Is it Possible to be Theologically Certain?

Uncertainty has become a reigning virtue. Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY. Understandably, he is troubled by the religious and sectarian violence perpetrated by those who are certain that they are right:

• Today in the Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel, in Syria, in South Sudan, and in far too many other places around the world, deadly violence ruins lives and sickens the heart.

And the violence should sicken the heart. However, he identifies certainty as one of the contributing problems:

• For what it’s worth, in my religious tradition there’s a saying:  Nothing is what you think it is. Because of the narrowness and limits of our perceptions, there’s an inevitable disconnect between what we think we know about the world and the way things actually are, between what we see and what is actually the case. That, of course, causes problems. But it gets much worse if we refuse even to acknowledge that the disjunction exists, and if we cling to the belief that in at least some part of our belief system we are absolutely, unshakably right. The more certain we feel about what we know, and the more we think we’re certain about, the worse it gets. 

Certainly, certainty about things that don't warrant our certainty - certainty about falsehoods, for example - is a problem. However, we should not make the mistake of rejecting all forms of certainty because of the dangers of only some kinds of certainty. In fact, only by having certainty can we reject the dangerous varieties of certainty. (We must be certain to reject ISIS and “racial cleansing.”) For example, without the certainty about the goodness of truth, love, and justice, we cannot say that genocide is absolutely wrong. Nor will we be able to take meaningful action against it!

To lack any degree of certainty narrows and degrades our lives. It condemns our necessary decision-making to a matter of merely how we feel.

To illustrate this - if you are mugged, should you go to the police? It depends upon what you believe about justice and human culpability. If you do not known what to believe about justice and objective moral guilt, you will have no certainty about what action to take. Instead, your uncertainty will leave you in a confused state and your neighbors in a vulnerable condition with a mugger running free.

Of course, there are many areas of legitimate uncertainty - what will happen to me and how others will respond to me - but this shouldn't mean that the entirety of our lives must be buried in uncertainty!

Although I had been plagued for years by doubts about the existence of God and whether He really loved, I am glad that I never resigned myself to the belief that certainty about these questions was not possible. When we aren’t confident that we are loved by God, we crave the love and approval of others, even to the point of resenting them when we don’t receive their unqualified approval.

Instead, certainty about the Gospel of Christ is of the highest importance. In fact, this was the central issue of John's letter to the church:

• We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: (1 John 2:3-5)

One way that we can KNOW that we are in Him is by whether or not we endeavor to keep His commandments.

Meanwhile, many of the Emergent or Postmodern Church insist that certainty about God – theological certainty - is not possible. Pastor Brian McLaren reflects this skepticism He claims that, among other things, we cannot ever be certain about our interpretation of Scripture:

• How do “I” know the Bible is always right? And if “I” am sophisticated enough to realize that I know nothing of the Bible without my own involvement via interpretation, I’ll also ask how I know which school, method, or technique of biblical interpretation is right. What makes a “good” interpretation good? And if an appeal is made to a written standard (book, doctrinal statement, etc.) or to common sense or to “scholarly principles of interpretation,” the same pesky “I” who liberated us from the authority of the church will ask, “Who sets the standard? Whose common sense? Which scholars and why? Don’t all these appeals to authorities and principles outside the Bible actually undermine the claim of ultimate biblical authority? Aren’t they just the new pope^? 

McLaren inflates the problems of interpretation, claiming that he is certain that we can’t really interpret Scripture with any degree of certainty without first having a proven method of interpretation. (While he denies that we cannot be certain, his many books declare that he is certain about a number of things!)

However, a little common sense plus a handful of experience might shed some light on this “problem” of acquiring certainty.  We engage in easy-to-understand conversations all the time, without a proven system of interpretation. When I ask the attendant to pump me $20 of “regular,” he knows exactly what to do. No confusion; no need for a proven method of interpretation! Why should it be any different when interpreting the Bible?

When I read the “50 mph hour” speed limit sign on the highway, I’d like to believe that it means “65 mph.” However, I know what it means. In fact, this interpretation is further corroborated when the highway patrol tickets me for doing “65.” Interpretation doesn’t pose any significant problems, except for those who are trying to derive an interpretation which the text cannot support.

Likewise, we have numerous ways to corroborate our interpretation of Scripture. Any one verse has many corroborating verses. We call this “Scripture interpreting Scripture.” Of course, some passages can be difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:15), but this doesn’t mean that much of it isn’t quite plain. Besides, we have many aids – pastors, teachers, commentaries, concordances - to help us understand.

Scripture was also written to be understood. Therefore, Paul instructed that his epistles be taken to many churches to be read. Never did Paul insist that a Doctor of Theology be present to provide the definitive interpretation.

There was never any indication that any of the Apostles ever suggested that their listeners first required a proven system of interpretation before they could understand the teachings of the Apostles. Had McLaren instead written that much of Scripture presents us with interpretative difficulties, many of us would agree. However, he is skeptical about all interpretations of Scripture. If only he was equally skeptical about his own conclusions!

Today, it has become fashionable to believe that we cannot be sure of anything regarding the biblical faith, perhaps apart from the requirement to love. McLaren rhetorically asks, “How do ‘I’ know the Bible is always right?” suggesting that none of us can know. One noted theologian wrote:

• Any worldview—atheist, Islamic, Jewish, Christian or whatever—ultimately depends on assumptions that cannot be proved. Every house is built on foundations, and the foundations of worldviews are not ultimately capable of being proved in every respect. Everyone who believes anything significant or worthwhile about the meaning of life does so as a matter of faith. We’re all in the same boat.

However, such a stance is logically self-defeating. If it is true that we believe as we do simply based on blind and baseless faith, then this above statement is also a matter of blind faith, and therefore it disqualifies itself.

More importantly, the Bible disqualifies uncertainty! Many verses contend that the evidence serves as an incontestable basis for an assured faith:

• Then the LORD said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them (Numbers 14:11)?

According to God, there was no excuse for Israel’s uncertainty and unbelief. He made certain truths, like the resurrection, abundantly certain:

• After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

God does not tell His people to “just believe.” Instead He has provided many unassailable proofs for the faith. This doesn’t mean that we don’t struggle with doubts and uncertainties. Nor does it mean that these struggles are opposed to the faith and must be suppressed. Nor does it mean that God cannot bring great good out of such struggles. He certainty does!

However, the Emergent, Postmodern skeptical Church places too much emphasis on the journey and the search and minimal emphasis on the object or the goal of the search – certainty and assurance regarding biblical truths. Emergents normalize and idealize the journey at the expense of the cognitive rest and assurance at the end of the journey. They even claim that assurance is only possible for those who do not think deeply about things.

Faith had been such a struggle for me – someone weak in faith and rich in skepticism. It tormented me that I couldn’t find peace in believing, which others seemed to have found. I therefore would have welcomed the Emergent message that certainty isn’t possible. It would have given me a sense of peace in knowing that I was okay and not a “Christian” misfit. Fortunately, I found little encouragement that skepticism would be my ultimate resting place, the goal of my searching.

Instead, I learned that joyously living the Christian life is not possible without a high degree of certainty. I needed to know that God loved me with a love that transcended understanding (Eph. 3:16-19) and that He had forgiven and cleansed me from all of my sins. I needed the God-confidence often mentioned in Scripture:

• Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22) 

We require confidence in order to draw close to our Savior and to know that He has drawn close to us. As long as I doubted His love, I could not feel grateful towards Him. Instead, I felt contempt for Him, not knowing with certainty that He truly loved me.  And whenever I felt condemned by my feelings, I felt that God was also condemning me. I needed to know that He wasn’t condemning me and that my feelings were only that –feelings. And that is the very place where Scripture comforted me:

• Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1)

I needed to be confident about this, since overwhelming feelings were telling me that I was under condemnation. I therefore can totally embrace Paul’s prayer for the church:

• I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:17-19)

Having the knowledge of God and His love for us isn’t an option. Without this knowledge, we will not be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Without this confidence, we will not be able to persevere:

• So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Heb. 10:35-36; Jer. 7:7)

Without confidence in the promises of God, I wasn’t able to persevere. Even having this confidence, I struggle. However, without it, I couldn’t even begin to struggle.

Paul associated rejoicing with knowing:

• We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. (Rom. 5:3)

Without this knowledge - this confidence - we cannot glory in suffering. We can only glory in the midst of suffering because we are confident that God has a glorious purpose for it (Rom. 8:28). Lacking this confidence, I suffered additionally from obsessive and crippling ruminations.

Doubting Thomas would have told the skeptics something about certainty. He doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead until Jesus visited him and showed him the wounds in His hands and side John 20). Then, he worshipped Christ with all the certainty in the world.

This lesson is very simple - Our Lord can easily remove doubt and provide certainty. This lesson about the need for theological certainty is also vital to our lives. It was only with this certainty that Thomas was enabled to carry the Gospel to far-off India and to his eventual martyrdom.

The Rush to Ritual and Liturgy

Younger Christians are now embracing ritual, sacraments, and liturgy. Former Evangelical, Rachel Held Evans explains:

·       What finally brought me back, after years of running away, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, Communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community.

Ritual is fine, but if it is divorced from truth, it is no more than a good feelings, and good feelings grow old quickly. Church has to come back to the question, "What is the offer of the Good News and how do we get onboard?"

Keith Anderson also warns:

·       Deepening and enriching sacramental liturgies is surely a good thing. But even if it were possible for every congregation to achieve that goal, liturgies alone won’t save the church. If we view worship merely as an “if we build it, they will come” strategy for church revitalization, we are bound for disappointment, because most of the time, “they” won’t come. They’ve made that pretty clear.

Instead, Anderson’s answer seems to be a social Gospel - how we live out our faith in the world. Although this is important, we cannot forget the supportive roots in favor of the fruit. Without the nourishment of salvation and the teachings of the Gospel, we are impotent in our attempts to love others.

Emergent church leader, Tony Jones, sums the problem up this way:

·       I’d even go one level deeper than Anderson’s challenge. Before mainliners head out the door, they’d better figure out what the gospel is. Survey after study after poll has shown that American mainliners struggle to articulate what it is that they believe. The content of the faith has been lost among all this civil religion… What is the gospel for mainline Protestants? That’s the question that needs to be answered.

Mainline Protestants know that they are missing something, but are they willing to make the required sacrifices? Jesus proclaimed:

·       I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. (John 12:24-26)

But who wants to die, especially if we are relatively comfortable! And what does it mean to die? To put Jesus’ priorities above our own! How do we do that? By clinging to God’s Words, even above our own:

·       Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4)

This means that we cannot pick-and-choose. Instead, we have to humble ourselves as little children and receive nourishment from the entirety of Scripture. Scripture must judge us and our beliefs. We, therefore, cannot sit in judgment over Scripture to reject those teachings we find offensive.

Many will find this price too exacting. Meanwhile, ritual alone places no explicit demands on us. We feel that we are free to experience it without hearing its underlying demands.

Pantheism: Its Appeal and Its Costs

Pantheism – the belief that everything is God, and God is everything - has become extremely popular in the West. The champion of environmental causes, Al Gore, has stated:

·       Our religious heritage is based on a single earth goddess who is assumed to be the foundation of all life…all men have a god within. Each man has a god within because creation is God.

Leonard Sweet, a leader in the Emergent Church, explains:

·       For people who understand the Gaia hypothesis, which posits that the earth behaves like a living system and, indeed, that living things regulate earth’s environments, it is not craziness to suggest, as some electrical engineers have argued, that scientists who like their equipment get better results than those who don’t. …--when food, plants, animals, and machines are seen as part of us, and we of them. (Quantum Spirituality, 238)

However, these statements raise several questions:

1. Is pantheism reasonable?
2. Does it provide humans what we need?
3. Does it help us understand the world?

Is Pantheism Reasonable?

What is pantheism saying about God? If God is everything, then he is the toxic waste dump, the cesspool, and even acts of terror. He is the rapist, the serial killer, and the torturer. He is the truth, but he is equally the lie. He might be everything, but he is also nothing in particular. God is not an unchanging or all-powerful Being. Instead, he partakes of the same qualities as the universe – changeable and purposeless.

What does pantheism say about us? We too are everything but nothing in particular. There is nothing right about us, but there is nothing wrong about us. There are no distinctions, since we are all God and everything is okay, since everything is God. There is nothing to learn, since we are already everything. And since we are all God, there is no relationship or even distinctions among persons. Everything is of equal value. Therefore our children are of equal value to insects and parasites, since everything is God. When I make a decision, it is as if God makes the decision. If I change, God too changes. If my decision opposes the decision of another, there is no contradiction, since both decisions are equally of God. Besides, there is no higher truth by which we can appeal to reconcile our differences, for everything and every truth or lie is equally of God. In fact, if everything is of God, there is no way to reconcile any differences.

If there is anything at all to learn, it is that we are all God. However, to believe this is to deny everything that we see and experience. Therefore, to embrace this “oneness” over everything that our senses tell us requires the most rigorous mental gymnastics.

Does it Provide Humans what we Need?

Besides plunging us into utmost confusion, pantheism undermines morality. If everything is equally of God, there is no right or wrong action or choice. Likewise, there can be no meaningful purpose to life, even survival. Even if we die, we still remain God.

Besides, there is nothing to learn, since all propositions are equally of God. Likewise, the idea of personal growth becomes incoherent. Even if we are evil or selfish, we are still as much God as if we acted in love.

It should now be obvious that there is no one to whom to pray and no one to hear us or to answer our prayers. Nor is there a God to trust.

Does Pantheism Help us to Understand the World?

If there is no possible distinction between the truth and the lie, then there can be no understanding. Therefore, we cannot ask:

1. Where did life come from?
2. Where did the laws of physics come from?
3. Where did any causation come from?
4. How should I live my life?
5. How should I treat others?
6. Why am I here?

In view of these problems, we might ask, “Why has pantheism become so popular in the West, especially among the educated? Has it improved the countries where it has reigned?” No! “Does it help us to better navigate life?” I don’t see how! Why then pantheism? Better to ask a pantheist!

Chrislam, Common Prayer, and the Hope of Unity

What is Chrislam? As its name suggests, it is a synthesis of Christianity and Islam. Wikipedia explains the way it is practiced in Lagos, Nigeria:

• Chrislam uses both the Bible and Qur'an and sees them both as holy texts. During the worship service, verses are read from both the Bible and the Qur'an. The Chrislamic people believe that Muhammad, Moses and Jesus were all great prophets and we need to love them all. Worship services include singing of Christian and Islamic hymns to praise God and attract his presence. The people of the congregation are also free to shout out the name of Allah or God in worship. Christmas, Easter, Ramadan and other Christian and Islamic religions celebrations are accepted and celebrated without judgment or hostility. Inside their place of worship there is an altar similar to those built by Abraham where the worshipers pray and seek the face of God.

In the West, a milder, more acceptable form Chrislam is being peddled. Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President Interfaith Alliance (“Faith Shared”) describes it:

• Faith Shared asks houses of worship across the country to organize events involving clergy reading from each other’s sacred texts. An example would be a Christian Minister, Jewish Rabbi and Muslim Imam participating in a worship service or other event. Suggested readings will be provided from the Torah, the Gospels, and the Qur’an, but communities are encouraged to choose readings that will resonate with their congregations. Involvement of members from the Muslim community is key. We will also provide suggestions on how to incorporate this program into your regular worship services. And we will assist local congregations in their media and communications efforts.

• While there is a strong preference for all of the events to happen on the same day, a number of congregations held interfaith services in January and February giving us wonderful examples of how communities can come together in support and fellowship. We will be posting photos, sample programs and audio files from these services.

• Faith Shared will collect images and videos from these events to use in our efforts to spread this message of respect and understanding from America. 

This is something that the apostate Emergent Church seems ready to endorse, according to one Presbyterian USA minister:

• Brian McLaren, the leader of the Emerging Church Movement wrote on his five-part blog entry why Christians should join with Muslims in the Ramadan fast. As to be expected, another leader in that Emerging Church movement is Dr. Tony Campolo. Campolo says he is not convinced that Jesus lives only in Christians. In his distorted view, an Islamic “brother” who has fed the hungry and clothed the naked clearly has a personal relationship with Christ, only he doesn’t know it.  How’s that again?

Why is Islam willing to participate in something that seems to go directly against their faith? Their doctrine of Taqiyya authorizes Muslims to deceive the infidel for the sake of spreading Islam. According to the Koran, the Muslim cannot “befriend” the infidel accept for two reasons – 1) fear of harm when the Muslims are vulnerable yet weak; 2) as a tactic to convert the infidel:

• [Surah 5:54] O ye who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other.

The following fatwa (judgment) quotes the Koran in support of the deceptive use of friendship (www.koranqa.com; fatwa 59879):

• “Undoubtedly the Muslim is obliged to hate the enemies of Allaah and to disavow them, because this is the way of the Messengers and their followers. Allaah says:

•                  [Surah 60:4] “Indeed there has been an excellent example for you in Ibraaheem (Abraham) and those with him, when they said to their people: ‘Verily, we are free from you and whatever you worship besides Allaah, we have rejected you, and there has started between us and you, hostility and hatred for ever until you believe in Allaah Alone’”

• “Based on this, it is not permissible for a Muslim to feel any love in his heart towards the enemies of Allaah who are in fact his enemies too. Allaah says”:

•                  [Surah 60:1] “O you who believe! Take not My enemies and your enemies (i.e. disbelievers and polytheists) as friends, showing affection towards them, while they have disbelieved in what has come to you of the truth”

         

• “But if a Muslim treats them with kindness and gentleness in the hope that they will become Muslim and will believe, there is nothing wrong with that, because it comes under the heading of opening their hearts to Islam. But if he despairs of them becoming Muslim, then he should treat them accordingly.”

According to Mark Durie, an Australian authority on Islam, Islamic opposition to the infidel is embedded in their daily prayers:

• “A prominent element in Islamic daily prayers is the recitation of Al-Fatihah (the Opening), the first chapter of the Koran. Often described as a blessing, Al-Fatihah has a sting in its tail. After introductory praises, the final sentence of Al-Fatihah is a request for guidance ‘in the straight path’ of Allah’s blessed ones, not the path ‘of those against whom You are wrathful, nor of those who are astray.’

• “Who are the ones who are said to be under Allah’s wrath or to have gone astray from his straight path? According to the revered commentator Ibn Kathir, Muhammad himself gave the answer: ‘Those who have earned the anger are the Jews, and those who are led astray are the Christians.’

• “Al-Fatihah is as central to Islamic devotion as the Lord’s Prayer is to Christians: It is recited at least 17 times a day as part of daily Muslim prayers. Yet according to Muhammad himself, this prayer, which is on the lips of every pious Muslim day and night, castigates Christians as misguided and Jews as objects of Allah’s wrath.”

It is therefore not surprising that shared worship or prayer is not practiced in Islamic nations. Even the idea of interfaith dialogue would be unthinkable.

Also, we must consider whether we Christians have the liberty to participate in an interfaith service with shared prayer. Although we have the liberty to eat food offered to idols at a pagan temple (1 Cor. 8), we do not have the liberty to participate in their rituals or worship. This would violate our oneness with our Lord. Paul therefore warned:

• But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have communion with demons. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? (1 Corinthians 10:20-22)

We cannot relate to God in any manner we so choose. We cannot drink from the Koran and from the Bible. Worship and the Lord’s Supper reflect our unity and common blessedness in Christ. It also reflects the fact that we are yoked together in the one Body of Christ. The Apostle Paul warned us to not be yoked with unbelievers:

• Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? For we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Wherefore, “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate,” saith the Lord. (2 Corinthians 6:14-17) 

Common worship and prayer is a yoking – an intimate attachment. Instead, we are required to be separate – to be in the world but not part of it.

We are mandated to relate to Him in truth and faithfulness, as we would a spouse. Jesus explained to a Samaritan women that true worship is not about the place – Mt. Gerizim vs. Mt. Zion – but about truth:

• Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24)

Truth belongs to God. We are not free to distort it according to our own purposes. “We must worship in spirit and truth.” I joint worship service with Muslims speaks volumes. It says that we share the same God and equally valid faiths. It tells the Muslim that their religion is as adequate as ours.

We certainly want to engage lovingly with Muslims. However, unity cannot be created where unity does not exist.

In His denunciation of Job’s three friends, God illustrates that worship must be according to His truth:

• "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8) 

Job’s three friends had been very sacrificial. They had spent days with the ailing Job in a vain hope of correcting him of his putative errant ways. Yes, they had misrepresented God in their denunciations of Job. However, it seems that they had been speaking in this manner for Job’s own good. Nevertheless, this didn’t make up for the fact that they had not “spoken of me what is right.”

We are not free to worship God in any manner we choose. Our worship must also reflect truth. We cannot bow down with knees or even words before the god of expediency. Mordechai understood this:

• And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king's command?” And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. (Esther 3:2-4) 

Mordechai was no one’s fool. He understood the price he would have to pay for his faithfulness to his God. However, he also understood that faithfulness to God’s truth was more important than political gain.

The three faithful Israelite young men also understood this. All Babylon had been commanded to bow down before the golden image of the King. However, they would not. Even after King Nebuchadnezzar gave them a second chance to bow down and worship, they still would not, even at the threat of a fiery death (Daniel 3).

Faithfulness trumps pragmatic gain – any consideration of finding unity and peace among the world religions. The Apostle Peter had wanted to keep peace with the Pharisaic believers in Christ. However, he paid a high price for this. Paul charged that Peter’s behavior had denied the truth of the Gospel:

• But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned [before God]. For before certain [Jewish believing] men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. (Galatians 2:11-14)

We are not our own. We belong to God and must never betray the truth of the Gospel, whether in word or in deed, as Peter had done. How did Peter betray the Gospel? He acted in a way which said, “We are not all equal in Christ.”

We also belong to our brethren. When we betray the Gospel, we also lead others to do so! After all, if Peter could bend the truth of the Gospel, so can we, right?

Having a mixed service with Muslims will inevitably lead to compromise and division among the brethren. Many will correctly see it as a violation of our marriage to our Savior. Paul warned that:

• If a man see thee who hast knowledge sitting at meat in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through thy knowledge he that is weak perisheth, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And thus, sinning against the brethren, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my brother to stumble. (1 Corinthians 8:10-13)

By partaking in common prayer with Muslims, we are not only communicating the wrong message, but we are also contributing to the spiritual decline of the church.

There is nothing at all wrong with eating meat. However, for the sake of the brethren, Paul vowed that he would abstain from all meat if this meant placing a spiritual roadblock in their path. How then can any Christian leader consider common prayer with Muslims!