Christian Fundamentalists and Muslims (2)

This provides a good example of how superficial the Christian Right's "philo-Semitism" usually is. If rejection of the Trinity means that Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians, it also means that Jews don't worship the same God as Christians. Judaism does not recognize any Trinity.

Caner continued with the imaginative and false statement: "... Islamic eschatology teaches that one day Jesus will return to 'break all the crosses' and 'kill and send to hell every Jew and Christian who did not accept Allah,' Caner said."

Southern Seminary president explained, well, the same thing:

"The issue ... is the doctrine of the Trinity, in particular the doctrine of Christ," Mohler said. "We must face the fundamental question of how one knows the one true and living God. The Scripture is abundantly clear that God is known through Jesus Christ the Son." [Fundamentalists somehow manage to "blip" over unsettling Gospel passages like Matthew 25 that suggest a more expansive view.] Islam, in contrast, insists that "Allah is one, and he has no son," Mohler said. "The only ground of our Christian identity is ... the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord." Efforts at waging the great battles of the age, he said, are "fundamentally limited to those who believe and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

This theological exclusion, again, applies just as much to Jews as to Muslims.

Theology professor Russell Moore of the Southern Seminary said, uh, the same thing:

Moore, a Biloxi [MS] native, said Muslims also misunderstand the fatherhood of God. "God the Father does not simply mean that God is caring," Moore said. "God the Father, in Scripture, is a specific truth claim that God is the Father of Jesus Christ. We cannot start with some generic concept of God and then move to a fuller revelation in Jesus Christ. God reveals himself as Father, Son, Holy Spirit and as the God and Father of Jesus Christ."

Trying to twist some actual meaning out those distinctions is enough to give any Christian greater sympathy for the more purely monotheistic approach to God. Not to mention a headache. That's why most Christians learned centuries ago to let the Trinity be a "mystery" and leave it at that.