From time to time I discuss the issue of Chrislam. This new “religion” has influenced some very powerful men in the world and we need to pay close attention to this movement. Chrislam is an effort to merge Christianity and Islam. The sad thing is, America is ripe for this heresy.
Barna Research did a study on pluralism in America in 2011, which found that 6 out of 10 American adults believe that the god of the Qur’an is the same as the God of the Bible. This is especially troubling when you consider that 40% of the 6 out of 10 claimed to be born-again Christians. This shows the shallowness of the theology coming from American pulpits.
The Forces Behind Chrislam
There are 4 major movements behind Chrislam:
The Insider Movement – Many missionaries are making the mistake of accepting this movement.
The Common Word Movement – This is an effort by Islam to deceive Christians by saying that Islam and Christianity have much in common.
Black Liberation Theology
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation
The Insider Movement
There are missionaries who are taking shortcuts in their evangelism. They are saying to Muslims, We are not asking you to leave Islam or to leave Muhammad or Allah. You already see Jesus as a prophet, we just want you to add a little to who He is. We just want you to add Jesus as your Saviour.
This is not the salvation message found in the Bible. Those who are converted with this message are confused. They think they are both Muslims and Christians at the same time.
We need to name and shame the groups that are behind this movement because they are teaching another gospel.
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1:6-7)
Most of those behind this are from Fuller Theological Seminary in California. Some call this “contextualizing the message with the culture.”
Some of these missionaries will dress like Muslims. They even go to the mosques and pray with Muslims. They will say the Shahada, one of the 5 pillars of Islam. This is the creed of Islam. It says “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.” Some of these missionaries go so far as to call themselves imams.
The largest missionary organization to Muslims is called Frontiers. Its missionaries are practicing these methods. They justify this twisting of the Gospel and of Scripture by saying that if a Muslim becomes a Christian, he becomes an apostate to Islam and can be killed. The missionary could also be killed for causing the Muslim to renounce his faith in Islam.
They cause their “converts” to be secret believers and tell them to stay inside Islam. This is where the name “Insider Movement” comes from.
In fact, there is no such thing as a secret disciple:
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 10:32-33)
Common Word Movement
This is a movement by 138 Muslim scholars who wrote an open letter to Christian leaders in America about 9 years ago. In that letter, they quoted a verse out of the Qur’an.
Come to a common word that we have between us and you, that we worship none but Allah and we make no partners with him.
Muslims say the Qur’an has some things to say to Christians. This verse is one that is appealing to Christians because it seems to say let’s get along and come together because we have a common word. They say let’s worship one god. But then it punches us in the nose. It says “we make no partners with him.” Unsuspecting Christians who have not studied Islam get caught in a trap here.
“We make no partners with him” means there is no one equal with Allah. They believe Christians have made Jesus equal with their god. They believe we have taken Jesus, a man, and made Him equal with God. This is not what we teach. According to the Bible, a man did not become God, God became a man.
This movement says that Christians and Muslims should come together because we have a common word. Both of our holy books come from the same god and we both believe in one god. The movement also says that if we do come together that Christians can’t say Jesus is God. He can’t be a partner with God.
What makes this so bad is that over 500 church leaders signed this letter saying that coming together is a good thing. The leaders that signed the letter include people like Rick Warren, Bill Hyble, Robert Schuller, many of the emergent church leaders, and so on. How can Christians sign a letter saying we believe in one God, but Jesus is not God? This is heresy! In 2008, Yale University said this sounds great, let’s get together. You can go to the common word website and see who signed the letter.
Black Liberation Theology
This movement was started by James Combs. It says that the white man is the oppressor, the black is man oppressed, and one day, with God’s help, the black man will overcome the white man and make him the servant of the black man. This movement is biggest in Detroit and Chicago. Chicago has two major preachers, one for the Christians and one for the Muslims. For the Muslims, it is Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam. This is a racist organization which uses the name of Allah for its authority. For the Christians, it is a familiar name in Chicago that most of you know. It is Jeremiah Wright. He is the former pastor of the Chicago United Church of Christ. He was Obama’s pastor for 20 years.
Obama tells Christians that he is a Christian, and he tells Muslims that he is a Muslim. He has never renounced his faith in Islam. We have dealt with this issue in the past.
Obama can tell us he is a Christian because his pastor told him that he could become a Christian without ceasing to be a Muslim. Jeremiah Wright admitted this to Ed Kline, the author of “The Amateur,” a book about Obama. Wright was asked if Obama became a Christian and he responded:
Well, I don’t know if I could go that far, but I can say that I made it comfortable for him to accept Christianity without having to renounce his Islamic background.
Obama is a product of Chrislam. He things Jehovah and Allah are the same god. Throughout his Presidency, he showed that his loyalties were with Islam, not Christianity.
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, is a pragmatist. He believes that if we can get the different religions who are warring against each other, Muslim against Jew, Muslim against Christians, etc. who are all part of the Abrahamic religions, together, we can have peace in the Middle East. He now works for the European Union, and his job is to help broker peace in Israel.
Conclusion
America has become so biblically illiterate that they cannot see what is happening. If this were not so, Chrislam would be nothing more than a bad joke. Christianity and Islam are so different they must be contrasted, not compared.
It only takes one example to prove these two religions have nothing in common. The God of Christianity has a Son, and His name is Jesus Christ. One of the main points in Islam is, “Allah hath no son.”
Another major difference is the issue of mercy. Jehovah’s mercy is seen throughout Scripture and in the world around us. Although Allah is often called the merciful one, his commands are merciless. Islam has always been spread by the sword, and this at the command of Islam’s god. Although there were some peaceful passages in the early revelations received by Muhammad, the passages that come after he was kicked out of Mecca all teach that unbelievers are to be killed.
It is both spiritually dangerous and physically dangerous to accept the idea that Christianity and Islam have common ground. The idea that you can combine the two, and take the best of each, is foolishness. It will lead to the eradication of all religions except Islam.
Unfortunately for Islam, we not only have the Islamic scriptures which show Islam’s violent nature, but we also have 1,400 years of Islamic history to back up the truth of its violent nature. It is time we wake up and realize that Islam is not peaceful, and it is not our friend.
