While Empty Religion IS the Problem - True Faith in Jesus Christ IS the Answer

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Aug 2, 2010 at 18:34

In the exchange between Dr. Pipes and the interviewer, Elwood McQuaid, a number of observations were made that are now common perceptions in the Western (occidental) mentality regarding the pervasiveness of the Muslim influences in the Eastern (oriental)mentality. That is not to make a broad assertion that all mindsets in the orient are Muslim in nature, but it is certainly one that the Islamic Revolution would not mind accomplishing.

The dialogue follows a course that one could easily put in the context of the statement made, ……"why are Muslims the primary persecutors of Christians worldwide?" Further, in the Muslim mindset, they could, and have made the reverse allegation. One need only hear the statement made by the alleged New York Time Square attacker (among others), which mimics thousands (more like tens of thousands) saying that very thing. But let us digress and check it from a similar view, asking who really is the aggressor, and who is on the defense.

Much to the dismay and argument of any who follow the Islamic Prophet, Christianity came first, the progression of fulfilled prophetic Judaism. Only after Christianity had continued after the era of the apostles and their influences diminished did it take on a form unrecognizable to those followers of Jesus Christ and the scriptures. In that form, when the Islamic Prophet arose from his obscure place in history, there was little if any true Christian witness to counter what was perceived by the followers of the Islamic Prophet to be a corrupted religious intrusion in the Arab world. Thus, Christianity fell to the prophetic implication of a lost witness (Mark 9:50…Salt [is] good: but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another). The Islamic Prophet sought to change that, and quite successfully, did. The only problem for Muslims from then until now, is that not knowing the truth of the Holy Bible put those who followed the Islamic Prophet in direct conflict with those who have accepted and followed Jesus Christ as the true LORD. We'll come back to that later.

Then we come to the observation of our fellow observer, Ralph C. Whaley, MD, that "faith is the essence of religion." He is joined by his other fellow observer Mssr. Hadida who contends in his dissertation that faith is hard, that Thomas Huxley's quote ending in "blind faith the one unpardonable sin' is brought to his mind. If either were the only perception one might have, then there is little wonder that the cynicism so expressed is so readily discernable.

Yet, there is the alternative position that I would take, to dissent with both previous contentions and present a more direct approach as to why the Christian perspective is so much harder to envision these days and why so many resort to human reason in attempting to fathom that which cannot be explained in any form of human rationale.

First, to make it plain that as human rationale cannot explain faith, neither can faith be 'annexed' into any random religious expression, for being religious does not necessarily require faith. In a number of exchanges this reader has had with Muslims, more than once Islam has been called the religion of reason, thereby reducing the necessity for 'faith' in its precepts. Then, in controverse, to embrace a true expression of a follower of Jesus Christ, faith is the seed of the human experience that cannot function in a purely human environment of reason, yet once faith is embraced in a relationship with Jesus Christ, reason under faith becomes the mechanism that puts a wholly different perspective on all things, both human and superhuman.

Now there is agreement that 'religion is the problem,' especially as it is a specifically human methodology for many to apprehend some form of 'spiritually' in the absence of true faith. Therein lies the problem, that as the Marxist manifesto has captured the mindset of the masses in rejecting religion for its 'opiate' affect, faith is categorically and inexorably linked to religion by wrong reasoning; and this makes for extending a delusion that there are no solutions to the human dilemma by faith. Faith had been compromised in the time of the Islamic Prophet, and so it became easy for Islam to be considered a replacement 'religion' for the faithless form of the Christianity the Islamic Prophet sought to expunge from the Arabic mindset. As Muslim conquests spread over the Middle East and the orient, non-Arabic followers of the Prophet's message to replace all other religions became the 'mission' that we now see in our present day situation. But, it is still the Holy Bible that has presented all of this for all to see, yet it is faith in the Almighty God of the Holy Bible that is necessary to discern how it is all going to come together.

The exchange of Dr. Pipes and Elwood McQuaid is one more in a seemingly endless succession of people asking the hard question, but when the answer is not easily understood, many resort to finding human reasoning to make some sense of it all. In the end, the impossibilities of perception that so many have in turning away the Biblical explanations for the world's predicament becomes the center of the problem, since without Biblical direction, human reasoning does become the last resort; and there we see that humanity seeking its own recourse to peace will never find it, not in false religious Christianity nor 'moderate' Islam. Once that conclusion is made by anyone seeking to find peace in all that we see, then there might be a sense that faith in Jesus Christ as found in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ is truly the means by which the futility of human reasoning is conquered and individual peace is found.

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