It’s a book that inspires real hope: hope for personal transformation that can lead to national and international change. It demonstrates that in-depth study of the Qur’an and the Bible, combined with a commitment to the life and teachings of Jesus (Isa), as revealed in both of these books, can create a peaceful foundation on which people from different backgrounds can build relationships.

At the outset of the book we find a man who is convinced that Islam is evil and diametrically opposed to his Christian faith and culture. He storms out of a prayer breakfast in which someone reads from the Qu’ran, and later chastises its organisers for allowing it. Before a speaking engagement he is informed by CIA agents that he has received a death threat from Yasser Arafat and asked to wear a bullet proof vest.

Eventually, a friend challenges him about some of the assumptions he has about his faith, and he is inspired to study the Bible in Aramaic, and the Qur’an in Arabic.

The journey that unfolds through his rigorous study and research is fascinating, and leads him to conclude that Muslims, Christians and even Jews have far more in common than the majority of us realise.

He begins with the basics, asking: who are Muslims talking about when they refer to Allah? What does the Qur’an mean when it describes Isa (the person we call Jesus) as The Spirit of God, The Word of God, or The Messiah? And leads on to questions that have been the subject of many a disagreement: is the Trinity Biblical? What does it mean to be begotten?

On many occasions He finds major linguistic discrepancies between the Aramaic scriptures and how their ideas have been translated into English, and then into Evangelical dogma. These discrepancies have led to misunderstandings, which over time have led to violence and hatred.

As Siljander finds answers to his questions he shares them with politicians, academics and Muslim and Christian leaders and finds that they come as a breath of fresh air, a bridge over which wounds can heal and friendships form.

Order the book here, or visit the website here.

He [Jesus] goes to visit the home of these two women. Martha takes her assigned role taking care of the kitchen, taking care of preparing food. Mary, on the other hand, decides to go and sit at the feet of the rabbi as only men were allowed to do in those days. Here is a woman breaking the social morés of the society, sitting, learning Torah from a rabbi with other men. Martha complains. At this point, Jesus says, “Martha, Mary has chosen the better thing to do.”

Charles Finney was the Billy Graham of the 1800s. When you came down the aisle and accepted Jesus as your personal savior at a Finney revival, he took you in the back room, where there were two tables, one table to sign up for the anti-slavery movement and the other for the feminist movement. When they took you in the back room, they didn’t give you a Gospel of John. You had to sign up for what he believed God was doing in the world at that time. And at that time, he saw that the great movements of God were the abolition of slavery and the liberation of women from their servitude.

~ click here to read more

On Saturday I went to see my Grandpa. He told me that he’d been thinking about the fact that the word Christian seems to have so little meaning in today’s world, it’s a word used when you don’t know what else to say you are (for some people). He was telling me how being a “disciple” or “follower of Jesus” is a far better term. I could only agree. I can’t remember having chatted about that with him before but what he said to me sounded like what I could have said to him. Weird (and cool).

I can’t help but think that it has only been since he retired as a minister of an Elim Church that he has started to get back to basics. It’s like he’s gradually letting go of all the religious legalism that he was brought up with.

It was a time of encouragement – I love hearing the different perspectives people have on the same thing.

The vision is one of continuing to grow as a family. To see ourselves becoming the kind of people we were designed to be and to share that love with others. Through our lifestyles of vulnerability we can affect those around us.

{Lord, bring good out of this tragedy of war. Make us more real and less selfish. Help us to see the Iraq as groups of innocent people who want peace, not as some far off entity.}

So how does Jesus respond? “Yeah guys, that’d be cool – let’s burn them so hard that you can see the smoke rise.” No, he ends things with a simple “course not.”

I guess it just dawned on me that the disciples had never seen Jesus harm anyone with his ‘secret powers’ and yet that’s exactly what they’re willing to do at the first opportunity (once given Authority).

Before I sign off, I just remembered something in Luke 8. Jesus takes three of his disciples with him when asked to restore the life to Jairus’ daughter. That’s how he trained people. He was himself, he took people with him to see how he did things, later they were given authority to do the same.

I guess it must be because he, God had given them orders to get to the other side and being God, when he said it he didn’t mean “head for the other side so I can wipe you out on the way” – he meant “go to the other side.” The passage really spoke to me. So often I’m so absorbed in what’s going on around me that I think “how am I ever going to get through the storm?” But God has told me that he’s taking me to a place beyond that, so why should I give up trusting him just because the weather’s changed. If he orders, he’ll provide the resources.

I would have loved to hear his thoughts on sex, for example – particularly when Jay had mentioned spending most of his time trying to get (unmarried) people to stop having sex with each other! The explaination that most things in the new testament were not directly applicable, but that all are indirectly applicable was certainly helpful, but I would have liked him to expand on his ideas a little. Perhaps some ‘scholars’ would have a better idea of how to apply that concept to a fresh reading of scripture but I’m afraid I don’t (please comment if you have any tips!)

War

His reference to war was certainly an eye opener. I’d been long prodding this issue with a number of people to whom I had spoken. Some had mentioned the ‘Just War’ theory. SMW gave some insight to this idea, how it is a product of Christendom, and related it to our current situation – what is a ‘just war’?

1. War must be for a just Cause

2. War must be with good intention

3. There must be reasonable expectation of success

4. War must be waged by proper means

5. War must be the only possible way of removing evil

6. War must be declared and fought by a legitimate Authority.

He pointed out that the current US-UK-Iraq situation does not fit cleanly into this criteria. The circumstances are in fact closer to those of the (“more Biblical”) concept of a crusade. This thinking is a breath of fresh air. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of Jesus waging war in a physical, or political domain and so the just war idea had never sat comfortably. Now I know why.

If I think of anything else I shall blog on this topic further…until then “roll on death of Christendom!” I pray that it will be the quickest thing I ever learn and unlearn!

There are two ways of looking at it:

1. Firstly to use anything other than church can cause confusion, for example trying to explain to someone that you’re part of a ‘missional community’ might get a bit tiring.

2. On the other hand there is the argument that when you speak of “church” they have images of the lifeless, the boring…

Should we redefine the term, or use something different?