Islam: What Is To Be Done? (Mark Shea)

The other day Rod wrote about the Muslim guy who stopped another Muslim from torching a synagogue.

One also hears about people like this emerging in the Islamic world. And I've gotten email from young people in Iran who loathe the current regime and are not too terribly thrilled about Islam either after having it ramrodded down their throats by the ugliest representatives on the planet. As I've said in the past, I suspect that Islam is, in many ways, a house of cards should it lose state enforcement and the billions pumped into enforcing it from oil regimes. However, being a realist, I also know that it's not going away anytime soon. So what's to be done? Well, one approach is to seek out those Muslims who are closest to loving the things of Christ (such people do exist) and making common cause with them as much as possible. Without a sword to their throats from the Enforcers of Islam, it's quite possible that such people will come to faith in Christ, like this guy. But, like that brave soul, such conversions will come at enormous social costs--costs most fat suburban Americans would not think of paying, yet expect those dumb Third Worlders to endure "if they were really serious".

Common sense therefore dictates that Christians seek, not only conversions among Muslims where possible, but also that they seek to face the fact that, though conversion will not always (or even usually) happen for the foreseeable future, still common cause can be made with some Muslims on certain things. This is what the Church has ever done and it can and should still be done. Islam is not a monolith and it has no Magisterium. It is a human invention and is therefore subject to human (and at times divine and demonic) influence like all other human things. At present, the greater part of the Islamic world is (like the West) very much under the sway of the prince of this world, but this does not relieve Christians of the responsibility of trying to both bring the gospel to Muslims and trying to make common cause wherever possible. It is the same duty we Catholics have with respect to Jews, atheists, Protestants, Jehovah Witnesses and all other organisms that carry human DNA.

That's what I (and Peter Kreeft) mean by Ecumenical Jihad. Despite the snap judgement of some, the point of that deliberately provocative phrase is not "Let's go pray in mosques" or "Catholics and Muslims, Jews and Protestants, Hindus and New Agers are all really saying the same thing." It is rather the same point Paul made both in the synagogue and on the Areopagus. Where somebody is in possession of real, but incomplete revelation, the Catholic should honor it and speak the gospel of Jesus Christ, fully subsisting in the Catholic Church, who is the fulfillment of revelation. Where somebody is in possession of human wisdom, complete it with Christ who is the divine wisdom. And yes, where somebody is in the thrall of lies, speak truth and break chains by the word of Christ.

But, as a convert myself, I can tell you that one of the worst ways in the world to approach anybody is by starting out, "I'm not interested in you and your worthless family, your futile heritage, your stupid ideas, and the garbage you love and care about. You listen to *me*, buster." Yet something rather like this seems to be what some Catholics propose as the ideal for evangelization. In this worldview, grace does not build on nature, it destroys nature and replaces it with your particular cultural preferences.

This is true, not only for something as extreme as a Muslim conversion, but for conversions from other species of Christianity. I don't know how many times I've heard Lidless Eye types dismiss charismatic Catholics as "protestantized" Catholics. Likewise, I run into charismatics (and of course lots of Evangelicals) who speak of high church types as the frozen chosen, etc. (I don't bother rounding out the mix with "liberal Catholics" because I'm speaking to people who actually take the teaching of the Church seriously, not people for whom Catholicism is a sort of ethnicity to be overcome.) All this stuff is the sort of thing Paul is talking about in Romans 14. And all of it is, I think, foreign to the mind of Christ. Moreover, it has implications for evangelization.

For each culture has its own genius at its heart which, since it is human, is fallen, yes, but also fundamentally good. If we focus on the fallenness of a culture to the exclusion of the good thing God has hidden there, we blaspheme the Creator. Approach evangelization that way and you not only rob the convert (should you find somebody self-hating enough to put up with you) but you rob the Church too. For such a convert will not bring himself as he is into the Church, he will bring what you have tried to make him into. He will provide no God-given nature for grace to build on, only a facade you have given him to wear.

I tell people I became a Catholic because I wanted to be the best Evangelical I could be. And I freely acknowledge that my Catholicism has an Evangelical flavor to it. You see the same thing everywhere: Tom Howard is Anglican-flavored Catholic, Dale Vree is a Marxist-flavored Catholic, Scott Hahn is a Presby-flavored Catholic, and so forth. I pray the day will come when whatever is good in the Muslim world will be purified of all that is so base and evil now and that there will be Muslim-flavored Catholics, just as there are Jewish, Irish, Italian, and French flavored Catholics. Till that time comes, we work and pray--and probably fight. But we can never let ourselves forget that the fall is not the last word about anything human. Something more primal than the fall--the image of God--is impressed on the soul of each human person, even a Radical Muslim. And the redemption of Christ extends even to a suicide bomber. Jesus Christ died for every single person in human history without any exception whatsoever.

Nowhere in the Scriptures are we told to pray to anyone but the Father. Neither Mary, nor the "saints," are ever referred to as receiving our prayers and forwarding them on to the Father.

"The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Thus in Psalms 103, we pray, 'Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!' (Ps. 103:20-21). And in Psalms 148 we pray, 'Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!' (Ps. 148:1-2).
"Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us. In the book of Revelation, we read: '[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God' (Rev. 8:3-4).
And those in heaven who offer to God our prayers aren’t just angels, but humans as well. John sees that 'the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints' (Rev. 5:8). The simple fact is, as this passage shows: The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth." [Source]

"Pray" just means "ask". Just as we can pray (ask) our fellow Christians living here on Earth to pray for us, so too can we pray (ask) our fellow Christians living in Heaven to pray for us.

Heehee.

...but the heathen Pope kissed the Koran. and ... blah blah blah... and .....

Sorry, just wanted to get it out of the way ...

You still have not answered the question: why don't you pray directly to the Father? I watch EWTN frequently, and there is constant reference to praying to Mary and to the various saints...and I am simply asking why aren't the prayers directed to the Father alone? We are told in Hebrews to "come boldly before the Throne of Grace." Where are we "told" to pray to Mary or to the saints.

The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

Nowhere is that stated in Scripture.

"The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth."

Nowhere is that stated in Scripture.

"The twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." [Rev. 5:8]

Please point out to me where in Scripture the doctrine of sola scriptura is taught.

Mohammed did at least honor Jesus and Mary and the prophets.

He may have honored "the prophets", but he certainly didn't honor Jesus or Mary. The Mary of Islam (Miriam) was the sister of Moses and Aaron, not the Mary of the bible. And while her son Isa is compared to Jesus, he wasn't the Son of God and didn't die on a cross (instead, someone who looked like him did). The "honor" that Islam shows Jesus is to call him a liar.

You still have not answered the question: why don't you pray directly to the Father?

Catholics pray to the Father every time we say an "Our Father" which is a prayer said both during the Rosary, and during Mass, and innumerable times in personal prayer. Also, every Eucharistic prayer said at Mass is a prayer to the Father. It is merely that we do not exclude requesting of the saints that they pray for us -- just as Scripture commends in the passages put forward. Also, Christ spoke with the dead at the Transfiguration. And there is nothing about the transfiguration which limits the propriety of speaking to them to moments of transfiguration. The book of Revelation is full of imagery depicting the saints as actively concerned over the welfare of the Church on earth.

Mohammed cerainly gave greater honor to Mary and Jesus than western philsophers

I think that depends on the particular western philosophers; the vast majority of which (pre-Marx, at least) were themselves Christian.

but I don't think you are right in denying that he was referencing the Virgin Mary

Sura 19 ("O sister of Aaron") and Sura 66 ("the daughter of Imran", or "Maryam ibnat Imran") show that clearly Mohammed was referring to a different woman than the Mary of the new testament. For those that say they are merely talking about geneologies, Sura 3 makes it very clear they are not ("Behold! wife of Imran...I am delivered of a female child...I have named her Mariam).

and that he was trying to give Jesus his due

Christians would argue that Jesus' "due" is acknowledgment that he is the Son of God, and that is something that the Quran certainly doesn't do. From an objective standpoint, the only reason the Quran seems to mention Jesus at all is so that it can deny His Godhood (again and again, in Sura 5:17, 5:75, 9:30, 10:94, ...).

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