During a recent visit to the former capital of the Ottoman Empire, the pope labored mightily to bring Islam into dialogue with Christianity. But does he really accept that God is God?
At the famous Blue Mosque during a papal visit to Istanbul, Pope Francis stood beside the grand mufti of Istanbul and prayed for two minutes, bowing his head, closing his eyes. At the end of his prayer, the grand mufti
whispered aloud: “May God accept it.”
One can’t help wondering: Did the grand mufti doubt that God would accept a prayer from the head of the Roman Catholic Church? Indeed, does Francis, or any Christian, genuinely accept that God is God, whether his name be Allah or God?
As in previous visits to Islamic countries, the busiest pontiff in recent memory had labored mightily in Turkey to bring Islam into dialogue with Christianity: not an easy thing, although both are Abrahamic religions, in theory accepting the notion that God revealed himself to Abraham and his descendants.
A long-running argument exists over whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
Islam is of the Devil
The God of Islam—who has as many as 99 names, all subsumed in Allah—often seems very like the Jewish creator: a remote God, merciful but all-powerful. Allah seems unlikely to enter into a “personal” relationship with Muslims, who readily submit to the divine will. Allah can’t truly be called a male figure in Islam, so “his” doesn’t really work as a descriptor. The God of Israel did indeed enter into dialogue with human creatures, meeting Adam and Eve in Eden, speaking to Moses in the burning bush, demanding sacrifices, issuing commandments. The various writings that eventually made up the Hebrew scriptures—the five books of Moses, the books of the prophets, and the so-called writings—characterized the human relationship with God in complex ways; but it was clearly a relationship.
Read more at
The Daily Beast
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