Muslim extremists versus Christian liberals
Christianity and Islam are direct competitors. And Christians are supposed to be liberals while Muslims are said to be extremists. The truth is Muslims follow Jesus while Christians follow Paul. But most Christians do not know their own religion to be aware of this.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
I once listened to a lecture by a famous US Christian evangelist who had converted to Islam. He said if Jesus came back today, he would not recognise the religion the Christians are practicing. However, if Muhammad came back today, he would immediately recognise the Muslims.
This is because Christians have deviated from the teachings of Jesus while Muslims still very much follow the teachings of Mohamad, as practiced during the time the Quran was first revealed.
The problem, though, is that Muslims who still follow the original teachings of Muhammad, or the fundamentals of Islam (hence the reason why we call them fundamentalists), are labelled as extremists.
Labelling fundamentalists as extremists is a way to shame those who refuse to modernise. And modernise here means to abandon the strict Islamic code and adopt the more liberal lifestyle that Christians have now chosen to adopt.
The original teachings of Jesus, as practiced by the Jesus Movement, was very different from the practices of today’s Christians. In fact, the Jesus Movement was not known as Christianity in those days. It was a Jewish movement, and Peter and James were strongly opposed to non-Jews joining the movement, especially those who were not circumcised.
It was Paul who wanted to open the Jesus Movement to non-Jews. Because of this, Peter and James clashed with Paul, who had to run away to the safety of Rome to escape assassination.
The Jesus Movement was seen as an extremist or terrorist group, which was the reason why the Jews petitioned the Romans to arrest Jesus. Paul, who used to be called Saul, was also an extremist who had killed many followers of the Jesus Movement when he was still anti-Jesus.
Around 300 years later, Christianity was totally changed after Rome adopted it as its official or state religion. Many of the followers of the original Jesus Movement ran away to the Arabian Peninsula where in another 300 years Islam was born and moulded very closely after Judaism and the old Christianity of the Jesus Movement.
And this is the reason why Christians accuse Muhammad of ‘stealing’ Judaism and Christianity.
Malaysian Christians say Christianity follows the New Testament and no longer the Old Testament. Hence ‘Hudud’ no longer applies in Christianity.
This is not true. The New Testament is mainly the teachings of Paul. The Old Testament is Genesis, Exodus, and many more. If Christians no longer follow the Old Testament, then Christians would reject the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Great Flood, Moses and the Ten Commandments, the parting of the Red Sea and the Pharaoh, and many more. Hence Christianity would start from the birth of Jesus and not from the Six Days Creation.
Christianity and Islam are direct competitors. And Christians are supposed to be liberals while Muslims are said to be extremists. The truth is Muslims follow Jesus while Christians follow Paul. But most Christians do not know their own religion to be aware of this.
