Islam and the Fringe

Last weekend the LA Times had a review of Miroslav Volf’s upcoming book  on Christian and Muslim theological concerns. It is well worth your 5 minutes to read. Volf is a renowned Christian thinker and is supremely well respected in my circles. For him to be addressing this topic is noteworthy in itself – regardless of what he says about it. But when one hears what he says about it… it is truly noteworthy.

For Miroslav Volf, an Episcopalian professor of theology at Yale’s Divinity School, (the name of God)  is a direct route over the “chasm of misunderstanding” and hatred that has separated Christians and Muslims for centuries… In his thought-provoking new book, “Allah: A Christian Response,” Volf attempts to explain how the God of Christianity and the God of Islam are, essentially, one and the same.

Here are three things, from a uniquely Christian perspective, that I would like to see addressed:

• The name of god – Is Allah the same as Jehovah and is that the one Jesus called “Abba”?
• If so – are these 3 legitimate covenants with the same God? (1 with Issac, 1 with Ismael and 1 with Yeshua)
• Can we figure out how to stop A) converting each other and B) killing each other

Religion in Public

As my semester comes to a close, I finally have some breathing space to post the backlog of stuff I have thinking about and finding along the way.

One of my classes this semester was in Ethics focusing on Pluralism and the Public arena.  A conversation that interested me deeply revolved around the famous JFK speech on religion and the more recent one by Mitt Romney. Though they were probably more similar than different, their differences were profound.

I found this interesting article today in the Washington Post where JFK’s niece says that Sarah Palin gets the argument wrong in her new book.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120303209.html