The people of Westworth United Church have already opened up their lives to Syrian Muslims, and now they’re inspired to open up their hearts.
“We thought because we are in the middle of a one-year sponsorship of Syrian refugees, this was the perfect opportunity to learn about Islam,” says Rev. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd about a five-week study series on Islam and Christianity.
Last fall, the River Heights church, along with members of Muslim and Jewish communities, sponsored six adults and 18 children from Syria. The multi-faith sponsorship group, called REFUGE, has raised about $100,000 of the $120,000 needed to sponsor these three families for their first 12 months in Canada.
Running during the Christian season of Lent, the 40 days before Easter, the free series covers topics such as violence, reading difficult passages in the Qur’an and the Bible, and issues of hate, violence and racism in both faiths, says MacKenzie Shepherd.
I have just finished reading Nabeel Qureshi’s book, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus,” following his presentation at Mere Anglicanism. There are many Muslims who do not know the more questionable teachings of their faith, and these well-intentioned Christians also don’t know. We should treat our Muslims neighbors with respect and compassion. Pretending that “all religions teach the same values,” however, is nonsense.
#1–Or that Allah and Yahweh are the same god/God.
I liked William Lane Craig’s address on that topic at the conference, David Keller. What he said is that rather than get pulled into that discussion, the more constructive way is to say that the Islamic concept of God is seriously distorted and, as he said, morally deficient. Islam teaches that God is merciful but then that God is distant and judges harshly, giving no guarantees of salvation and certainly no love.
Qureshi pointed out that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and the time is more right than it ever has been to evangelize them. Starting out by telling them that God isn’t God shuts off the discussion. (“Allah” means “God” in Arabic, and is used by Arabic-speaking Christians.) But their tradition teaches that God hates sinners, whereas the Gospel is that God loves sinners so much he came to save them personally.