Fritz Wenisch - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Differences, Commonalities, and Community

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Differences, Commonalities, and Community

Second Edition

By Fritz Wenisch

University of Rhode Island

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First published in the United States of America in 2014 by Cognella, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-63189-704-7

Contents

: The Five Pillars of Islam

T om entered the auditorium. Quite a number of students had assembled already. He looked for a seat in the middle section. It was about ten minutes before class was to start, and students kept on coming in.

He intended to graduate when the current term was over. Two days ago, his academic adviser had noticed that a general education course was still missing from Toms transcript. He had scrambled to find one; in the end, he had signed up for the course that was about to begin. I hope I will get by with as little work as possible, he thought.

An elderly man entered with a stack of papers which he placed on the table in front of the room. That must be the prof, Tom thought. The man fiddled with the electronic equipment, shook his head and left. Several minutes later, he returned with a young lady. She grabbed the portable microphone and did what looked like replacing the batteryand then, TESTING: ONE OOPS, TOO LOUD!! She pushed a button and tried again, Testing: One, two, threeit works! She handed the mike to the prof, who spoke into it. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has come specifically to try this microphone out. Yes, it works, unlike California when I used to be governor. The people in the room laughed. Tom thought, Although that guy does not look at all like Schwarzenegger, his accent is a bit like the ex-governators.

Now, class began. The professor handed a syllabus out, introduced himself, mentioned that he was from Austria (Salzburg, to be specific, where Mozart was born, not the town Schwarzenegger is from), explained the course requirements, including a strict attendance policy (Rats! I actually must come to class, Tom sighed), and then, he began teaching

For many of you, this is not the first course dealing with religion. It may, however, be the first religion course you are attending at a secular (highbrow for nonreligious) environment. Let me pick Sunday school (a course in a Jewish or Muslim venue also would work, of course), and explain how it differs from what I will be doing herebesides never teaching on Sundays, of course.

1. Day job (philosophy teacher) intrusion

First, my teaching style will be influenced by my day job, which is philosophy teacher. (My dean and department chair think that I am a philosopher. Do me a favor and do not tell them that I am only a philosophy teacher.) People with that day job look at religion invariably very much from the systems of thoughts perspective. I promise, however, that I will try to do my best to get across that religion is also a matter of the will and of the heart; but given my background, the matter of the mind aspect will color much of what I am going to tell you over the course of this semester. How does this compare to Sunday school? I doubt that your Sunday school teacher shared my day job.

2. Appeal to revelation, customary in Sunday school, is out of bounds here

More important, though, is a second difference. To understand it, lets ask ourselves where Judaism, Christianity, and Islam derive their teachings from. Suppose you ask a Jew to justify one of his or her beliefs. He or she would refer to the Jewish Holy Scriptures. A Christian would refer to the Christian BibleOld Testament1 and New Testament; a Muslim to the Quran. If you ask the three of them, Why should I accept what these Scriptures say, you would be told, Because they contain messages that ultimately come from God, either indirectly, such as through prophets or heavenly messengers, or directly; because they are messages from the other world.

A message of this kind is called revelation, a word having the literal meaning of removing a veil. Thus, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are religions which claim to be based on revelation, on a message from the other world.

Remember your Sunday school teacher: That person simply assumed that revelation actually had taken place, that its having occurred was a fact, and justified many of the statements he or she made through an appeal to revelation. Those among you who have attended a religion class taught by a rabbi also might remember that he (or she if the teaching took place in a Conservative or Reform Judaism setting) similarly appealed to revelation. The same is true of Islam. You can hear Muslim teachers say, What I just told you is true because it is stated in the Quran, and the Quran is the word of God. (Actually, he would say Allah instead of God; but this word means the same.)

Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree that there has been revelation (although they disagree about where it can be found), and they appeal to the content of what they consider as revelation to support their positions.

This highlights a secondactually, the chiefdifference between the course you are enrolled in and religion classes offered at religious schools, churches, synagogues, or institutions associated with mosques. Teachers in these other classes routinely appeal to revelation to support their statements. This involves saying something like, What I just explained is based on a message from the other world. In contrast, if I were to appeal to revelation to support the truth of what I am going to tell you, I would be breaking the law as it applies to public schools in the United States. If you were to complain to the dean about it, and if I would not change my teaching even after being called on the carpet by him or her, I would get fired.

This does not mean, of course, that I am not allowed to argue in support of a point of view. There are many points of view, including controversial ones, you will hear me support through arguments, in some caseswhen I will be speaking about one of my hobbyhorseseven vigorously. I will, for example, argue in support of the statement Christians believe Jesus to be the son of God, as well as in support of the statement Muslims believe Muhammad to be the most important prophet. That

Christians believe the first and Muslims the second can easily be supported through historic evidence; I do not need to appeal to revelationto a message from another worldto justify it.