Resurrection, violence etc

Submitted by robert (Australia), Feb 11, 2008 at 21:21

Dear Friend Robert, allow me to quote St Paul: "Someone may ask, 'How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come back ?'...(1Cor.15:35). He says: (verse 42- 44): "It is sown a perishable body, it is raised imperishable ...It is sown a natural body, it is raised a SPIRITUAL body." Thus is it with Christ Jesus - and, by extension (God-willing) with us. The full essence of the Resurrection is difficult for our earthly understanding.

You say there are pretend Christians, and I say there are pretend Muslims - those who do not show fairness, charity and justice. Surah:5-44 says: "In the Torah we decreed for them (The Jews)... an eye for an eye. and a tooth for a tooth... But if a man forebears from retaliation (as taught by Jesus - see "guidance and light", Surah 46-48) his remission shall atone for him." So it is clear that the Koran actually asks Muslims to consider the guidance and light of Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount as a measure of their judgements and actions. Because the Koran confirms the Gospel (yes it does), Muslims are therefore obliged to observe what Jesus said.

Yes, there are violent words in the Koran, but we must understand that the Koran contains a summation of God's word in the Old and New Testament, but confirms the guidance and light of Jesus. The Muslim then must choose what God has stressed as preferable. It is clear to any logical person the Peace of Jesus is preferable to any pathway of violence, even though in Holy Scripture it has been often condoned. It is for us to choose. Mercy and forgiveness - or its unsavoury alternative ?

Finally, Christians have also subjugated women. Times have changed. A Muslim who strikes his wife to-day is in error - justice, fairness, and mercy is different today than in former times. We should remember that Peter still carried a sword during the ministry of Jesus, and used it on at least one occasion.

Incidentally, I have read nowhere in the Koran that a woman's face or head must be covered. The passages concerned refer, in my understanding, to the breasts and general modesty. The head covering rules have been a misinterpretation, in my opinion. Of course, in the Middle-east only a mad-dog or an Englishman (to quote Noel Coward) would go out in the midday sun without head-covering - this would apply even more so to tender-skinned women.

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