STEUBENVILLE, OH—"While I think there is no reason not to talk to Muslim groups, it's very important to be informed and to understand how Islam views Christianity," said Jihad Watch founder Robert Spencer. "If you keep in mind the things that I have touched on this evening—how the Qur'an views Christians as the renegade followers of a heretical version of the true teaching of Jesus—well, it can change your perspective on an awful lot of things."
Spencer addressed a packed house at his November 8 presentation on "Islam's View of Christianity: Why It Matters" at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
He opened with a discussion of the inter-religious efforts between Muslims and Christians, focusing on the Islamic "Common Word" initiative (http://www.acommonword.com/), which was crafted by prominent Islamic scholars as a response to the controversy over Pope Benedict XVI's Regensberg address. The apparent openness indicated by the document, however, is tempered by the context of the call to a "Common Word" in Qur'an 3:64.
"When we are invited to come to 'a common word,' as the document has it, with Muslims," said Spencer, author of Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, "the fruit that they hope will come from it is that we will stop associating partners with Allah, which means stop acknowledging Jesus Christ as divine and accept him as merely a human messenger of God, as the Qur'an styles him. In other words—that we will become Muslim. The common word is not really an invitation to dialogue at all. It is an invitation to convert to Islam."
Spencer proceeded to flesh out some serious differences between the Christian understanding of the Bible and the Islamic perception.
"The gospel in the Qur'an is not the Gospel as we understand it–the Good News of salvation brought to the world through Christ," explained Spencer. "Rather, it is a book, like the Qur'an, that was delivered to the prophet Jesus. The Torah and the Gospel, Mohammed thus assumed, would be saying exactly the same things that he was…"
When he was told this was not so by Jewish and Christian contemporaries, Mohammed decided the Jews and Christians had tampered with their own Scriptures.
"It is part of standard, mainstream Islamic teaching that Judaism and Christianity as we know them today…are astray from the true teachings of Moses and Jesus," explained Spencer, who in 2007 wrote the book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. "The original faith of all the prophets is Islam, because Islam is the true faith from the true God. And so Abraham, you see, was a Muslim, as the Qur'an tells us. Moses was a Muslim. Jesus was a Muslim."
And the norm for Muslims is derived from the words and deeds of Mohammed.
"Mohammed is called in Qur'an 33:21 'the excellent example of conduct,' and Muslims take that very seriously…If he did it, it's exemplary," said Spencer, author of The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. "This creates a very peculiar situation for morals, but there's more to it than that…when you have the Jews and the Christians teaching these false religions, how he behaved toward them also becomes normative."
Mohammed's behavior towards the non-Muslim "People of the Book" was conditioned by certain assumptions. "There is no concept in Islamic theology—at all—of people rejecting the religion of Islam in good faith," said Spencer. According to Islam, "we all know better. We were born Muslims, as a matter of fact, and this is why [all] converts to Islam are referred to as reverts by Muslims."
In the context of interreligious dialogue between Muslims and Christians, Spencer said, "If we are dealing with Muslims who are informed about their faith…and sincerely believing in it, we are dealing with people who believe us to be morally compromised renegades from the true faith."
Spencer went on to describe the various "Jim Crow"-type laws applied to non-Muslims in Islamic lands, which are designed to encourage the decline of non-Muslim religions, including laws prohibiting the construction of new churches or synagogues, prevent non-Muslims from holding certain jobs, and have historically required extra taxes on non-Muslims.
According to Spencer, these forms of oppression are rarely discussed. "Mohammed said, 'War is deceit,' and Sura 3:28 of the Qur'an says, 'Do not take unbelievers as your friends and protectors in preference to believers, and anybody who does this has nothing to do with Allah, unless you’re doing this to guard yourselves against them…'
"Now, does this mean that every Muslim that reaches out to you in friendship or every Muslim group that reaches out to a church or to a Christian group in dialogue is trying to deceive you? No, certainly not, but it does mean that it does happen, and that we need to keep a steady and sober regard for the possibility that it could happen."
During a lengthy Q & A session that followed, Spencer discussed Islam's teachings on the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Francis' meeting with the Sultan, what the secularism of traditionally Christian European countries means for Islam, issues related to Islamic morality, and other topics.