1) It's not up to us -- non-Moslems -- to "reforn" Islam. Not only is it not our place, we don't have the ability to do so.
2) But, likewise, it is not up to Moslems to "reforn" Islam -- for according to Islam itself, any "reform" would be bid‘ah, "innovation, novelty, heretical doctrine, heresy". Thus, any Moslem attempting to "reforn" Islam would be, in the eyes of other Moslems, an apostate ... and the only mode Islam offers for dealing with apostates is to kill them.
What we are seeing in the world today *is* the "Islamic Reformation". Much as the Protestant Reformation was not -- pace B.Prokop and other self-blinded Catholics -- about "changing" Christianity, but rather was about identifying and eliminating beliefs and practices which could not be supported by appeal to the Scriptures, the present "extremism" amongst Moslems is all about returning to, and adhering to, the beliefs and practices grounded in the Koran and hadith.
If you ever bothered to read the works of the Early Church Fathers (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, The Letter to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, etc., etc.), you'd find that of all of today's "varieties" of Christianity, the Early Church most closely resembled... //wait for it//... (gasp!) contemporary Catholicism!!!
So please explain to me how a radical departure from the original Apostolic teaching is not "changing" Christianity.
Look, you don't even have to do that much heavy lifting to become acquainted with the Early Church. Start with two very fine volumes, Four Witnesses, the Early Church in Her Own Words by Rod Bennett, and When the Church was Young by Marcellino D'Ambrosio.
2 comments:
"Can Mosque and State be Separated?"
No.
1) It's not up to us -- non-Moslems -- to "reforn" Islam. Not only is it not our place, we don't have the ability to do so.
2) But, likewise, it is not up to Moslems to "reforn" Islam -- for according to Islam itself, any "reform" would be bid‘ah, "innovation, novelty, heretical doctrine, heresy". Thus, any Moslem attempting to "reforn" Islam would be, in the eyes of other Moslems, an apostate ... and the only mode Islam offers for dealing with apostates is to kill them.
What we are seeing in the world today *is* the "Islamic Reformation". Much as the Protestant Reformation was not -- pace B.Prokop and other self-blinded Catholics -- about "changing" Christianity, but rather was about identifying and eliminating beliefs and practices which could not be supported by appeal to the Scriptures, the present "extremism" amongst Moslems is all about returning to, and adhering to, the beliefs and practices grounded in the Koran and hadith.
Ilion,
If you ever bothered to read the works of the Early Church Fathers (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, The Letter to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, etc., etc.), you'd find that of all of today's "varieties" of Christianity, the Early Church most closely resembled... //wait for it//... (gasp!) contemporary Catholicism!!!
So please explain to me how a radical departure from the original Apostolic teaching is not "changing" Christianity.
Look, you don't even have to do that much heavy lifting to become acquainted with the Early Church. Start with two very fine volumes, Four Witnesses, the Early Church in Her Own Words by Rod Bennett, and When the Church was Young by Marcellino D'Ambrosio.
Jezu ufam tobie!
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