Christian Faith vs. Muslim Faith pt.1

I just received a phone call criticizing me for statements from my blog of March 18. I understand this criticism. To associate Christian parental training with extremist Muslim indoctrination seems unfair, radical and almost hateful. Yet, I have even stacked the deck with the way the last statement was worded and the culture in which it was presented. The truth is that most parents, Christian and Muslim, want the best for their children. They want their children to follow the commands of God as written in their scriptures. They want their children to seek after the eternal values and not worldly desires. They want them to be men and women of faith and to be willing to defend their faith even if it means martyrdom. Interestingly, they also use the same arguments to defend their own faith and dismiss others.
There are some differences in my opinion. First, I do believe that Christians in this century like to follow the God from the Sermon on the Mount and not the God of the Old Testament. They have developed elaborate doctrines, such as dispensationalism, to separate Jesus, the God of Love, from the God of wrath, vengeance, jealousy, hate (I can give verses to back up statements, if needed) and more, of the Old Testament. One thing about Christianity is that we Christians can find solace in large parts of the Bible and be illiterate or ignore other parts, which shows another side of God. Muslims find very little of love and tolerance from the Koran. Christians can look to the New Testament for elements of tolerance of differing views and ignore God’s laws instructing his people to kill adulterers, those who turn you away from God, homosexuals, wayward children and more from the Old Testament. The Koran doesn’t have large sections of tolerant love to find comfort. Of course, one could argue that Christians do not really believe their scriptures wholly while Muslims do…. but that is a different blog.
Recently even well-known atheist Christopher Hitchens was physically attacked when debating Muslims from Damascus but described a Christian debate last week as being thrust in a “Den of Lambs”. Dr. Hitchens was grateful and respected the collegial debate and respect of Christians as compared with Muslims. Yet, this was not always the case. Historically, Christians of every persuasion were very intolerant of differing views and the result was often death.