Islam IV

Islam versus Christianity

We have argued that there are currently three universalistic religions, each seeking to possess the entire world. Each is expansionist. Each is aggressive. But really, it is two against one. For both Islam and Western secular humanism are variants of the same seed of the Serpent: each seeks to honour Man above all else; each seeks to deny the one true Living God.

We have also argued that in the conflict and clash between Islam and the West, it is likely that western secular humanism will lose. It does not have the cultural power or vibrancy to stand up to Islam. It has manifested too many internal contradictions, harboured too many diversities in its relentless drive to build a utopian pluralistic multi-cultural society: it will always move over and accommodate Islam's claims and assertions. It cannot do anything else, lest it deny and blaspheme against itself.

If we are correct, in the end it will be a global clash between the Christian faith and Islam. Between these two, which will triumph?

Christianity of course. But in order to engage successfully in this conflict, it is important that Jerusalem cleans up its own act, as it were. In large part this requires that Jerusalem believes properly and truthfully so that she can exercise truthful faith in God Himself. So, let's canvass the basics.

In the first place, we need to be very clear that Islam is just one more idolatry, amongst a legion of idolatries spawned by fallen man in a vain attempt to deny and avoid the Living God. It represents the fevered imagination of one man, Muhammad, augmented by centuries of Islamic academics, thinkers, judges and rulers. As such it may be complex and in some ways sophisticated, but as a religion is remains an idolatry nonetheless. Allah does not exist. Allah is a figment of Islamic imagination. "Allah" is a warranting concept both to disguise and also justify Man as the measure of all things.

The fervency of belief does not alter this basic fact. Allah is just as much an idol as Zeus, Baal, Marduk, or Jupiter were. The construction of Allah as an alone god does not put Islam in a fundamentally different category from all other idolatries. Nor does it make Islam a kind of “cousin” of the Christian Gospel. Monism and Deism, despite their assertions of an alone god, are fundamentally and radically anti-Christian. So it is with Islam, which is just another version of monism and variant of Aristotelian deism. (It is arguable that Islam is a religious reflection of the Aristotelian stream of Hellenism, even as gnosticism was a religious reflection of neo-platonic Hellenism.)

Therefore, the people of Jerusalem need to respond to Islam in exactly the same way they respond to every other idolatry—with love and compassion, calling upon those entrapped in Islam to repent and believe in Christ that their sins might be forgiven. It is the Gospel, after all, which is the power of God unto salvation. (When western secular humanists attempt to shut down such evangelism, calling it hate speech, impugning the fundamental human rights of Islamic people, we simply smile, and repeat the same call [mutatis mutandis] to them: come out from the idolatry to which you are enslaved, and repent and believe upon Christ.)

Secondly, Islam cannot change the human heart. It cannot cause men to be born again. Now this is not to say that Islamic people do not really believe their religion. They clearly do, as the Baal worshipers in their day believed in their god. Islam militantly wants every idolater to accept Islam which is another idolatry—which requires no fundamental change of heart, only a change of opinion. It is like changing support from the Blues to the Hurricanes (which, for the uninitiated, are local rugby teams.) The underlying commitment to rugby as a game remains.

Only the Spirit of God can cause men to be born again, to become new creatures, so that all things are and will be made new. And when the Spirit stretches forth His hand, none can gainsay or resist. This is what makes the triumph of Christianity in the world inevitable. Christ has been invested by God the Father as Lord of heaven and earth. All enemies are to be placed under His feet. As His dominion is realised this will progressively mean the conversion of all mankind to Christ. The Lord Himself has declared that it will be so. To achieve and accomplish this, the sovereign Spirit of God effectually calls men and women. He moves upon men and women, boys and girls and causes them to be born anew, grants them the gift of faith, and raises them up as children of the Living God.

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it:

Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the Gospel.

Without the Spirit of God effectually calling people to become Christians, none would ever believe. However, when the Spirit does call, none can stay His hand, for He transforms them from the inside out so that they will to believe, to do, and to obey. All the combined force of Islam and secular humanism cannot prevent the conversion of even one person thus called by God's infinite Spirit. (The conversion of the thief on the cross is a signature of this irresistible power. Initially mocking the crucified Christ, as he hung suspended with Him, his heart was transformed, and he was converted from unbelief to repentance and faith. The King was at the extremity of human weakness, frailty, degradation, and defeat. Yet through the power of God's Spirit changing his heart, the thief saw instead One who was the King and Lord of all.)

This inward transformation, leading to a new heart, is the reason why those people elect of God will inevitably become Christians. But the work is spiritual (that is, of the Holy Spirit Himself) and operates at the very seat of the human intellect, emotions and will. The Spirit enlightens our minds, renews our wills, persuades and enables us to embrace Jesus Christ, Who is freely offered, not forced upon men. Therefore, Christianity spreads not by compulsion or force of arms, but by the inner transformation of human souls, reviving them and joining them in living faith to Christ, their Saviour. But equally no force on earth can stay its spread, or prevent its success.

On the other hand, Islam can only spread with the sanction of force. Unable to transform human souls from the inside out, it can appeal to the relative merits of Allah, its idol—but when refused, compel submission by force. There is nothing else—either philosophically, conceptually, or in actual reality. Since Allah does not exist there is no power, beyond the power of man, to change minds. Human beings can only compel other human beings by force—ultimately by force of arms.

You see this manifested on every hand. Islamic societies, because of the weakness and nullity of their idol, have to resort to compulsion and force to protect the position of their god. Try expressing disbelief in Allah in Saudi Arabia for example. Try calling people to serve and worship the Living God. Immediately the full weight of Islamic totalitarianism would descend. But this very circumstance displays the idolatrous nature of Islam. Its god is a figment of human imagination: therefore humans, not their non-existent god, end up compelling others to do and live in accordance with their dictates.

But will Saudi Arabia always remain this way? No. It too has been appointed to come to bow and kiss the feet of the risen Son. But not by military or human powers of subjugation. Its people will be transformed from the inside out and Islam will be blown away as no more than chaff in the wind. The Gospel will be heard and believed in that land and an elect generation will arise who know not the god, Allah but who will call upon the Name of the Living God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, and only then, will true peace break out in that desert land. Even so, Maranatha. Come quickly Lord Jesus.