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Grill a Christian  (13+) By love or force? Christian nationalism today. #2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Jesus Vs Mohammed?" 

Did you answer the question?

You answered the question by evaluating what the choice might mean from a third-person perspective that was neither Christian nor Muslim.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This sounded authentic and like an honest reflection. You came across as a spiritual woman but one who was agnostic about identifying with a side in this choice. Your effort sounded a little blurry on crucial discussion points. I was unsure if fear of offending was the reason not to commit, genuine disagreements with both positions, or some kind of reaction to the certainties of an evangelical protestant American culture that you appear to inhabit. I guess American Republican conservative evangelicals have the least practical experience of Muslims of just about any Christian demographic on the planet and yet are almost universally hostile to it. I wondered if there was some kind of reaction to that in your opinion. Your audience sounded like a well-meaning person who was not too extreme in their positions but who would never come out for one position or another.

How consistent was your argument?

The theme of your argument was that both religions have contributed value to the world and it depends on who you talk to as to which picture you accept of Jesus or Mohammed.

You suggested that the Bible, as it is, does not support the Divinity of Christ or the Trinity. That is a very tenuous position for anyone well versed in the scriptures - John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God." being a perfect example not to mention the seven I AM sayings in John's gospel and Jesus receiving the worship of angels in Hebrews 1. Angels do not commit blasphemy. The informed Muslim position is therefore not that the current Bible does not say this but that the original scriptures did not and so what we have now is a corrupted text. But they cannot provide the evidence trail for that corruption process and we have documents going back well into the Old Testament era to answer these kinds of critique. Liberal Christians and atheists also ignore the straightforward meaning of the text.

You seemed to like that Islam separated the sexes and left women as the Homemakers but so also mourn the lack of opportunities for women in many Islamic cultures, the carnal vision of heaven that Muhammed painted, polygamy, and the regard of women as inferior witnesses for example. Your critique of Christianity seemed partly a universal one and partly one restricted to the worldliness of aspects of the American church context. I think if you had more direct experience of how women were treated by Islam then you would not be caught between the two faiths as you are. The number of Muslim women who are beaten up, raped, demeaned, denied an education, forced to marry old men when still a child is quite horrifying. Your argument came across as a view from the window of a comfortable house rather than a hands-on engagement.

But if it came down to personalities then Jesus sounded the better guy to hang out with for eternity

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

Your critique of Christianity, proper, included a non-acceptance of doctrines of Incarnation, Trinity, and Redemption - so all the big and crucial ones. The Nicene Creed gives a clear picture of who Jesus is accepted by Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and Pentecostals alike. The deviance occurs with cults like Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons and indeed other religions.

There was a general rejection of Christian authority figures which might be informed by abusive examples in your local context. You could not accept the doctrine of total depravity and so did not need to grasp or mention the significance of the cross. The reason being that you could not accept that an infant could not be saved perhaps due to original sin.

Your critique of local American Christianity was of its greed and lack of biblical values. But the Pope for example has said pretty much the same as well as expressing dismay at the way Americans plan to treat immigrants - so this was not a critique of true faith.

You appreciated that Christians saw people as made in God's image and so each person carries something of that divine reflection and presence. So maybe a man is not so far-fetched a vessel to carry the Divine as Muslims would suggest when they react to the notion that Jesus was the Son of God fathered by the action of the Holy Spirit in a woman who then carried the Divine within her as a child to birth.

Islam's golden age was fueled by the presence of a majority Christian population in many of their provinces until the time of the Crusades. Much of the architecture of mosques looks quite Byzantine or indeed Persian. They stole the credit for a lot of what they did. Or do you think that Arab goat herders became engineers, mathematicians, and accomplished scholars overnight

Some of the things said about Muhammed are not just a matter of he said she said as suggested. For example, it is established Sunni tradition that Aisha was six when married to Muhammed (in his fifties) and only nine when she consummated the relationship. Arab culture regards a girl as a woman after her first blood. The Taliban have allowed marriages of girls as early as eight years old even today.

If you reject the teaching authority of the global-historical church I guess that explains how you can regard Christians as lacking moral discipline and clarity, but that still seems a distorted perspective of the church. That a person can be moral despite a lack of a clear source of spiritual authority is an assertion and may also explain the necessity of rejecting total depravity. There is no room for self-righteousness if we are all sinners.


<<They even believe he was born of a virgin, despite this being traced back to a mistranslation in the Old Testament.>>>>

This one comes up time and time again and the debate rages on the meaning of the Hebrew word gihon. Literally, it does mean young woman rather than virgin but in context, the image of purity and innocence associated with the word is the crucial reason that all 70 Jewish Hebrew/Greek experts that translated the Septuagint decided this word had to be translated as virgin. You see Greek girls of the time were easy and so saying 'a young woman' could simply mean "immoral and sexually licentious" in a Greek context as it would today in most of the Western world. Jewish girls by contrast had strict discipline and there was no sex outside marriage. So young woman as opposed to wife meant virgin and the translators were entirely correct in context to use virgin.

Mechanical issues

The best writers allow readers to focus on their content by not distracting them with errors.


Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

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My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E) How do I assess people's work when reviewing? #2259390 by LightinMind

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