We have had several posts related to Islam over the past year and had been asked to compile them into one post so that they would be more accessible to people during the seasons of Ramadan and the Eid. Feel free to connect with us via our Contact Page or find ways to Get Involved as a guest contributor or regional editor.
A Christian Perspective of Eid al-Fitr
For many Christians living in non-Western contexts, Islam is a very present religious community. Outside of homogenous cultures, multi-faith communities share life together in meaningful ways. Through interaction with the religious identity of others, we can come to a fuller understanding of ourselves.
Eid al-Fitr is an Islamic holiday that is a celebration to mark the completion of Ramadan. It is a three-day celebration of purification and thanksgiving for Allah’s strength to complete the preceding month of fasting.
My question is, what can Christians appreciate from this celebration and how can we better understand ourselves in light of it?
Guidance and Light
This shows an Islamic starburst tile pattern (which traditionally symbolizes the spread of Islam throughout the universe), a lighted lamp and the first half of a verse (5:46) from the Qur’an which states:
Sample Images from “Guidance and Light” by Scott Rayl
“And We (God) sent, following in their footsteps Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which was before him in the Torah, and gave him the Gospel, in which there is guidance and light…”
So, in this painting the lamp and the tile pattern both represent the guidance and the light of the Gospel enlightening the world.
Follow for the complete article.
Qur’an Christology?
Adrian Warnock has a post about 11 things Muslims agree with Christians about Jesus. How can a functioning Christology be made out of this to turn the corner from interfaith dialogue to ecumenical dialogue?
Or, to put the initial question a different way, what differentiates Islam from Christian groups which hesitate in differentiating members of the Trinity (like Unitarians) or hold a low-Christology or elevate their founding teacher’s interpretations on par with other scripture (like Lutherans or Calvinists)?
What roadblocks stand in the way to distinguishing an authentically Islamic Christian Theology?
Follow for the complete article.
Challenging Islamophobia – A Christian Duty
In this article, Ray Gaston of Birmingham, UK argues for a radical interpretation and implementation of 1 Corinthians 13 in response to Islamophobia in the West.
…I want to present not an analysis or apology for Islam, I leave that to Muslims themselves, neither will this be a potted description of the practices of Islam for Christians. (There are other good resources for Christians to find out about Islam and to find out about the particular communities of Muslims that reside in the UK.) Instead I want to argue for a Christian praxis within this context of rising Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate crime. This praxis is founded upon two sources – one Islamic and the other Christian – that seek to generate a two-fold agenda for Christians in relation to Islam and Muslims. Firstly, founded upon an Islamic story about the first recorded encounter between Muslims and Christians, the priority for Christians is to seek to build the trust of Muslims. Secondly, rooted in the Pauline understanding of the practice of love, a call to self examine the hatred and fear in our own hearts and as a counter-cultural practice, actively to seek, through a dialogical spirituality, what is good in Islam, thus subverting the barrage of negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims in the media.
