SolaScriptura
Puritanboard Brimstone
I apologize for not bringing it home regarding the OP.
Pergy, I've not read that guy. I've read a lot of things. But not him.
What none of you seem to get is that in the Muslim world there is no bifurcation of sacred and secular. It isn't like the west. Islam has so thoroughly pervaded the culture - including the vocabulary of that culture - and the world view is so thoroughly Muslim that we are simply naive if we act like the words can be used in that context without the people in that culture thinking you mean what they mean. And sorry to sound defeatist, but it isn't the extreme minority that gets to define the word, it is the cultural majority. So, for example, within our context we can't use "******" because our world around us has attributed meaning to the word that people simply find incredibly offensive. So too is it with religiously charged words. Muslims use the word Allah for a reason - it has theological significance. You can push up your glasses with your index finger and in a nasally voice object that it "just" means God. But this thread is about being a Muslim and 100% Christian at the same time - and you can't use words in a Muslim context that Muslims themselves attribute meaning that is anti-Christian and pretend that because you don't mean what they mean that everything is fine.
Incidentally, as evidence that Muslims don't just see it as a "word," please note that many Muslims come over here and they speak English. Yet I've only been able to find the most liberal, the most "evangelistically posturing" Muslims who'll refer to their deity as God. Virtually all English speaking Muslims naturally (though not necessarily) refer to their deity as Allah. Becuase the "word" has meaning within their system and indeed functions as a name.
And let me underscore: You aren't being faithful if you willfully use words that are part of a larger system that have theological significance and by their use you yeild the field. We should be like Baptists who won't even grant the use of the word "baptism" to describe what transpires what occurs when we baptize our infants. Or more to the point, the word Allah should be as odious to our lips as the word "Trinity" or the phrase "Son of God" is to them. (The Koran, which I've read, repeatedly and pointedly rejects these ideas... in case you didn't know.)
Again, this is about claiming to be a Muslim and "100% Christian." Impossible because the vocabulary - and the attendant theology - is incompatible. So incompatible is it, that (once again) a Christian to use the Islam-meaningful word "Allah" is like a Christian going on to an Indian reservation and praying to the Great Spirit. (And yes, it IS comparable. Why? Because when I was at Moody I heard a great many people talk about their missionary work on reservations and how they would create Native American friendly "translations" of the Bible and use the term "Great Spirit" to refer to God. Thus for them it WAS functioning as a translation.)
But please, I realize you feel the need to prove you're so smart about the Muslims. But you're barking up the wrong tree. I've read too much, known too many, too many Muslim evangelists, I've seen their culture, listened to their nonsense, seen how their cultures "virtues" look in real life... man, you can forget it. It's vile. Their religious vocabularly is incompatible with the theology of our glorious faith.
Pergy, I've not read that guy. I've read a lot of things. But not him.
What none of you seem to get is that in the Muslim world there is no bifurcation of sacred and secular. It isn't like the west. Islam has so thoroughly pervaded the culture - including the vocabulary of that culture - and the world view is so thoroughly Muslim that we are simply naive if we act like the words can be used in that context without the people in that culture thinking you mean what they mean. And sorry to sound defeatist, but it isn't the extreme minority that gets to define the word, it is the cultural majority. So, for example, within our context we can't use "******" because our world around us has attributed meaning to the word that people simply find incredibly offensive. So too is it with religiously charged words. Muslims use the word Allah for a reason - it has theological significance. You can push up your glasses with your index finger and in a nasally voice object that it "just" means God. But this thread is about being a Muslim and 100% Christian at the same time - and you can't use words in a Muslim context that Muslims themselves attribute meaning that is anti-Christian and pretend that because you don't mean what they mean that everything is fine.
Incidentally, as evidence that Muslims don't just see it as a "word," please note that many Muslims come over here and they speak English. Yet I've only been able to find the most liberal, the most "evangelistically posturing" Muslims who'll refer to their deity as God. Virtually all English speaking Muslims naturally (though not necessarily) refer to their deity as Allah. Becuase the "word" has meaning within their system and indeed functions as a name.
And let me underscore: You aren't being faithful if you willfully use words that are part of a larger system that have theological significance and by their use you yeild the field. We should be like Baptists who won't even grant the use of the word "baptism" to describe what transpires what occurs when we baptize our infants. Or more to the point, the word Allah should be as odious to our lips as the word "Trinity" or the phrase "Son of God" is to them. (The Koran, which I've read, repeatedly and pointedly rejects these ideas... in case you didn't know.)
Again, this is about claiming to be a Muslim and "100% Christian." Impossible because the vocabulary - and the attendant theology - is incompatible. So incompatible is it, that (once again) a Christian to use the Islam-meaningful word "Allah" is like a Christian going on to an Indian reservation and praying to the Great Spirit. (And yes, it IS comparable. Why? Because when I was at Moody I heard a great many people talk about their missionary work on reservations and how they would create Native American friendly "translations" of the Bible and use the term "Great Spirit" to refer to God. Thus for them it WAS functioning as a translation.)
But please, I realize you feel the need to prove you're so smart about the Muslims. But you're barking up the wrong tree. I've read too much, known too many, too many Muslim evangelists, I've seen their culture, listened to their nonsense, seen how their cultures "virtues" look in real life... man, you can forget it. It's vile. Their religious vocabularly is incompatible with the theology of our glorious faith.