 |
| The Adhaan call to prayer being broadcast from a London Mosque Source: Metro |
From Metro: Call to prayer broadcast for first time in London borough for lockdown Ramadan: "Local authority Waltham Forest agreed that nine mosques could perform the Adhaan as mosques are closed and Muslims are unable to pray communally as they would usually at this time. The call to prayer was first broadcast yesterday and will continue at sunset daily throughout the fasting month of Ramadan, as well as again for Friday Juma prayers."
Readers will recall the account of a Christian preacher in London who was wrongly accused of Islamophobia after a passer-by called the police accusing him of hate speech. Confiscating the preacher's bible a police officer told him: "You should've thought about that before being racist".
But it is regarded as acceptable in a supposedly Christian country to allow Muslims to declare from mosque rooftops that Allah is superior: Allah is greater (Allahu akbar), that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is Allah’s Prophet!
But it is regarded as acceptable in a supposedly Christian country to allow Muslims to declare from mosque rooftops that Allah is superior: Allah is greater (Allahu akbar), that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is Allah’s Prophet!
In my entry Christian leaders endorse Islam I referred to the decision of the BBC to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer.
What hope can there be for Christianity in Great Britain when 'Auntie' BBC, religious leaders, police and councils aid claims to the supremacy of a different god.
Postscripts
[07.05.2020]
From Christian Concern
Tim Dieppe comments on the recent allowance for several mosques in East London to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer during Ramadan.
[08.05.2020]
From The Conservative Woman
Public call to Ramadan prayer crosses a dangerous line.
'... aid claims to the supremacy of a different god.'
ReplyDeleteWouldn't '... aid claims to the supremacy of a range of very different beliefs about the nature of God' be closer to the mark?
No. Dr Gavin Ashenden gave an excellent explanation of the difference between God and the Muslim god Allah starting at position 11 in 'Anglican Unscripted 570' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5x_ZO-6GKw
DeleteThank you for that link, to which I listened with interest - though I should have taken your advice and started eleven minutes in, thus sparing myself the depressing saga around Kenyan Anglican ecclesiastical politics which seems to have a distinctly fifth century flavour around it!
DeleteI found myself agreeing entirely with the thrust of Dr Ashenden's exposition - not least about Prince Charles's curious views - but I don't think he at all invalidates the point that I was seeking to make. When he asserts that the notion that Islam and Christianity are somehow 'part of the one basic project', I think he's spot on.
Which is why I always believed that inter-faith acts of worship involving Muslims and Christians were utterly misconceived, because the degree of common ground necessary to make them possible is entirely absent, with the inevitable consequence that they can't be done with integrity.
But I'd argue that the fact remains, in historical terms, that there is an original, radical (in the sense of 'same root'), relationship between the three faiths, in that they both refer back to certain historic traditions and beliefs which are at root the same.
Perhaps a more contemporary analogy might illuminate the point which I'm trying to make: I would never have felt able to share inter-faith worship with Jehovah's Witnesses - and, of course, they themselves wouldn't for a moment want to do that themselves! - because, as is the case with Islam, the essential fundamental common ground which would make such worship conscientiously possible is simply absent. But I wouldn't deny that, according to their own lights, it's the same God that JWs seek to serve.
A lapsus linguae in my post above, which should have read:
Delete"When he asserts that the notion that Islam and Christianity are somehow 'part of the one basic project' is quite wrong, I think he's spot on."
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. NO-ONE comes to the Father except through me.
ReplyDeleteNot a philosophical matter - Jesus either spoke the truth or He lied or He was mad. I believe Him.
PP. How come none of the Christian Churches can ring bells or, make a joyful noise to the Lord, and another faith can. Double standards.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this lock down will stir up the faithful, we sure need a revival, but, some of the online offerings are at best like the leaders are caught in headlights and finding it difficult to articulate the technology.
John 3.16, needs spelling out and emphasis on the Gospel.
Stir up the faithful?
DeleteBy the time Covid-19 has thinned the already rapidly shrinking herd of elderly still bothering to go to Church on a Sunday, the faithful in Wales will number less than 20,000.
There are more muslims than that in Grangetown and Riverside alone.
They could, if they so chose. Indeed, the elderly churchwarden at All Saints' Trealaw who was killed in the Co-op store in Pen y Graig is reported to have gone to the church every Thursday evening at 8:00 pm to ring the church's bell as a salute to the courage and perseverence of people working in the Gwasanaeth Iechyd Genedlaethol.
DeletePresumably, for whatever reason, they've opted not to do so.
Self preservation perhaps?
Delete