. Need we go on? You don't have to agree with what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, taught; but, please, do not misrepresent them.
Armstrong is just as dedicated to the destruction of the West as obl. She is waging the jihad differently.
Karen Armstrong. What a dhim-wit.
Scorpius I can’t provide you links to that story. It is a story told to me word-of-mouth, which has been passed down generation to generation to someone I know. I believe there is some truth to it.
I suspect this Islamist identifies with Muslims because of her surname. Someone tell her that the famous astronaut, Neil Armstrong, never really converted to Islam, as he was obliged to announce in a public news release. Thus, her name doesn’t hold much water with Muslims nowadays, although many confused Muslims are still calling themselves Armstrong because of that supposed conversion to Islam of the famous astronaut.
Someone has to tell this anti-Christian atheist to stop claiming she is a Christian. This is what she says:
“I usually describe myself, perhaps flippantly, as a freelance monotheist. I draw sustenance from all three of the faiths of Abraham. I can't see any one of them as having the monopoly of truth, any one of them as superior to any of the others. Each has its own particular genius and each its own particular pitfalls and Achilles' heels. But recently, I've just written a short life [story] of the Buddha, and I've been enthralled by what he has to say about spirituality, about the ultimate, about compassion and about the necessary loss of ego before you can encounter the divine. And all the great traditions are, in my view, saying the same thing in much the same way, despite their surface differences.”
Does that sound like someone who follows any faith? It is evident she has already made up her mind about Christianity, Judaism, and Islam without understanding any of the three. It is also obvious she’s out to hurt Christians and Jews, because of her “tormented” past. She knows how anti-Christian anti-Jewish Islam is, and she wants to use it to hurt us. It’s clear as day.
Karen Armstrong has proved once again that she has no clue about Christian history. The same goes for heirophant who has wrongly ascribed certain elements of Christianity to Constantine. Really!!! Constantine was a Roman emperor. He declared Christianity as the state religion, but that is far as it went. The rest of the information that comes from revisionist sources is truly a joke.
I never took much notice of Karen Armstrong when she was a nun. I take no notice of her peculiar writings in The Guardian or elsewhere - she is a cartoon figure like so many who write in The Guardian.
Karen Armstrong has no experience of life - she shut herself away for years and then emerged into a cloistered world of emailing articles from a hotel room.
She is simply in search of something but will never find it. Why I should bother with her disillusionment beats me..............she should have become a Protestant and learned to think.
How can an Islamic defender like Armstrong write that the Quran was "influenced by Docetic Christianity"?
The Quran is the inerrant, perfect Word of Allah. It means the same thing today that it meant when the Angel Gabriel revealed it to his Messenger
The idea that it was influenced by anything, let alone a Christian sect from hundreds of years earlier is blasphemy to any Believer.
Of course, if it was influenced by Docetic Christianity perhaps it is not the inerrant Word of Allah and it is merely the work of man. To even suggest such a thing is haram. I would not be surprised if a fatwa is issued against Armstrong in the future.
Posted by: Carolyn2
I've read some of the commentary about how muslims view Jesus, and it's not pretty.
Here is some very easy reading,even some-one as stupid as Armstrong should be able to understand
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2006/12/to-where-i-live-part-13.html
Armstrong needs to be put on the spot preferably on live television but i think she will evade that like a vampire hides from sunlight.
She merely does what muslims frequently accuse
thier critics of ... cherry picking.
Happy Christmas all.
Another nun
Nun
Someone needs to write a parody of Karen Armstrong's hagiography of Mohammed, by writing a hagiography of Hitler, using the same style and methodology she uses.
"Jesus, .... with Muhammad, and had predicted his coming (61:6),"
so says KA,
Hmmm, maybe she got this one right.
Matthew Chapter 24
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Matthew Chapter 7
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits….
Shame the Jews of Medina were butchered like Hitler's Einzatzgruppen did.
In 632, after five years of fearful warfare, the city of Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz voluntarily opened its gates to the Muslim army. No blood was shed and nobody was forced to convert to Islam, but the Prophet Muhammad ordered the destruction of all idols and icons of the Divine. There were a number of frescoes painted on the inner walls of the Kabah, the ancient granite shrine in the centre of Mecca, and one of them, it is said, depicted Mary and the infant Jesus. Immediately Muhammad covered it reverently with his cloak, ordering all the other pictures to be destroyed except that one.
This story may surprise people in the west, who have regarded Islam as the implacable enemy of Christianity ever since the crusades, but it is salutary to recall it during the Christmas season when we are surrounded by similar images of the Virgin and Child.
______________
Ready for the Kicker????
Since Islam is SOOO TOLERANT and SOOO OPEN... if you are not Muslim you can't see that Fresco!!! LOL LOL Is not that funny? (It's because we, as non-Muslims, can't enter the shrine at Mecca.
From 1962 to 1969, Karen Armstrong was a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. This was a teaching order, and once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she was sent to St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she studied English. Armstrong left the order during her course of study. After graduating, she embarked on a doctorate (still at Oxford) on Alfred, Lord Tennyson. She continued to work on it while later teaching at the University of London, but her thesis was rejected by an external examiner. She eventually left academia without completing her doctorate.
This period was marked by ill-health (Armstrong's life-long, but at that time undiagnosed, epilepsy as described in The Spiral Staircase (2004)) and her readjustment to outside life. In 1976, she became an English teacher at a girls' school in Dulwich, but her epilepsy caused her to miss too many school days, and she was asked to leave in 1981.
Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer by David Thompson
See my post for my response.
I feel an above poster's blog muddied the water.
Where Matthew was clear, John was more clear:
John 1:1
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
εν αρχη ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ο λογος
This is not a trivial issue. Ms. Armstrong's abandonment of Christianity to shill for Islam does not give her the authority to re-write or re-interpret the Christian texts just because she so fawns after those who have and do. Ms. Armstrong is not a scholar. She is a sham.
Christianity teaches that Jesus was divine. Islam teaches he was not. They are not compatible.
A new confession of faith for Christians?
"There is no God but Yahweh and Yeshua [Jesus] is His Son."
From David Pawson's excellent book
The Challenge of Islam to Christians.
Just to make it absolutely clear to Christians and Muslims that Yahweh and Allah are not the same.
Light the blue touchpaper and retire smartly.
Dear Magie4Life
sorry if I offended you. You said -
"Karen Armstrong has proved once again that she has no clue about Christian history. The same goes for heirophant who has wrongly ascribed certain elements of Christianity to Constantine. Really!!! Constantine was a Roman emperor. He declared Christianity as the state religion, but that is far as it went. The rest of the information that comes from revisionist sources is truly a joke."
Karen Armstrong certainly knows about Christian history, but unfortunately she has a political agenda and is therefore disingenuous.
What elements of Christianity exactly have I wrongly ascribed to Constantine? Please do tell. Really!!!!
Do you not accept that Constantine wanted to find a unified version of Christendom to establish some kind of unity in his empire? He certainly went further than just "declaring Christianity as the state religion."
Can you not accept that there are major differences between the Catholic and Orthodox traditions going back to the Nicean Creed,(instigated by Constantine)resulting in the schism between the two churches based on Precedence? i.e. what came first the father the son or the holy ghost.
As i said in my earlier post this is nuts and bolts and irrelevant. The important thing is the message.
I really don't like the way that you say I have "no clue"
I suspect that you are a red-neck American bible basher who along with your allies continually post about Allah being the Mooooon God and Mohamed is Satan and quote from scripture now and again to back this up.
Hierophant - tooo much Carlsberg?? Yes, I plead guilty! I've not logged on for a few days. Heirophant, just ignore the idiots!
I hope your Christmas was fun, and very best for New Year.
I have been reading the other British sites, I think that this is the best one, he covers most of the British news (you know the stuff that our media censor!) and he seems a really decent bloke too:
http://uppompeii.blogspot.com/
Just for clarification, the Baha'i understanding of the station of Christ is as follows:
"As to the position of Christianity, let it be stated without any hesitation or equivocation that its divine origin is unconditionally acknowledged, that the Sonship and Divinity of Jesus Christ are fearlessly asserted, that the divine inspiration of the Gospel is fully recognized, that the reality of the mystery of the Immaculacy of the Virgin Mary is confessed, and the primacy of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, is upheld and defended. The Founder of the Christian Faith is designated by Bahá'u'lláh as the "Spirit of God," is proclaimed as the One Who "appeared out of the breath of the Holy Ghost," and is even extolled as the "Essence of the Spirit." His mother is described as "that veiled and immortal, that most beauteous, countenance," and the station of her Son eulogized as a "station which hath been exalted above the imaginings of all that dwell on earth," whilst Peter is recognized as one whom God has caused "the mysteries of wisdom and of utterance to flow out of his mouth." "Know thou," Bahá'u'lláh has moreover testified, "that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive and resplendent Spirit. We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened and the soul of the sinner sanctified.... He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.' ... Such are the central, the solid, the incontrovertible principles that constitute the bedrock of Bahá'í belief, which the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh is proud to acknowledge, which its teachers proclaim, which its apologists defend, which its literature disseminates, which its summer schools expound, and which the rank and file of its followers attest by both word and deed." --Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 109
Karen Armstrong is a whore of the Caliphate.