Islamic Values Versus Biblical Values

No, Islam and Christianity are not at all similar:

Here is a truth you can count on: when someone tries to tell you that Islam and Christianity are compatible, even similar, in terms of key values and practices, they know nothing about either belief system. The differences between the two are incapable of being papered over. Simply consider just one area (out of many): how the faith has expanded in each:

Islam
For the most part, the first three centuries of growth in Islam was accomplished by the use of the sword. That is, conquest and compulsion were the main means by which Islam spread throughout the Middle East in its early centuries. And much of its later expansion was based on conquest as well, with most of North Africa and the Middle East now under Islamic control mainly because of military conquest, not willing conversions. This is in accord with the example of Muhammad and injunctions from the Koran and the hadith.

 

Christianity
During the first three centuries of the spread of the Christian church, the preaching of the gospel and the work of the Spirit combined to win many converts. The early church was often the enemy of the State, and had no official power or access to arms to force conversions. For the most part, people became Christians willingly and voluntarily. Yes, later on, Christians sometimes used the sword to force Christian conversion, but this was against the clear teachings of the New Testament. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2013/03/19/islam-and-christianity-competing-worldviews/

One can also look at mainstream Western values such as liberty, democracy, the rule of law, religious freedom, respect for women and children, and so on. In these and other areas there is absolutely no comparison to be found between Islam and Christianity.

One of Australia’s – and the world’s – leading Islamic scholars is Rev. Dr. Mark Durie. He just gave a talk on this matter at an Aspire Conference in Sydney on February 25th. His full talk is now available, so I offer a number of key quotes from it.

He starts by sharing a line from historian Tom Holland: “Christianity is the seedbed of everything that makes the West what it is. Without it I worry where we may end up.” Durie then discusses where we get our values from:

Some say that politics is downstream from culture.

A point I want to make is that culture is downstream from religion.

And it matters which religion we follow.

Religion matters, for example, to how we understand marriage. Nations with a Muslim heritage permit polygamy. Nations with a Biblical heritage reject it. Some nations, like India or Lebanon, allow it for Muslims and prohibit it for Christians.

This is not a trivial distinction. The choice between monogamy and polygamy deeply impacts family culture including the rights of women and children. And the cultural difference comes from a difference in religion.

The World Values Survey investigated the values that peoples hold all over the world. Cultural values were plotted in two dimensions: traditional versus secular-rational values, and survival versus self-expression values. The results show that the values of nations cluster along religious lines: Protestant versus Confucian versus Catholic versus Christian Orthodox versus Islamic. Religion doesn’t determine everything, but it accounts for a great deal.

The cultural differences between, say, Norway and Saudi Arabia are largely because Norway has a Protestant Lutheran heritage and Saudi Arabia has an Islamic heritage.

He goes on to compare and contrast ten basic biblical values with ten basic Islamic values. Here are the first five biblical values.

-There is the influence of the Biblical doctrine of human sinfulness. As Solzhenitsyn put it, ‘the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being’.  This doctrine informed limitations on state power and led to checks and balances to prevent tyranny. It was a Christian leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton, who drafted the Magna Carta.

 

-Then there is the idea that humans have been created in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 says ‘So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’ This underpins our understanding of human dignity. It has influenced Western cultures to believe that all people are of equal worth and should be treated equally before the law.

 

-The Bible teaches that rulers and citizens are accountable to a higher moral law (Psalm 22:28; Romans 13:1-7), which implies that governments should act justly and fairly, and not overreach into areas of conscience.

 

-The Bible teaches believers to be loyal to the state without compromising their faith. The book of Jeremiah urged the Jews in exile to seek the wellbeing of the cities in which they found themselves. Saint Paul taught obedience to rulers (Romans 13). Jesus said, ‘Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’ (Matthew 22:21), implying that there is a difference between the two, and that a sincere believer can, in principle, be loyal to both within limits.

 

-Then there is the doctrine of love for others. Leviticus 19:18 taught the Israelites to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. This specifically included outsiders and foreigners (Leviticus 19:33–34).

And here are the first five Islamic values:

-Islam’s anthropology is very different from the Bible’s view of the human person. It rejects the idea of inherent human sinfulness, teaching that people are born innocent, in a pure state known as the fitra. It is consistent with this that Islam concentrates all power in one office, following the example of Muhammad, who was king, high priest, chief justice and general of the army. Islamic cultures do not separate powers: they combine them.

 

-Islam does not teach that humans are made in the image of God and thus are equal in dignity. On the contrary, it insists that humans share no likeness to or similarity with God. It also does not teach that all people are equal before the law. The sharia ranks Muslims above non-Muslims and men above women. For example, a non-Muslim’s testimony in a sharia court is generally invalid against a Muslim’s, and a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man. It also imposes a form of legal pluralism, grounded in legal inequality, allowing other religions their own laws, but all under the dominance of the sharia.

 

-Islam does not distinguish divine from earthly authority. Islamic law does not recognise freedom of conscience. Some Muslims even reject democracy on theological grounds, because it is the rule of people instead of the rule of God.

 

-The idea that Muslims should be loyal to a non-Muslim state, or even to a Muslim state, is problematic and contested within Islam. It has been a serious question in Islamic jurisprudence whether Muslims are allowed to become loyal citizens of non-Muslim nations. Judaism and Christianity settled this question thousands of years ago based on teachings in the Bible.

 

-Islam does not have a doctrine of love for non-Muslims. There is a doctrine of loyalty to Muslims but disavowal of non-Muslims. This doctrine is also known as ‘Loving and hating for Allah’s sake’. Many Muslims take this to mean that they should prefer Muslims over non-Muslims and see Muslims as superior.

These points make it quite clear that there is a glaring difference between what the biblical faith is all about and what Muslims adhere to. Durie concludes his piece by discussing the need to manage religious diversity:

One thing is clear: ‘We don’t do religion’ is not an option. This is a strategy of the religiously illiterate and of those in denial about the nature of what we face.

Please also understand that I am not saying ‘Islam bad, Christianity good’. Christianity has had its flaws, when Christians have done evil in the name of their faith. My point is simply about the role of religion in determining cultural values. It is about where our values come from.

I would also point out that these reflections are not only based upon Islam’s canonical texts and the teachings of Muslim scholars. They have also been based on very practical considerations, working among Christian believers who were formerly Muslims, and observing the impact of a culture which condones lying under certain circumstances.

In the face of the contrasting values of a Biblical heritage and an Islamic heritage, I would say this to our leaders: ‘Our governments have done this to us. You, politicians, have established a plurality of religions in this land. If you accept that values are downstream from religion, then what is your plan for managing the resulting religious diversity? When will you wake up to this, your responsibility? Which religion will be the one to determine our values? How will you manage this?’

Please read his entire talk, including the helpful footnotes that go with it: https://substack.com/home/post/p-191650630   

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