What do arab christians call god

Paul himself showed us the way in Athens Acts At the Areopagus, he utilized the altar to the Unknown God a god of the Greek pagan pantheon and proclaimed that this Unknown God was the God who has once and for all revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

May we not follow his lead and seek out ways to engage with Muslims and others with confidence that they too have reliable enough knowledge of God within their religious thought and culture that we can work with in order to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ within their own worlds?

But let me first observe that US evangelicals have syncretism problems of our own. It is an ever-present human condition that also affects Christians from which ultimately Christ redeems us and we, like Muslims or adherents of other religions, need to look to Christ for rescue.

Biblical witness portrays a Christ, who makes an exclusive claim as Lord over all nations. He does not claim to be simply the Messiah of the Jews but the final and authoritative revelation of God to every nation and the Second Adam of a new creation.

There simply is no other Lord but Christ. This is where we depart from Islam and other religions. Therefore, Christ is the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of every religious adherent everywhere. Insofar as Islam or, for that matter, Christianity itself fails to lead people to Christ, it fails as a religion, for the demands and longings of the religious consciousness present in every religion and human heart cannot be met by anyone other than Christ.

Every religious endeavor must be judged by how it has led people to Christ, the ultimate destination of all religious pilgrimages and fulfillment of all religious longings. Yet, the universal claim of Christ transcends and relativizes our quibbles over which camp possesses the truth and, therefore, the rightful religious authority. Christ is not merely Lord of Christians; he is Lord of every culture and people groups throughout all history. This claim also will not submit to the demands of Western liberal thought that all the religions behave themselves and collapse their differences into a universal religion and ethos shaped by Eurocentric rationalism.

Many have already noted that such an approach is paternalistic imperialism, in spite of prima facie protests to the contrary. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Jesus, similarly, took forms of Judaism and filled them with new meaning, namely himself. He did this all the time — for instance, the Passover meal became a memorial of the new covenant mediated through his body and his blood.

Could we speak similarly about Muslim prayers, fasts, and pilgrimages — that they are a shadow of the reality, which is Christ? You will notice that my language is different from a Christianity vs. Islam paradigm, a clash of religions locked in a struggle for domination. Such a view does not take the need for growth and discipleship within Christianity itself seriously enough, nor does it account for the danger of cultural chauvinism or religious imperialism — of which Two-Thirds World Christians are all too aware.

Rather, faithful and wise communicators of the gospel message will connect the dots — whether they are dots within the Muslim world or within the context of Christendom — and show how the lines lead all to Christ. Don M. McCurry, page In order to describe this idea, we could perhaps borrow a term from my friends in biblical studies, Douglas Green, and others, and speak of a Christotelic theology of religions — the telos of our universal religious consciousness is none other than Jesus of Nazareth who died on the cross and was raised to redeem all creation.

I say all this with an eye towards significant developments in the Islamic world. Lost among the news stories of extremists like ISIS and humanitarian disasters in the Middle East is a tectonic shift that missiologists are struggling to understand — mass movements of Muslims coming to faith in Christ. For many of these new followers of Christ came to faith not through the traditional missionary efforts of Christendom or its children, but quite apart from them.

This blog post has become far too long, and I have raised more questions than given answers. In his absolute oneness there is unity but not trinity, and because of this lack of relationship, love is not emphasized. Indeed, for the Muslim, Allah cannot have any associates.

When we look at Yahweh, however, who is the God of the Bible, we see a different kind of deity. The Jews realized that Jesus was referring to himself as God and took up stones to stone him for what they believed was blasphemy. This link between Jesus in the New Testament and the burning bush in the Old Testament demonstrates the unity of the one God manifested to both the Jews and the Christians.

This cannot be said of the Muslim God because Muslims reject the deity of Jesus and therefore reject much of what the New Testament says about Jesus. We also find that the Bible portrays Yahweh in contrast to Allah. For example, Allah is considered to be too holy to have personal relationships with man, but Yahweh is often described as a loving God interested in our personal struggles. Yahweh is also depicted as unchanging and One who assures the salvation of the faithful. Finally, because there is unity in the Trinity with the one God also being three persons, God can be described as the Father of Jesus.

Some scholars want to emphasize the similarities between Yahweh and Allah, and point to a common belief in a monotheistic God who is Creator of all things, omnipotent and merciful.

Both religions also claim that God has sent prophets to reveal His will and produce scriptures to guide our lives. However, Allah and Yahweh cannot refer to the same person for the following reasons.

First of all, their attributes are different. Also, since his power is more important than his other attributes, there is an unequal emphasis on power over his other attributes. But for more than five hundred years before Muhammad, the vast majority of Jews and Christians in Arabia called God by the name Allah. How, then, can we say that Allah is an invalid name for God? If it is, to whom have these Jews and Christians been praying?

And what about the 10 to 12 million Arab Christians today? Instead of bridging the distance between Muslims and Christians, we widen the gulf of separation between them and us when we promote such a doctrine.

Those who raise objections generally agree that Christians and Muslims worship one God, but will not accept the statement that they worship the same God. Admittedly, this problem is probably more of a Christian problem than it is a Muslim problem. Once a Muslim is ready to acknowledge that God can be known by a name other than Allah i.