Christians are familiar with the Bible texts that detail the conception and birth of Jesus to His mother, the Virgin Mary.
But they are not so used to hearing the Muslim version of the story read out in church. And especially not on Epiphany, which celebrates the incarnation of God as His son Jesus - a doctrine denied by Muslims.
Michael Nazir-Ali, a leading evangelical Christian in Britain, has now condemned the reading on a service at the Scottish Episcopal Church's Glasgow Cathedral last Friday.
The congregation at St Mary's cathedral heard the Muslim version of the Virgin Mary's conception of Jesus, from the Koran's Sura 19, sung by Madinah Javed. The passage explains how Mary gave birth after an angel told her God would give her a child.
Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, and that He was a precursor to Mohammed rather than the Son of God.
Sura 19 states that Mary was "ashamed" after she gave birth, and that the infant Jesus miraculously spoke to her from his crib and claimed he was "a servant of God".
It denies Jesus was the Son of God.
A post on the cathedral's Facebook page describes the service as a "wonderful event".
Read the rest here.
HT: A Blog reader.
They used to call this sort of thing "fraternizing with the enemy".
ReplyDeleteThis is why I say the Age of Evangelism is over. If Muslims are coming here to be good Muslims, and enabled in their religious practice by Christians, then there is nothing left to evangelize. Rather, there is just a transparent religious market which enables consumers to choose the product they want.
ReplyDelete