RC Bishop suggests everyone calls God by Allah

[scamandrius]

Yep, this will solve everything between Moslems and Christians!

So, Greeks, no more theos, Slavs no more Bozhe, etc. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20279326/?GT1=10252

Dutch bishop: Call God 'Allah' to ease relations
Roman Catholic leader stokes already heated debate on religion
 

 AMSTERDAM - A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew ridicule.

"Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper.

Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, told the paper he welcomed any attempt to "create more dialogue", but added: "Calling God 'Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."

A spokesman from the union of Moroccan mosques in Amsterdam said Muslims had not asked for such a gesture.

Religious tensions on the rise
Signs of tension had already surfaced in the last two weeks after the head of a committee for former Muslims was attacked and populist anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders called for the Koran to be banned.

Bishop Muskens, who will shortly retire, has raised eyebrows in the past with suggestions that those who are hungry may steal bread and that condoms should be permissible in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Quran a "fascist book" in the vein of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" which legitimizes violence.

Wilders, whose new party won nine seats out of the 150 in parliament in last November's elections, is well known for his firebrand remarks on Islam.

He said an attack by two Moroccans and a Somali on the head of a Dutch group for "ex-Muslims" had spurred him to write.

Issues of immigration and integration had faded from the Dutch political agenda over the last year, after a period of unprecedented social tension sparked by the 2004 murder of Theo Van Gogh, a filmmaker critical of Islam, by a Muslim militant.

[Sloga]

well, this is already being done is it not? Christians in the middle east refer to God as Allah (atleast a portion do). The thing is our God and "Allah" are not the same person, if Allah even exists. God would never have a murderous rapist as his prophet...but I do have a good idea of who might.

[recent convert]

He probably would have called Nero a god. What an insult to any professing Christian. His is probably an Ishmaelite deity not the "Allah" of Arabic Orthodox Christians who is the Allah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[Αριστοκλής]

Foster understanding? This Dutch bishop must have smoked one doobie too many...be joking!
I have no complaint with our Arab Christian brothers and sisters using their language, but in this case he is suggesting we all blur the lines in some theological equivalence that does not exist - only muddying the huge differences.

[Jakub]

The thought processes are impaired by skunky beer...

james

[ytterbiumanalyst]

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

This is a frightening line of thinking.

[Bono Vox]

The Bishop needs to be put in check by the pope. I wonder if the pope is aware of this guy has said?

[Hadel]

Hi,

I think this RC Bishop is missing the point. As an Arab-Christian, I can say in English God or Allah, because it is my language for both. However, I do not expect the whole world to speak Arabic. He sounds more ignorant than he thinks.

He is adding more fuel to the fire, pleasing one and angering another only by a simple language, Arabic for Allah and most people do not understand this so why try to enforce it.

Leave it be, to each his own language for the same God / Allah (God the Father and God of Abraham) / Ya'sou Messiah.

My opinion.

In Christ (Ya'sou Messiah),
Hadel

[Αριστοκλής]

Your opinion, yes, and a good one.

[Frederic]

The Bishop needs to be put in check by the pope. I wonder if the pope is aware of this guy has said?

Let us read Nostra Ætate (1965):

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

The God of the Muslims is the same as the Christian God according to this text, so why do not the Roman Catholics call God "Allah"? 

[Shlomlokh]

The Bishop needs to be put in check by the pope. I wonder if the pope is aware of this guy has said?

Let us read Nostra Ætate (1965):

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

The God of the Muslims is the same as the Christian God according to this text, so why do not the Roman Catholics call God "Allah"? 

I still have never seen a reasonable explanation for sec. 3 of Nostrae Aetate. Truly frightening.

In Christ,
Andrew

[dzheremi]

When I have asked people about it (both when I was RC myself and now), they have generally gone into great detail on what it doesn't say, which is kind of weird, because not writing any of that would also not say those same things, without scandalizing anyone in the process.

[Nicene]

Ahh, that Bishop needs to gain some common sense. The quran condemns this same Bishop as the worst of creatures no matter what he calls God.

[theistgal]

Yep, this will solve everything between Moslems and Christians!

So, Greeks, no more theos, Slavs no more Bozhe, etc. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20279326/?GT1=10252

Dutch bishop: Call God 'Allah' to ease relations
Roman Catholic leader stokes already heated debate on religion
 

 AMSTERDAM - A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens ...

I couldn't read the rest of the article after I saw the bishop's name was "Tiny". 

[Eastern Mind]

Do the Coptic Christians not call God Allah? Surely not in a Muslim sense, of course.

[dzheremi]

Yeah. Copts call God Allah, since they don't speak Coptic anymore. We call God lots of different things in the Church.

[Cyrillic]

Welcome to the magical (i.e. modernist) world of Dutch Catholicism.  They even have football masses:

[Eastern Mind]

You ain't seen nothing until you've seen a puppet mass.

[Cyrillic]

To be fair though, the bishops suspended the soccer priest.

[Shanghaiski]

I may be wrong, but Allah in Arabic appears to be related to Allaha in Syriac, which was definitely used by Christians centuries before Islam existed, and Jews before that, unless Jews always stuck to Hebrew for prayer, which I didn't think they did historically in an absolute sense.

[Charles Martel]

Allah Akbar!!   

[Shanghaiski]

Allah Akbar!!   

Allahu akbar to be grammatical, I believe.

[Michał Kalina]

Allah Akbar!!   

Ps 95 (94), 3

[Melodist]

FWIW, I call God Allah, at least when the Trisagion is sung in Arabic at the church I've been going to recently.

As far as appeasing Muslims, I think they are more concerned with our belief in the incarnation, the Trinity, and we believe that Jesus was actually publically executed on a cross than what language "God" is said in.

I'm not a Muslim, nor have I ever been, so I could be wrong about what offends them more.

[#1Sinner]

The Bishop needs to be put in check by the pope. I wonder if the pope is aware of this guy has said?

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for BXVI to discipline this guy. The past two popes have collectively kissed the Koran, called down St John the Baptist's blessing on this false religion and prayed in a Mosque.

[Agabus]

FWIW, I call God Allah, at least when the Trisagion is sung in Arabic at the church I've been going to recently.

You should have seen the look on my father's face at my son's baptism when the church started singing to Allah in Arabic. One of the few times I have truly seen the man baffled, though I think it was largely because he just wasn't expecting it at that moment.

[Alpo]

Another useful idiot of the Islamists. Maybe newly elected Coptic pope could send a group of Coptic yiayias to illuminate His Excellency about joys of dhimmitude.

[pmpn8rGPT]

isn't the Islamification of Christianity the founding basis of the heresy of iconoclasm???

[Shanghaiski]

isn't the Islamification of Christianity the founding basis of the heresy of iconoclasm???

Not really. Iconoclasm was not an import, but a reaction to abuses of icons. There were cases, for example, of scraping paint from icons and putting it into the chalice to make it holy. Various Anatolian bishops overreacted to this in the opposite direction, and they were supported by the military and the emperor.

[dzheremi]

The Nestorians have had a virtual prohibition on icons in their churches for a very long time, quite unrelated to abuses in Europe and only incidentally related to Islamic expansions (since they didn't really stop using icons until the Mongol expansions in the 13th century, quite a few centuries after initially coming under the yoke of the Muslims).

[Shanghaiski]

The Nestorians have had a virtual prohibition on icons in their churches for a very long time, quite unrelated to abuses in Europe and only incidentally related to Islamic expansions (since they didn't really stop using icons until the Mongol expansions in the 13th century, quite a few centuries after initially coming under the yoke of the Muslims).

Not all the so-called Nestorians, apparently. The ones on the Old Calendar in schism from Chicago and those living in China have icons.

[rakovsky]

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

I'm not sure the bishop meant people should ONLY call God "Allah." We name God "The Lord", but we also name Him "Master", "Jehovah", "Our Heavenly Father". Just because you name Him like Allah one thing doesn't mean you can't call Him other things, like "The Most High."

In any case, I think it's debateable whether the jist of what he was saying was that we share the same God and that God in Christianity is the same God as in Rabbinical Judaism and Islam, because of issues like the Trinity. But perhaps those differences could be overcome: for example, the Old Testament gives examples of times that many Israelites recognized God and times they didn't.

[Jetavan]

Allah Akbar!!   

Allahu akbar to be grammatical, I believe.

Allahu'Abha, if you're of Baha'i persuasion.

[Charles Martel]

"Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Quran a "fascist book" in the vein of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" which legitimizes violence."- from the article


How in the world does this guy equate the Quran with "fascism"? Does he even know what Fascism is? Or is he just another useful idiot out there squawking about "Islamo-fascists" like the Neo-cons do here in America?

And even the Bible legitimizes violence. I swear there are idiots out there who believe Hitler invented evil itself.

[Charles Martel]

As for the OP, this bishop's a fool. He knows damn well when the Muslim says "Allah" he means a whole different thing then when the Christian Arab says Allah, this is just more lame attempts at false ecumenism, thank God more of these rejects from VII are retiring and becoming extinct before they can do anymore damage than they already have.

Soon enough when this guy checks out he can stand before Jesus and address him as "Allah" because after all, what does Jesus care what he calls him.

[Shanghaiski]

"Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Quran a "fascist book" in the vein of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" which legitimizes violence."- from the article


How in the world does this guy equate the Quran with "fascism"? Does he even know what Fascism is? Or is he just another useful idiot out there squawking about "Islamo-fascists" like the Neo-cons do here in America?

And even the Bible legitimizes violence. I swear there are idiots out there who believe Hitler invented evil itself.

I know. It's annoying Uncle Joe gets so overlooked.

[Shanghaiski]

Allah Akbar!!   

Allahu akbar to be grammatical, I believe.

Allahu'Abha, if you're of Baha'i persuasion.

Is Baha'i speak like Rastafarian re-inventions of language?

[Charles Martel]

"Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Quran a "fascist book" in the vein of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" which legitimizes violence."- from the article


How in the world does this guy equate the Quran with "fascism"? Does he even know what Fascism is? Or is he just another useful idiot out there squawking about "Islamo-fascists" like the Neo-cons do here in America?

And even the Bible legitimizes violence. I swear there are idiots out there who believe Hitler invented evil itself.

I know. It's annoying Uncle Joe gets so overlooked.

Stalin was easly the most ruthless, perhaps it is the reason he lasted the longest.

[Kerdy]

Appeasement...such a silly thing to do.  Haven't we done it enough already?

[Basil 320]

Hum,  I wonder if this bishop thinks all Christians should defile the Name of God by screaming "Alla Akbar," whenever perpetrating evil, too, enabling sensitivity to the words of the great Moslem prophet on his deathbed when he commanded for those infidels who cannot be converted to their religion through rational means to "Kill them with the sword."

[Suryoyutho]

I may be wrong, but Allah in Arabic appears to be related to Allaha in Syriac, which was definitely used by Christians centuries before Islam existed, and Jews before that, unless Jews always stuck to Hebrew for prayer, which I didn't think they did historically in an absolute sense.

"The Arabs used a number of scripts, but what we now call “Arabic” script was not developed until the fifth or sixth century. The earliest dated Arabic-language inscription in this “Arabic” script is the Zebed inscription. It was inscribed onto a Christian martyrion in 512 AD, where the texts are in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. The Arabic text includes a name or statement in which God is referred to as alâh or allâh. This shows that pre-Islamic Christians were using this term in reference to God in Arabic, just as they used alâh(â) to refer to God in Syriac."

[Alpo]

The Nestorians have had a virtual prohibition on icons in their churches for a very long time, quite unrelated to abuses in Europe and only incidentally related to Islamic expansions (since they didn't really stop using icons until the Mongol expansions in the 13th century, quite a few centuries after initially coming under the yoke of the Muslims).

Not all the so-called Nestorians, apparently. The ones on the Old Calendar in schism from Chicago and those living in China have icons.

What kind of icons? Any examples?

[Charles Martel]

The Bishop needs to be put in check by the pope. I wonder if the pope is aware of this guy has said?

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for BXVI to discipline this guy. The past two popes have collectively kissed the Koran, called down St John the Baptist's blessing on this false religion and prayed in a Mosque.

I have yet to see proof of  Benedict committing such an atrocity.

Having said that;

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Pt. II, Q. 12, A. 1, Obj. 2: “… if anyone were to… worship at the tomb of Mahomet, he would be deemed an apostate.”
 

[kijabeboy03]

Agreed.

Hi,

I think this RC Bishop is missing the point. As an Arab-Christian, I can say in English God or Allah, because it is my language for both. However, I do not expect the whole world to speak Arabic.

Leave it be, to each his own language for the same God / Allah (God the Father and God of Abraham) / Ya'sou Messiah.

My opinion.

In Christ (Ya'sou Messiah),
Hadel

[Theophilos78]

I personally think that all Christians must say ELOHIM instead of God or Allah since ELOHIM is the only true God of Israel and of the Bible. All the deities of the nations are called idols/demons in the Word of God. To avoid idolatry and worship of demons, we must stick to the word ELOHIM. 

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