Chrislam: Ten Reasons To Say ‘No’

If Christ is who he claims to be, and is the only way to reconciliation with God, then we can expect that plenty of counterfeits and deceptive substitutes will come along to derail us from Christ and his mission. Of course Jesus warned about exactly that: many deceivers, phonies and false Christs would come on the scene leading people astray.

Thus for two thousand years now Christianity has faced all sorts of attacks and all sorts of attempts to subvert it from within or without. The challenges are never ending, and new ploys are continuously being utilised to render null and void the Christian faith.

One of the newer and more insidious attempts is what is known as Chrislam. As the name implies, this is a deliberate blending or mingling of Christianity and Islam. While some gullible Christians might think this is a neat idea, it is in fact bad news. Indeed, here are ten reasons why no biblical Christian should even consider heading down this path.

The Bible repeatedly warns against any form of religious syncretism and the dangers it poses to God’s people. Chrislam is pure religious syncretism. No matter how much its proponents may go on about retaining one’s distinctives, at the end of the day this is all about playing down any such distinctions. It is a lowest-common denominator approach where the uniqueness of Christianity is especially watered down.

Whenever such religious syncretism took place in the Old Testament for example, Yahweh made his displeasure crystal clear. Indeed, the prophets warned time and again against such compromise and confusion. The New Testament also clearly warns against any such wholesale blending of Christian and non-Christian worldviews.

The Bible frequently attests to the demonic basis or underpinning of idolatrous beliefs and non-Christian religions. Passages such as Deut. 32:16-17; Psalm 106: 34-41; Acts 26:17-18; 1 Cor. 10:19-21; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 4:1; 1 John. 4:1; Rev. 9:20 all make it clear that these are not just false religions, but are systems undergirded by deceiving spirits intent on leading God’s people away from the one true God. This is not something to be toying with.

These are two fully incompatible belief systems. The differences between Christianity and Islam far outweigh any similarities. The very centre of the Christian message is denied outright by Muslims. Christianity is Christ and what he did on the cross.

Christianity teaches that God became man, lived among us, and then died on the cross for our sins and rose again. Islam utterly repudiates the notion that Jesus is God, or even God’s son, and directly condemns the idea that he died and rose again on the cross. When you rip the very heart of the Christian message out like this, you no longer have Christianity.

As such, this attempt at interfaith dialogue simply compromises the Christian gospel. It waters it down so much that there is nothing recognisable left. When the very core teachings of Christianity are scuttled or downplayed simply in the interests of ‘getting along’ or ‘reducing tensions’, then it is a counterproductive effort.

The early disciples spoke about – and relished in – the “offence of the cross”. They knew that their core message was an offensive one and an alienating one, but it was a message they nonetheless were compelled to preach. Better to lose some friends along the way than to compromise the truth of the gospel.

These attempts at reconciliation and dialogue are almost always simply one-way traffic. While Christians are expected to abandon or neuter their hard and exclusive doctrines, there is rarely a similar effort made by Muslims to tone down or renounce some of their dangerous and/or offensive beliefs.

Why in the world any Christian would be willing to play such a one-sided game is beyond me. Why should we surrender on all our key beliefs and practices, while the corresponding response from the other side is just not forthcoming?

All this really does is further legitimise and elevate Islam. It is simply another strategy to promote Islam in the West and in the process demean Christianity. Indeed, Muslims are on a mission, and any good Muslim wants to see all Westerners submit to Allah and the West come under sharia law.

Devout Muslims are on a mission to make this a reality. They are working overtime in the West to accomplish these goals. Yet most Christians are asleep at the wheel, ignorant of this assault on their faith, and unwilling to share their own faith just as actively as Muslims are.

There is no counterpart to this in Muslim-majority countries; indeed, the very attempt would be unheard of, not even dreamed of. Can you imagine a Christian leader being allowed to enter a mosque and proclaim the deity and saving work of Christ?

Would such an interfaith setup ever take place in downtown Mecca or in suburban Riyadh? Would a Christian pastor be allowed to freely proclaim the virtues of Christianity in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Syria? Somehow I just don’t think so.

Indeed, this lopsided endeavour really just further promotes dhimmitude. Christians are already second-class citizens in Muslim countries, and this will in effect make them dhimmis in their own countries. Muslims bent on subverting the West know exactly how all this plays into their hands.

Indeed, they see such endeavours – readily gobbled up by undiscerning Christians – as further signs of Western and Christian weakness. They know that gullible Christians will see this as an opportunity to be friends and achieve peace, but Muslims will see it as yet a further stepping stone on the way to complete Islamic subjugation of the infidel West.

What Christian churches desperately need to do is not allow in all this misinformation by Islamist propagandists, but start teaching the basics of the Christian faith. This may be the most theologically illiterate generation of Christians ever.

Most Christians are so starved of any sound biblical teaching that they would be sitting ducks for any Islamic indoctrination campaign waged in their churches. They instead need to be taught again the basic doctrines of Christianity so they can discern and withstand this and other assaults on their faith.

If people of different faiths want to discuss matters on an informal basis there is nothing wrong with that. They can do it in plenty of places. But a Christian church should never be used for such an endeavour. The Christian church is the place where the people of God are shepherded and discipled.

It is not the place where they should be exposed to false faiths and deceptive opponents of Christianity. No Muslim would allow this to take place on their own home turf, and Christians need to wise up and also be as careful and discerning. Letting wolves into God’s flock is a recipe for suicide, not for religious harmony.

Plenty of other reasons could be provided as to why we need to resist the attempts to implement Chrislam like the plague. It does absolutely nothing of value for the Christian church and the spread of the Christian gospel. But it does everything for promoting Islam, dismantling the free West, and rendering ineffective the Christian church.

By: Bill Muehlenberg