In our third edition of "Stumper Questions for Christians that are Actually Easy to Answer" we have a question about the judgement of the dead from George Negus' book The World from Islam.
Ask yourself: when their time is up, will the young American marines, Valesque and Robinson¹, their invisible flesh-and-blood Iraqi targets, the pathetic Palestinian suicide bomber 'gifting' his life, and the innocent, uninvolved Israelis all find themselves in Heaven? Will they be together in the same Heaven -- or will they be in several different ones? Will they be greeted in the Hereafter by the Christians' God, by Allah or by both? Nasty questions for monotheistic believers, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews, to answer -- if, that is, they are brave enough to try!
OK, using the same assumption as Negus, that the two marines are both Christian, which is not stated anywhere in his book, they will be the only ones² that find themselves in Heaven. After all in the words Jesus Christ, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me" (John 14:6, emphasis mine) I mean that's really pretty simple, and isn't John 14:6 one of the first passages of the Bible you learn as a kid in Sunday School? The second one is even easier, there is only one Heaven and it's for Christians, and Jews before Christ³. For the third and final question let's break down the word monotheistic, the first part is mono meaning one, while the second part comes from the Greek word Θεος (Theos) meaning God, so monotheistic means "having (or believing in) only one God". This fact means, Mr. Negus, that the only possible answer to this question from a monotheistic believer is, "My God is the only one that's going to be doing any greeting of the dead, since after all my God is the only one that exists."
What is particularly scary about these questions is that a self-described "lapsed Christian" who is considered sufficiently knowledgeable on Islam to write a book about it, has such blatant holes in his knowledge so as to not even understand the idea of a monotheistic religion. I just want to know whether the modern Church, that that will not preach on certain subjects for fear of causing offense, is pleased with the result of their cowardice?
1. Two marines from an artillery unit discussed earlier in the book.
2. Perhaps also some of the Israeli, see Messianic Jews, and also some Iraqi are Christian, so they'd get in too.
3. The reason ancient Jews get in is simply that they where waiting for the Messiah to come while the modern Jews are pretending that he has not, which is a subtle but important difference.
Posted by Timothy Pollard in Religion
SQCAEA on May 01, 2008
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