Will Christianity and Islam merge into Chrislam?

Is it true?

Grace Fellowship Church in Atlanta, Georgia, recently had a program on “love your neighbor.” It included the question of whether that includes Muslims.

“In 2001, like most Americans, we were pretty awakened to the true Islamic presence in the world and in the United States,” says Jon Stallsmith, the outreach minister at Grace Fellowship. “Jesus says we should love our neighbors. We can’t do that without having a relationship with them.”

Stallsmith said a rapprochement between Muslims and Christians can be achieved by the fact that Jesus is mentioned 25 times in the Koran.

“The recent political developments and the fact that we’re fighting two wars in Muslim countries should sharpen that need to know how to talk to these guys,” Stallsmith says. “We want to find peace, reconciliation around a scriptural understanding of Jesus.”

Shamsuddin Saka

In the African nation of Nigeria, the Rev. Shamsuddin Saka seeks to bridge the religious divide. Fred de Sam Lazaro for “The World” radio program on Public Radio International reports:

One man is trying to bridge the gap. He preaches a liturgy that blends Christianity and Islam.

Of hundreds of small churches in Lagos, this likely is the only one that has both a Bible and a Qur’an on the lectern. The invocations come loudly from both. Practitioners of what the preacher calls ‘Chrislam,’ fifteen 1,500 on some Sundays, see no religious fault line.

Saka preaches that Christians and Muslims are both children of Abraham.

Saka was born Muslim, and, the PRI report notes: "It was after returning from a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca that he was inspired – he says instructed by God – to launch his new ministry: 'That was about 19 years ago. I was praying and I laid down and the Lord told me, make peace between Christian and Muslim.'”

How do they do it?

Christian Science Monitor reporter Abraham McLaughlin describes Saka’s place of worship:

At first, it seems a surprising sight: inside a two-story mosque in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest metropolis hangs a life-size portrait of Jesus Christ.

Yet worshipers at “The True Message of God Mission” say it’s entirely natural for Christianity and Islam to co-exist, even overlap. They begin their worship by praying at the Jesus alcove and then “running their deliverance” — sprinting laps around the mosque’s mosaic-tiled courtyard, praying to the one God for forgiveness and help. They say it’s akin to Israelites circling the walls of Jericho – and Muslims swirling around the Ka’ba shrine in Mecca.

This group — originally called “Chris-lam-herb” for its mix-and-match approach to Christianity, Islam, and traditional medicine – is a window on an ongoing religious ferment in Africa.

What does Warren say?

Warren recently released this statement:

The so-called “Chrislam” rumor is 100% false. If the guy who started this libelous myth, or anyone else who passed it on, had obeyed our Lord’s command (Matt. 18:18-20) to come directly to me, and then asked what I actually believed – they would have been embarrassed to learn that I believe the exact opposite. As a fourth generation Christian pastor, my life and ministry are built on the truth that Jesus is the only way, and our inerrant Bible is our only true authority.

As an evangelist, I spend much of my time speaking to non-Christian groups. You cannot win your enemies to Christ; only your friends, so we must build bridges of friendship and love to those who believe differently so Jesus can walk across that bridge into their hearts. Besides, it is not a sin, but rather COMMANDED by Jesus that we love our enemies. In the past 10 years, Saddleback Church has baptized over 22,000 new adult believers – simply because we express love to those who don’t know Christ yet.

^{Photo by Leeno}

A friend of sinners

Warren goes on to say:

It is nonsense to believe that you must compromise your beliefs, or water down your convictions in order to love someone, or even just treat them with dignity. Jesus was called 'the friend of sinners' by the legalistic Pharisees because he hung out with (and clearly loved) unbelievers. I hope you will:
    1) Always believe that EVERYONE needs Jesus as their Lord & Savior.
    2) Have the courage to associate with nonbelievers in order to love them and bring them to the Savior.
    3) Consider being called “a friend of sinners” a Christ-like compliment.
    4) Refuse to pass on rumors until you’ve checked for the truth with the person accused.

Is there a future for Chrislam?

Alan Wisdom, director of the Presbyterian Action committee and vice president for research and programs at the Institute on Religion & Democracy contends that Islam should never be viewed as an equal to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Moreover, Korans should never be placed next to God’s Holy Word, he says. He told writer Chad Groening at the news site OneNewsNow:

“The Bible is God’s unique revelation to us. The pulpit of a church is for preaching the Word of God, and we believe that that is the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. When we go to worship God, we worship Jesus Christ, and we can’t mix that worship with any other allegiance.”

Wisdom said that while he believes it is important for Christians to study and understand religions like Islam, he does not think believers should ever cross the line and blend Christianity together with a religion that is “antithetical to Christian teachings.”

Bill Muehlenberg

Author Bill Muehlenberg on his website "Culture Watch" sees no future for Christlam:

Some misguided Christians believe they can somehow combine the two religions and still have something recognizable as the Christian faith. Sorry, but it can’t happen.

Muslims are happy to use such versions of religious syncretism to gain entry into Christian circles, but it just results in the creation of more dhimmitude – Christians becoming second-class citizens.

Islam always wins in such attempts, while Christianity always loses. The truth is, the two religions are fully incompatible. They may seem to be similar (both are world religions, both have Abrahamic origins, both are monotheistic, etc) but the differences are far greater.

A future for Chrislam?

The concept is likely to be embraced by a few non-fundamentalists on either side of the Christian-Islam divide, such as Universalists, Unitarians -- who make up a tiny fraction of Christianity. There are some Buddhists, Hindus, Bahai, Sikh and Shinto faithful who might be willing to add Christianity and Islam to their belief system -- since some within those faiths reject that there is any single path to God.

But any successful hybrid of Islam and Christianity is unlikely to play well at the Vatican or in Mecca -- much less Nashville or Tehran -- since a merger would require abandoning such key beliefs as that:
Jesus is the only hope of the world or that
Submission to Koranic law alone earns eternity in Paradise.

Islam holds the firm view that eternal damnation awaits those who do not earn salvation by submitting to the requirements of the Koran, which describes Jesus as a noteworthy prophet who didn’t really die on the cross.

Christianity has at its very core that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that we are to turn away from "revelations" such as the Koran that deny that He is the Son of God -- and that eternal salvation cannot be earned, but is God's gift of grace, earned for mankind by Christ’s crucifixion.