Christian Extremism

by

Sr Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

During my stay at ISNA headquarters in Plainfield, I was granted the oppportunity to read through Grace Halsell's startling book 'Forcing God's Hand', Crossroads International Publishing, Washington DC, 1999.

The effect upon me was to leave me in a state of some shock - for the Christianity being presented in these pages (which I have been told is an increasingly common form of Christianity in the USA) had virtually nothing to do with the Christianity I had grown up with and studied as a university student reading Christian Theology. I managed to graduate in that field, with my main interest being Trinitarian Studies and Doctrine, in 1963. I am also English, and I should imagine from what I read that the kind of Christian background we have in the UK is very different from that in the USA, if we can assume that Grace Halsell has presented her case fairly.

According to Dale Crowley Jr, a Washington religious broadcaster whom she quotes, 'There's a new religious cult in America. It's not composed of so-called 'crazies' so much as mainstream, middle to upper-middle class Americans. They listen - and give millions of dollars each week - to the TV evangelists who expound the fundamentals of the cult. They read Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. They have one goal: to facilitate God's hand to waft them up to heaven free from all trouble, from where they will watch Armageddon and the destruction of Planet Earth. (My italics). This doctrine pervades Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, and other charismatic churches, as well as Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, and countless so-called Bible churches and mega-churches. At least one out of every ten Americans is a devotee of this cult. It is the fastest growing religious movement in Christianity today.'

This came as a great shock to me, for when I read the accounts of their major tenets and beliefs, it really just seemed like a great deal of nonsense. It had virtually no point of contact whatsoever with the church teaching, mission work and theology with which I have been involved one way or another for over fifty years, firstly as a Christian theologian myself, and then as a Muslim.

I give just one quote from Hal Lindsey's 'The Late Great Planet Earth' to give a flavour of what I am talking about:

'Think of it! At least 200 million soldiers from the orient, with millions more from the forces of the West.....Messiah Jesus will strike those who have ravaged His city in Jerusalem. Then He will strike the armies massed in the valley of Megiddo (or Armageddon). No wonder blood will stand to the horses' bridles for a distance of 200 miles from Jerusalem. ...This whole valley will be filled with war materials, animals, bodies of men, and blood! It seems incredible! The human mind cannot conceive of such inhumanity of man to man, yet God will allow man's nature to fully display itself that day. Every city of the world will be destroyed - London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago - obliterated!'

Bible references are sifted for prophecies of a future world-wide nuclear war. The Antichrist due to come before all this has been 'recognised' already, many times, in such people as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Milosovic. There is presumably another 'Beast' to come.

Some of this may sound familiar to Muslims who have considered how the end of the world will come, and have studied the prophecies of the Dajjal and so forth.

However, 'born-again' Christians will have the good fortune to escape all the suffering of nuclear holocaust, because God will cause them to be taken up alive into the heavens before all this takes place, where they will have a grandstand view of everyone else being destroyed. Christ will descend and 'snatch away' his true followers. This belief is not actually any part of the teachings of Jesus, but is based on a couple of verses of St Paul's, namely, First Thessalonians 4:16-17.

This, naturally, is the great appeal of the entire notion. 'It's wonderful to know,' said one of Grace Halwell's interviewees, 'that those of us who are Saved do not have to suffer one moment of agony in the final days.'

It results in a great deal of religious and spiritual blackmail. Those who believe in it are absolutely certain that God will mete out to most of the dead and currently alive - in fact, all who are not and were not 'born again' - a fearful destruction and an everlasting punishment.

So far, one is free to accept or dismiss these notions and no harm done. But there is another aspect of this eschatology ( a study of the end of the world) that is extremely worrying for Muslims. According to these Christians, one of the things that has to happen before the time of the end can come, is not only that the kingdom of Israel must be re-established, (which may refer to the setting up of the state in 1948), but also that the Temple must be rebuilt on its ancient site. This necessitates destroying the Haram ash-Sharif and the al-Aqsa mosque, of course. Until I read Grace Halwell's book, I used to scoff at what I regarded as extra-ordinary fears and suppositions I heard from some Muslim quarters in the UK, and chide my cobelievers for falling for silly conspiracy theories. I had visited Jerusalem and seen for myself various historical excavations which I would not have linked to the above beliefs in any way. Now, I am nowhere near so complacent.

For example, to quote Hal Lindsey again: 'There remains but one more event to completely set the stage for Israel's part in the last great act of her historical drama. This is to rebuild the ancient Temple of worship upon its old site.' Since the Dome of the Rock more or less occupies the site of the sacrificial altar of the ancient Jewish Temple this would most definitely necessitate the demolition of the Muslim shrine.

In fact, I do not share the possessiveness of the majority of Muslims towards this gold-domed mosque. I think it is unique, extraordinarily beautiful, and may indeed mark the site from whence our Prophet (pbuh) commenced his journey through the heavens on Laylat ul-miraj (the Night of Ascent); however, so far as I am concerned it is but one of many, many places where our Prophet (pbuh) placed his feet – and there is scholarly dispute in any case over whether his experience of the Ascent was a factual physical matter, or a visionary experience.

I agree that this night was very special, but I can also understand that the Temple site is of extreme significance to Jews – since they only had just the one Temple and not a multitude of them. I think many Muslims confuse synagogue buildings with the Temple, which is not accurate. Synagogues are the meeting places for the worship of the Jews in the same way as mosques are for Muslims. The Temple, on the other hand, was a particular historical building and its environs, the only place where a priesthood functioned with a highly-developed cultus involving blood sacrifices – such things as peace offerings, thank offerings and sin offerings, and so on. Only priests were allowed to make these sacrifices, and the animals sacrificed had to be specially chosen or bred. The rarest of all sacrificial animals was the pure red heifer, without one hair of white.

The Temple was first built by the Prophet-King Sulayman (Solomon) in around 950BCE, rebuilt in the time of the Prophet Uzayr (Ezra), and again in the time of King Herod. It only stood in its completed state for around 40 years, and was then demolished by the Romans after the Jewish Revolution in 70 CE. Jews were thereafter forbidden to go there on pain of death, and instead of helpless grieving over the loss of their sacrificial system, Jewish scholars developed instead the Rabbinical form of Judaism that concentrated instead on learning and personal piety in which a priesthood was redundant. The Temple site lay derelict until Caliph Umar went to Jerusalem and began its clearance with his own bare hands, and a later Caliph, Malik, built the Dome of the Rock.

It may be seen that I have considerable sympathy for the Jews who wish to have possession of this site. Unfortunately so much bitterness, hatred and bloodshed has completely blackened the issue, without any hopes of resolution in the near future, that I am sure the problems and hurts will continue on well into this century. I also have my doubts that many Jews would regard the lack of a Temple as in any way detrimental to their practice of their faith. Their faith is alive and well without it, and even though they would most certainly appreciate not having their prayers confined to the surviving outer wall of Herod’s Temple, I wonder whether they would actually wish to reinstate a priesthood with a sacrificial system.

The thing that has worried me, and sparked off my article, is the involvement in all this of the Evangelical Christians mentioned earlier. Christians and Jews, particularly Zionists, have most certainly not historically been ‘happy bedfellows’. Many Christians here in the UK grew up with a vague awareness of the conflict throughout Old Testament times between the priestly caste and cultus and the prophets who so often criticized it and them, who were laymen. A famous revealed word of God is: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ Jesus famously threw over the tables of those who changed non-religious money into the special Temple money that was used to buy the special Temple livestock for sacrifices , and drove out the animals with a whip, thoroughly upsetting the priests and no doubt hastening his arrest and condemnation by them by the end of the week! Yet now these USA Evangelical Christians are not only campaigning for the ousting of the Muslims and return of the Temple site to the Jews, but I understand they have even begun facilitating the process towards restoring the sacrificial system by working on breeding the rare red heifers.

This alliance of Zionists and these 'born again' so-called Christians seems a strange mix, for many of the Christians also seem to have a very hearty dislike of Jews. It seems to me that they really are only using them as a means to an end. Needless to say, these Christians also have an extremely hearty dislike of Muslims, who have inconveniently somehow got themselves in the way of the whole thing.

So, what is the point of my article? It is this - as we have entered the new century, many enlightened Muslims, Jews and Christians have all realised at last that we are all actually worshippers of the same One True God, whether we name Him Jehovah (Yahweh), Our Father, or Allah. He is the same Almighty One, the same Creator, the same Compassionate and Merciful One. The Jews and Christians have all followed a stream of revelations from this same God, through the same line of prophets as are named and accepted in the Qur'an. Yes, we have differences of beliefs and theology - which are inevitably based on the limits of our own intellects, and faith in what has seemed reasonable to us and, these days, in accord with the principles of science. We have differences of practice and the ways we worship. But our moral code is the same, our desire to please our Lord by right and compassionate and just living is the same, our wish to follow the right path is the same. Muslims have specifically been urged both by Allah and also by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to come to accord, and concentrate on that which is common between us - for it is really scandalous that so much blood has been shed, and so much hostility engendered, between people who are all servants of the same One True God.

We must remember that our real enemy is not other people, but Shaytan (Satan, Iblis, the Devil), and that Shaytan is extremely clever and can come in any disguise. He is also extremely religious. Don't forget that the original sin of Shaytan was to refuse to do what God wished him to do, because he thought he knew best. That is, better than God Himself. That is the certain mark of an extremist!

When Shaytan insinuates himself into a person's mind, whether it be to promote ignorance, or extremism or hatred, one of the main signs is the manifestation of what Muslims call takfir - the insistence that the individual is right and is completely following the ways of God, and that all others who disagree in any detail are kafirs (Arabic Plural kuffar) or unbelievers, and will be condemned to Hellfire. This is a very prominent feature of the Christian Fundamentalism Grace Halwell talks about. We Muslims have to realise that it is also a prominent feature of Islamic Fundamentalism too; I have found that a useful 'rule of thumb' in identifying extremism is to listen out for the word kafir or kuffar (pl), and to be aware that to these zealots the kuffar are not only 'the West' (whatever that means), or non-Muslims, but large numbers of Muslims too.

Similarly, Christian Extremists do not identify other Christians as being real Christians. Only these 'born again' will be saved. And what is the experience of this being 'born again?' It is usually a highly-charged emotional moment, even occasionally a trance-like state, brought about by hypnotic fiery sermons and religiously seductive music. Often there is an extended session of moving prayers and choruses, with repeated invitations for people to ‘give their all’ to Jesus, come to a decision, and hand over their lives to God by coming forward and kneeling in public at a bench or shrine or barrier, where they may then be ‘signed up’ and receive counseling, and so forth. One cannot deny the power of such an experience, and it may indeed be life-changing and highly beneficial. However, this procedure appeals really only to a certain type, but is generally a great 'turn-off' for more sober academics and down-to-earth people.

Muslims can easily point to similar problems with immature sufis (Muslim mystics) and ignorant pretenders of spiritual excellence giving wide publicity to trance utterances and inspired pronouncements, along with their grandiloquent claims.

Thus it is a simple matter for fascinating preachers, money-grubbing pastors, hypocritical dervishes and cunning traders of religion to take full advantage of the popular relish for esoteric matters, miracles, supernatural performances, inspired dreams and prophecies. It can all too easily be seen that simple pious people can be led into accepting every new fantasy. It all appeals strongly to those who want to feel they are on the 'inside' of a group, with secrets, profound knowledge and revelations.

But really, religious extremism puts forward an exceedingly narrow view of the 'nature' of God, or His purposes for His created Earth and the six billion people on it. In my example of the USA Evangelical sects, their 'tribal' God is only concerned with these 'special' Christians, and temporarily with the Jews. The 14 million Jews now estimated to be on earth are actually doomed, and only the ‘born again' Christians are on their way to Heaven. The other 5 billion peoples of the world are not really on God's 'radar screen' at all until He calls them forth to be slain at Armageddon.

Rotten luck for us - and for all who genuinely believe in another sort of Divine Being. Direct conflict with these types is usually a waste of time and energy, so what should we do? I think, what we do best. Carry on presenting the realities of the noble faith of Islam, trying to reconcile genuine Jews and Christians with ourselves in genuine faith in God, perhaps by downplaying our differences, as the Prophet (saw) advised. We are not here to force, or bribe, or brow-beat, like these Fundamentalists. We are here to guide, to set an example, to display the sunnah (life-example of the Prophet) in the way we live. And then leave intelligent people to think for themselves, and make their choice.

God bless you, Ruqaiyyah.

(With acknowledgements to the ISNA magazine Horizons).