On December 6, 2012 Robert Spencer’s “Christianity in the Qur’an” lecture was broadcast on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network.
This video follows his first lecture entitled “Judaism and the Qur’an“.
In both videos Spencer uses original Islamic sources which include the hadiths, the Qur’an, the life of Muhammad, as well as notable Islamic commentators to allow Islam’s unvarnished perspectives to come through.
In his second video, Spencer compares and contrasts material that is produced by Islamic sources for Western consumption, and those from the Arabic-speaking world, for instance. Spencer cites material also found in an article from WorldNet Weekly of 03/24/2004 entitled “Muslims publish ‘Jesus’ ad Campaign seeks to change hearts and minds of Americans.” An advertising campaign by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called “More in Common Than you Think” asserts that “like Christians Muslims respect and revere Jesus”
The CAIR ad reads:
”’Behold (O Mary!)’ The Angel said, ‘God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name shall be the Christ (Masih or Messiah), Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and in the hereafter, and one of those brought near to God.’ (Holy Qur’an, 3:45)
“Like Christians, Muslims respect and revere Jesus. Islam teaches that Jesus is one of the greatest of God’s prophets and messengers to humankind.
“Like Christians, every day, over 1.3 billion Muslims strive to live by his teachings of love, peace, and forgiveness. Those teachings, which have become universal values, remind us that all of us, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and all others have more in common than we think.”
Spencer examines these assertions, and closes his lecture with a lengthy quote from a Saudi cleric, Sheikh Abd Al-Muhsin Al-Qadhi who describes Christianity in one of his mosque sermons found here. The sermon delivered at the Al-Salaam mosque in ‘Al-Unayzah stated:
“Today we will talk about one of the distorted religions, about a faith that deviates from the path of righteousness… about Christianity, this false faith, and about the people whom Allah described in his book as deviating from the path of righteousness. We will examine their faith, and we will review their history, full of hate, abomination, and wars against Islam and the Muslims.”
“In this distorted and deformed religion, to which many of the inhabitants of the earth belong, we can see how the Christians deviate greatly from the path of righteousness by talking about the concept of the Trinity. As far as they are concerned, God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three who are one…”
“They see Jesus, peace be upon him, as the son of Allah… It is the Christians who believe that Jesus was crucified. According to them, he was hanged on the cross with nails pounded through his hands, and he cried, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ According to them, this was so that he would atone for the sins of mankind…”
“Regardless of all these deviations from the path of righteousness, it is possible to see many Muslims… who know about Christianity only what the Christians claim about love, tolerance, devoting life to serving the needy, and other distorted slogans… After all this, we still find people who promote the idea of bringing our religion and their’s closer, as if the differences were miniscule and could be eliminated by arranging all those [interreligous] conferences, whose goal is political…”
Spencer’s summarizes his lecture by concluding that the Jesus of the Qur’an is “another Jesus”–to quote the Apostle Paul, and that Islamic hostility to Christianity is not some aberration from its doctrine, but is part and parcel of its makeup.
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