Christian Fundamentalists and Muslims (3)

The same issue of the Baptist Record (12/11/03) also carries an article featuring criticism of President Bush's repeated general statements that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

This is one of the rare instances in which the Christian Right fans do not regard Bush as channeling the voice of the Almighty. They don't seem to realize, apart from its uses in world politics, that Bush's whole scheme of pumping money to fundamentalist Christian churches involves bypassing the "establishment clause" of the First Amendment by re-christening "religious" institutions as "faith-based" and making the program nominally non-sectarian. A caption on an accompanying photo of Bush notes that he "has come under fire for equating the God of Christianity with Allah of Islam." (Neither of the two articles I'm discussing notes that "Allah" is Arabic for God and that Arabic-speaking Christians also use "Allah" for God.)

Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Commission, disapproves of the President's position, in a statement that would also apply to Jews, though he refrains from specifying that:

"Like many other Americans I applaud the president as a man of deep religious faith who attempts to bring that faith conviction to bear on public policy issues," Land told Baptist Press. "However, we should always remember that he is Commander-in-Chief, not theologian-in-chief, [I wonder how many people make that mistake? :) ] and when he says that he believes that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, he is simply mistaken."

Scripture "is clear" on the issue, Land added. "There is one God and His name is Jehovah and His only begotten Son is Jesus Christ of the seed of Abraham and Isaac, whose mother was the Jewess virgin, Mary. Jesus our Savior has made it clear that we must know His Father through faith in Him and Him alone," he said.

I have to conclude with some basic clearing of cobwebs out of my head. "His name is Jehovah"?!? You don't hear that very often. "Jehovah" is an English translation of the Hebrew usually rendered in English as "Yahweh," and is not used very often by most Christian churches. "The Jewess virgin, Mary" is also not a formulation one hears very much.