How Big is Your God?

Some years ago I came across a man who was a convert to Islam. I am always interested in how these things happen and it seems the first thing that grabbed his attention was the first verse of the Koran, “Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of worlds...”

He was impressed because it mentions “worlds.” His point was that this seemed to anticipate and embrace modern science because it recognised more than one world. He had always had the idea that the Christian God was a God limited to this world, or that was the impression he had grown up with. I have thought a lot about that.

I am also reading a book entitled “The Genesis Enigma.” It is the account of one atheistic biologist’s grappling with an amazing discovery he has made in the first chapter of the Bible, i.e. he is amazed to discover that the creation account in Genesis is accurate to the very latest scientific discoveries and understanding of origins. He says, “Genesis 1 is correct in a way it has no business to be.”

He is an evolutionist of course and I don't want to get into that but he struggles with questions science simply can't answer. At one point he writes, “I see no problems whatsoever with the process of evolution. But I have encountered questions about life on earth that should have an equivalent scientific answer, yet to which no answer seems to be forthcoming.” He goes on to suggest maybe science will never answer those questions and perhaps the only answer is a Creator.

Like my Muslim acquaintance, however, he has come across too many Christians who have a God incapable of dealing with let alone ruling and reigning over what is being discovered by science. As  JB Phillips put it “Your God is too Small.” But I have also been reading Genesis for myself (Its is January after all) and right there in Genesis 2 we read, “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.”

“The heavens and the earth...” I think that covers worlds, “...in all their vast array...” I think that copes with anything science might throw at us. In the Psalms we read:

“O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendour and majesty.

He wraps himself in light as with a garment;

He stretches out the heavens like a tent.” Ps.104:1,2

The Bible reminds us that our God is so great we can trust him even in the face of death. That when our prayers seem not capable of being answered yet his purposes serve a greater end even through the greatest trials, and even death is conquered in those who trust in him. Paul writes of God's,

“Incomparable power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion...” Eph.1:19-21

As we enter a new year we must enter it trusting in this God and not the feeble God of limited imagination. We must say, “Worlds?” Let me tell you about worlds.”

“By him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church...” Col.1:16-18

Actions Have Consequences Pastor Jones

They like to appear rebellious, contrary and generally careless about rules and regulations but about the most conservative, reactionary people in the world have to be teenagers. They dress different to be like all their friends because the last thing they want is to stand out in a crowd. They are the best recruits to causes because they know exactly what is right and wrong and will go to any lengths to express their righteous indignation – except maybe get up early.

We forgive them their naivety, understand that they haven’t the maturity that comes from experience. Experience that tells us our first instincts are not always our best.That any fool can have an opinion but it takes wisdom to understand. That not every battle is worth fighting and not every hill is worth dying on. That a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1) We encourage our children to grow and learn and time and experience bring them nearer that maturity written about in Scripture, and we hope and pray that what we have done as parents has prepared them for the grown up world.

Unfortunately it is a truism that some people grow up while others just grow older. Such is the case with Pastors Wayne Sapp and Terry Jones who, after a ludicrous mock trial, proceeded with a mock execution in which the Koran was burned. Wayne Sapp described this act as an effort to incite tension between religions. Most people would describe it as an immature act of vandalism designed to provoke a response; the kind of thing kids do when they don’t feel they are getting enough attention. They have effectively stamped their little feet and screamed, “Its not fair!” Well, we all know what is and isn’t fair but do we know what is wise?

Actions do have consequences however and to date as many as twenty people have lost their lives, including two who were beheaded, as Muslims stormed a UN compound in protest at this act of provocation. But Terry Jones sees no connection between the burning and the rioting, declaring that these people would have found some other excuse to riot if the Koran hadn’t been burned. This is childish too.

On the other side of the equation we are surely increasingly aware of the immature responses in the Muslim world to any sleight, real or imagined. It is astonishing and very worrying to see vast numbers of people kept in a state of social, emotional and psychological immaturity by their leaders and one wonders if this is deliberate. Certainly, it seems easy enough for Muslim leaders to stir up anger and violence when deemed necessary. Books are burned, people riot and some get killed as a consequence, and each party insists their response to the other is proportional and right.

I remember my father teaching me to hold doors open for ladies and other such gentlemanly characteristics. Of course, that was before women’s lib came along and swept away the qualities of chivalry. On one occasion I proudly held open a door and a woman swept through it never giving a backward glance. I remarked to my father that she wasn’t much of a lady if she couldn’t even say a civil thank you. I have never forgotten his reply.

“You didn’t hold the door open because she was a lady,” he said, “You held it open because you are gentleman.”

Surely, as Christians, it is our Christ-like qualities that are the measure of who we are and not our ability to be indignant in the face of provocation. And didn’t Jesus say, “Love your enemies”? Actions have consequences and someone’s indignation has caused people to die horribly. Surely it is not a question of whether a link can be identified between our actions and the consequences in others’ lives. Surely the test is whether, regardless of the actions of others, we have been Christ-like in our walk, mature in our response to a world that is increasingly immature and lost in sin.

The role of the pastor is not to incite tensions between religions but to speak a message of peace to a world where war is common and familiar, of salvation to a world headed to a lost eternity. These men have failed spectacularly and, to the shame of all Christians, very publicly. It is frightening when such immaturity finds its way to the pulpit and the public square and does such things in the name of Christ. We can excuse such behaviour in our teenagers, they are still learning and growing, but in men who insist they are men, and men of God? Shame on both of them.

Right Turn - What about religious freedom in Muslim countries?

A stark warning and a wake-up call.

“I think what's taking place is nothing less than the religious and ethnic cleansing of the Muslim world.

Christians are being particularly targeted -- churches attacked in Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines; the assassination in Pakistan of a Muslim politician who dared defend a Christian woman sentenced to death for "insulting" Islam.

Other religious and ethnic minorities are also suffering intense persecution -- the black Muslims of Darfur, the Bahai of Iran, the Kurds, Sufis and Ahmadis in Pakistan, and of course the vicious anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism one finds throughout the region.

I think this is the most important issue not being reported by the mainstream media, not being studied by academics, not being taken up at the UN or made a priority by the large human rights groups.”

Right Turn - What about religious freedom in Muslim countries?

The Giant Islam Sleeps Lightly

The world’s attention is focussed on pastor Terry Jones in Florida who has declared his avowed intent to burn copies of the Koran on this, the anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities in New York. It is sobering to think that a very little man, who leads a small and failing congregation of no more than fifty people - people who may be as small-minded, mean-spirited and contemptible as himself – can command such attention. In the world of the Internet and instant news, however, it seems almost inevitable.

But let’s not run away with the idea that this one man’s actions are as newsworthy as the press and media coverage he is getting might suggest. It is the fear, the very real fear of the reaction of the Islamic world that has brought this petty act to the fore.

There is no substantial support for what this man plans to do; it has been roundly condemned by political and religious leaders around the world; Christian voices, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, have been raised loudly denouncing this pointless act; all my Christian friends condemn him outright, indeed my American Christian friends condemn him. In light of which any reasonable person would mentally place Pastor Jones in the “wacky but what can you do” category and get on with their lives; not so Muslims.

In the Muslim world this act is defined as “A ferocious attack on Islam and Muslims” (al-Jazeera); There is talk of an uncontrollable Muslim response (al-Alam TV, Iran); there has been talk of “bloody wars and reprisals” (al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper); there are calls for the criminal court in the Hague to get involved (Qatari al-Watan newspaper) and the Jakarta Globe declared the American authorities “powerless” to stop the burning of the Muslim Holy Book.

Perhaps this last is an indication that not everyone understands the true nature and cost of democracy, that democracy means even the foolish can walk the streets without let or hindrance. You can read a digest of responses from the Arab world on the BBC US and Canada news site

Hysteria seems to define the character of Muslims brought up in those parts of the world we have come to identify as “Muslim countries”, although it is clear that it is as much underlying cultural influences as it is Islamic teaching that is to blame for such hysteria. Such cultural characteristics are exploited however by religious leaders and people are easily whipped up into a frenzy of vengeful and quite irrational and disproportionate expressions of rage. It sometimes seems like a population of petulant children who would be manageable if they didn’t have access to devastating weaponry that their temperament predisposes them to use without discrimination and on the slightest pretext.

It leads one to ask why, if Islam is such an important and positive cultural influence, so many of its adherents seem incapable of proportionate responses or reasoned reflection. Why they haven’t learned from this “great world religion” those values so characteristic of that other Middle Eastern religion, Christianity. Values so eloquently defined by Paul in his letter to Christians in the province of Galatia:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, godliness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal.5:22)

It also raises the troubling question of how far the liberal democracies of the West, founded squarely on Christian principles of equity and freedom, can go down the road of appeasement and still keep its citizens safe. It is all well and good to beware we don’t wake the sleeping giant lest we provoke dreadful consequences, but if it takes one insignificant pastor of a church of just fifty people in Florida to evoke such responses as we have seen this week we urgently need a counter-response that declares loud and clear, “thus far and no further.” The truth is the giant Islam sleeps lightly and in that sleep continues to dream of conquest and subjugation.

The much misunderstood and misrepresented crusades of nine-hundred years ago were, contrary to popular belief, not an incursion into “Muslim territory” but an eleventh hour response by the political powers of Europe to a ferocious Muslim incursion that had swept out of the Arabian peninsula, across the Levant and North Africa with devastating effect. It had already arrived in the islands of the Mediterranean and settled in Southern Spain. Surely we can’t allow things to go so far and cost so much again.

But maybe by the time we sit down to count the cost of protecting our freedoms and values, the cost of appeasement, it will be found to be costly beyond our means. Then we will treat for peace and discover that Islam is no more gracious in victory than she is tempered and proportionate in response to slights and meaningless provocations.