ITV is about to make a television programme about our Lord; but from the Moslem point of view.There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.
With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.
The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea ... Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don't know that."
He denies the programme will divide communities. Raised as an Anglican, he describes the documentary as thoughtful and well researched. "I hope it will provoke among Muslims the feeling they are included in television."
Read the whole article here.
6 comments:
I read in an article that no one from the catholic church was able to take part in this programe... perhaps the producers could be put in contact with Bishop Tiny Muskens!
IF THEY ARE BISHOPS, WE ORDER THEM TO BE DEPOSED;
BUT IF THEY ARE MONKS OR LAY PERSONS, WE COMMAND
THEM TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THE COMMUNITY."
-----------Second Council of Nicaea 787 A.D.
The programme wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Ms Karen Armstrong went to great lengths to point out how the Christian view of the Divine Christ was complete and utter blasphemy to Muslims (maybe we should not worship Jesus, in the interests of good Christian-Muslim relations), but failed to mention that the Islamic view of Christ the prophet was equally blasphemous to Christians. I feel quite strongly that all those horrid boards that decorate the outside of mosques proclaiming that there is only one god, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet/messenger are inciting of religious intolerance. We couldn’t put up a sign quoting Matthew 7:15 on the outside of our churches without the great liberal-luvvie authorities coming down on us like a ton of bricks.
Do you know my parish priest ran these last three stories on his blog as well!
Obviously great minds!
Reminds me of the following snatch of dialogue from Shaw's St Joan:
Warwick: I know that the followers of Mahomet profess great respect for our Lord and are more ready to forgive St Peter for being a fisherman than your lordship is to forgive Mahomet for being a camel driver. But at least we can proceed in this matter without bigotry.
Cauchon: When men call the zeal of the Christian Church bigotry, I know what to think.
Warwick: They are only East and West views of the same thing.
Cauchon: Only East and West! Only!
Sounds familiar? Liberal agnostic discovers that Islam honours Jesus as a prophet and can't understand when Christians point out the very significant doctrinal differences. To him they are "only East and West views of the same thing" As Cauchon puts it earlier in the same scene "The Crusader comes back more than half a Saracen".
And another thing!
The liberal veneration of Islam has quite a history to it. Shaw was by no means the first agnostic to praise Islam (or to appear to do so) with the intention of undermining Christianity. Look at the way Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Chapter 50), tries to reinvent Mohammed as a good eighteenth century Deist! It is as if Islam were a sort of Masonic club and the faithful are summoned to prayer by the trombones in Mozart's Magic Flute!
"The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into the substance of the Son of God: an orthodox commentary will satisfy only a believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was eager to confess that all, except themselves, deserved the reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The creed of Mahomet is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. In the Author of the universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an infinite and eternal being, without form or place, without issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts, existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, are firmly held by his disciples, and defined with metaphysical precision by the interpreters of the Koran. A philosophic theist might subscribe the popular creed of the Mahometans; a creed too sublime, perhaps, for our present faculties. What object remains for the fancy, or even the understanding, when we have abstracted from the unknown substance all ideas of time and space, of motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The first principle of reason and revolution was confirmed by the voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the danger of idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is strictly embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the common difficulties, how to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness."
I have nevewr understood the Islamic stand on Jesus. They accept Christ as Prophet, they don't deny the miracles (as many Anglican Bishops do!), they venerate his mother, Our Lady...
But, they say, Mohammed was the 'final messenger' of God. Mohammed has no miracles to his name, he was a small time trader, he dies at the age of 89, in his bed, of a sore head and misery. A bit 'anti-climactic' after Jesus? Is that all there is?
Strange.
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