This is a bit long but worth it…
My friend Mateen Elass, whom I wrote about recently, has written the book Fairy Tell Islam: Deceptions Masking a Dark Reality. Strongly recommend.
In it, he tells a great story about an exchange with one of his relatives over 25 years ago. She was a devout Muslim, upset that most of their extended family were irreligious. (Mateen says the conversation was real, but he made up the name “Nawal.”)
Feeling that we should “join forces” to make inroads against their metaphysical apathy, she asked me how we could get our relatives to become believers. “Well, Nawal,” I answered, “you and I don’t believe the same things about God, so I don’t think we would make a good team.”
“What do you mean?” this college-educated Muslim responded. “Of course we do. You believe in God and I believe in God. We honor Jesus and love him as one of the great prophets. We both pray and go to worship regularly.”
“Yes, but what you believe about Jesus is vastly different from what Christians believe about him.”
“How? What do you mean?” Nawal asked, with genuine surprise.
“Well, for starters, Christians believe that Jesus is not simply a human being called by God to be a prophet. Instead, we acknowledge him as eternally God, who came to earth two thousand years ago and assumed a human nature to live a fully obedient, sinless life before his Heavenly Father and then offer himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the human race. That is why he was crucified and died. His resurrection three days later signaled the acceptance of his offering by God the Father and began a new era where human beings who put their trust in Jesus are made members of his eternal Kingdom, having their sins forgiven and being promised eternal salvation in heaven. We believe Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, before whom all human beings will bow in acknowledgment, even Muhammad.”
Wow. I’m not sure I could rattled off such a succinct description of Jesus’ uniqueness. His relative was stunned.
“You mean, you think that Jesus is God?” “Yes,” I said, “we believe Jesus is the second member of the Trinity, God the Son.”
Then this amazing assertion: Nawal thinks she knows more about what Christians believe than Mateen does.
“Christians don’t believe this,” Nawal declared. “The Qur’an tells us that Jesus was a great prophet, but only human. And that he did not die by crucifixion or any other way, but God took him to heaven. This is the truth. Christians don’t believe what you have just said.”
I love Mateen’s response, said in his usual quiet way, I’m sure:
“Nawal,” I countered, “I have been a Christian now for some twenty-five years. I have two master’s degrees in Christian theology and a PhD in New Testament studies. I can assure you that this is what Christians believe.” (Page 124 – 125)
Then Mateen, humble, as I wrote before, felt compelled to add a footnote that cracks me up:
Nawal already knew something of my academic history, but I highlighted these facts [about his academic degrees] only to assure her that I was not floating some private, hare-brained theories but rather what Christian orthodoxy and scriptures have always affirmed. I understand that academic degrees in religious studies are no guarantee of a person’s orthodoxy, or even sanity, but that’s another subject.
“Academic degrees in religious studies are no guarantee of a person’s orthodoxy, or even sanity.” I love it. But Mateen has those degrees and remains orthodox, sane, and remarkably humble.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1.1 – 3, NKJV)
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures… (1 Corinthians 15.3, 4, NKJV)