Comments on: America: A Christian Theocracy?

By: Striker_21

Striker_21 — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:50:46 +0000

And that’s only the Shi’a. They have just as many schisms and sects as Christianity does.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:10:22 +0000

Concerning Islamic End Times eschatology, the current President of Iran recently said: “From the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world. All of us can contribute to the establishment of such a world. When that day comes, the ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [12th Imam] who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”
“Our revolution’s main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahd.”

Change the “12th Imam” for “Christ”, and it sounds pretty familiar.

By: Striker_21

Striker_21 — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 12:00:01 +0000

A couple of months ago I was at lunch with some of my Adventist colleagues and our discussion drifted to events in the middle east and around the world. Now Adventist eschatology is not as extreme as many dispensationalist versions that have been drawing attention lately, but it’s still an very prominent and detailed part of our theology. So it’s natural that they would interpret these events within that framework. Cliché’s such as “it’s a sign of then end” were mentionend and I suppose it would have died off except that I interjected an assertion that at least some Muslim’s were saying similar sorts of things but in an obviously different eschatology. The comment was met with shock and disbelief.

Now I’m not a expert on Islam, let alone its widely varied versions of eschatology, as varied as Christianity’s, but I do know enough to know that they have them, and that they are every bit as detailed and applied to current events as Christianity’s, Hinduism’s and other world religions. I’ve had some experience with it through a ministry call AMR (Adventist Musilm Relations) so I have some first hand experience talking with American Musilms about the issues in addition to reading about it online. My poor colleagues however apparently had never even imagined that this might be the case. Even when the admitted that it made sense for Muslim’s to have one and to apply it to current events, they had quite a bit of trouble imagining that it could have similar predictions as ours such as the famous “war and rumors of wars” bit. It put an end to the conversation in a totally different manner.

We are quite a bit poorer as human’s when we lack the imagination or perception to see that our fellow human even of different faiths, or no faith at all, have the same needs, desires, that we do. Moreover, most of them have answers which satisfy them, at least to a certain level. These answers may be different than ours, and we may think them wrong, but it is rather myopic to think that they are so pitiful that they are not even worth considering.