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Allah: A Christian Response QUOTES

Allah: A Christian Response QUOTES

1 " Love properly understood is God—the font of all creation and the ultimate goal of all desires; God properly understood is love. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

2 " In the minds of most people, Christianity is supposed to be about love of God and neighbor (even though it is true that at the heart of Christianity does not lie human love at all, but God’s love for humanity24 "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

3 " If it is true that the dual command of love is the common ground of the two faiths, the consequences are momentous. We no longer have to say, “The deeper your faith, the more you will be at odds with others!” To the contrary, we must say, “The deeper your faith, the more you will live in harmony with others!” A deep faith no longer leads to clashes; it fosters peaceful coexistence. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

4 " Many would have excommunicated her as well, for in Christian circles the reigning consensus over the years has been that one cannot be simultaneously a Christian and a Muslim. This consensus has been recently unsettled, however. Now a spirited debate rages around it, especially in evangelical circles. It centers primarily on Muslims who insist that they can be followers of Christ without abandoning Islam. In an article on Muslim-background believers, Joseph Cumming tells of such a person: Ibrahim was a well-respected scholar of the Qur’an, a hafiz [a person who has memorized the entire Qur’an]. When he decided to follow Jesus, he closely examined the Qur’anic verses commonly understood as denying the Trinity, denying Jesus’ divine Sonship, denying Jesus’ atoning death, and denying the textual integrity of the Bible. He concluded that each of these verses was open to alternate interpretations, and that he could therefore follow Jesus as a Muslim.18 Again, 100 percent Muslim and 100 percent Christian—or so Ibrahim would claim. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

5 " Impartiality of the state toward all religions. The only adequate option open to Muslims and Christians as citizens of the same state is to advocate the impartiality of the state toward all religions; no religion is preferred by the state, and all religions are impartially supported. This allows Christians and Muslims to be faithful to two fundamental impulses of monotheism simultaneously—to (1) honor the conviction that God is the God of all people and (2) obey God’s command to act justly and practice neighborly love toward all people. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

6 " Ritual observance without moral rectitude is worse than empty; it is a counterfeit religious coin with which a worshipper wishes to procure divine and human approval for behavior that deserves censure (see Isa. 58:3–7). "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

7 " Christians should see Muslims, who give ultimate allegiance to God as the supreme good, as allies in resisting the tendency in contemporary culture to see mere pleasure, rather than justice and love, as the hallmark of the good life. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response

8 " Sometimes when I observe contemporary U.S. culture, with its hard fronts and nasty culture wars, I have a strange sense that I’ve seen something like it before—in the Communist and semitotalitarian state in which I grew up. The issues and positions are very different, but the spirit is strangely familiar. In all public discussion, there was a party line that people had to toe; if you diverged, you were deemed disloyal and suspected of betraying the cause. I sense a similar spirit today among both progressives and conservatives in the United States when it comes to many hot-button issues, including Islam. "

― Miroslav Volf , Allah: A Christian Response