Lies and Empty Wind

On Antithesis and Backbones

We blogged several days ago on the fundamental agreement that lies beneath any superficial conflict between the Unbelieving West and Islam. Both agree that redemption comes by law.

Islam (which means “submission”) teaches that salvation and redemption to both man and society comes from submitting to the law of Allah, as revealed by the prophet Mohammed, or the hadith, or (in the case of Shia) the successive Imams. The Unbelieving West also has a doctrine of redemption by law: as society looking more and more to the State, its laws and regulations to solve all of mankind's problems—whether it be disease control, arresting climate change, relieving poverty, banishing crime, or even preventing and restituting accidents.

The only disputes between the Unbelieving West and Islam are intra-mural ones—disputes over the source and content of the law. Both, however, agree that law redeems, and that mankind can be saved by submission to it. Now there is an interesting historical development that has taken place in Islam which puts it even closer to the West. While formally the law comes from the idol god, Allah, in actual practice the source of law and its application comes from the Islamic state, or whoever is in control of the civil magistracy in respective Islamic societies.

The formal confession of Islam is that there is but one god, Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. But in actuality the Koran cannot stand as a complete revelation of the mind and will of Allah for man: it requires interpreters and interpretation. Moreover, because the Koran is primarily a book proclaiming salvation by law, there is no distinction in Islam between church and state. Therefore, the political powers of the day in Islamic societies have successively developed, changed, modified and altered the Koran's teaching. Fundamentally, Islamic law and its development has been a statist phenomenon, and increasingly so.

Take, as an obvious example, that Mohammed never taught that women should be veiled and covered by the burkha. But subsequent traditions and teachings do (being derived from cultural practices of various historical tribes)—and they are just as binding upon the conscience of the faithful as anything in the Koran. And since the ultimate manifestation of the power and will of Allah upon earth is the state, the state will bind the conscience on these matters. Islam is intrinsically statist because it requires absolute submission to Allah, and Allah's power is manifested primaily in the State.

So the post-Christian West and Islam agree on two fundamental doctrines: that redemption is by submission to law and that the State is the mediator and enforcer of law. There are minor disagreements over the source and content of the law. Islam formally says that the law which redeems comes from the god, Allah—but in reality, Islamic law originates in the hearts, minds, and traditions of man as manifested in the State. The West formally says that the law comes from the will of the people—but in reality the State is increasingly intrusive and despotic and answers to itself. Western government trundle on under the oppressive weight of the despotic bureaucratic machine: all incoming governments, regardless of their ideology, end up conforming. In the hearts of Unbelievers in the West and in Islam there is a deep and abiding consensus that the State is, by definition, the will of the people and the will of the people is the State. Allah and the will of the people alike end up to be little more than warranting concepts.

One recent commentator on our blog, Crusader Rabbit enjoined Christians in the West to have more backbone in standing up to encroaching Islam. He suggested there was too much “turn the other cheek” stuff in the response of the Church in the West to Islam. This, in turn, implies that there is not a sufficiently strong antithesis between Christianity and Islam.

Our response to this would be the classic “two-handed” response. (We recall that Winston Churchill once lamented that he could not find a one-handed economist!) On the one hand, amongst those churches and denominations where the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus has become caked over and occluded by centuries of unbiblical traditions, redemption by law will have re-emerged. Where this is so, the ravine that stands between Islam and the Church and the Unbelieving West and the Church will have filled up with human detritus to where there is little more than a shallow ditch separating the Church from Islam. In such cases, Crusader Rabbit's lament is justly uttered. In such places both Islam and such unfaithful churches share a common belief that redemption is by law, and the only disputes turn around the content of the law which redeems, which in turn devolves down to matters of social conditioning and preferences.

On the other hand, amongst those churches and denominations where there is both a clear proclamation from the Scriptures and belief amongst the people that redemption is not a matter of law, but a matter of the grace and mercy of God, by faith in Christ Jesus alone, the antithesis is deep and unbridgeable.

This is not to say that we have been as faithful to the antithesis as we ought, nor that we have properly thought through all the implications. To do this properly requires both wisdom and courage. In this we have much to learn. Learning how to be kind and loving to our enemies, whilst being resolutely faithful to our Lord and His total dominion, and whilst calling these same enemies to repent of their law-redemption and turn to Christ that they too may be saved is neither easy nor something in which we are naturally facile.

But the antithesis is there: it is deep and obvious, and it cannot be removed by man. For from the very dawn of the human race, God said, “I will put enmity between your (Satan's) children and the children of Eve” (Genesis 3:15). He alone can remove it and He has subsequently made clear that He removes it only in the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ. (Acts 4:12) Before Him, Allah is a wretched idol and Mohammed is a false prophet. He will not have them in His presence (Exodus 20:3); they are lies and empty wind.