World Religions: Islam Session 1

the format looks nice so okay so thanks for coming tonight and thank you Kevin for recording me appreciate that and hi out of YouTube land those of you watching on YouTube did you get the two papers one says Islam terms and one says Muslim life okay so when I teach religions I'd like to give you some kind of a testimonial from somebody who's a practitioner of these religions because of course as you know I'm not a practitioner of Islam so it is such a pleasure to teach Islam because I think this is a religion that has a lot of suspicion and fear around it I think this is a religion that has been greatly misunderstood and there is interested in this religion though if there's curiosity to learn when I first started teaching at Riverside Community College it was in 2002 remember what happened in 2001 so what 9/11 happened it shook up everybody so when I started teaching world religions I had a lot of students that were just terrified of Islam I mean just absolutely terrified that over the years seemed to go away but then it would come back in waves and so I remember one year I don't probably 2010 or 2011 was when I had a student that was in the in the war Iraq or Afghanistan he'd been deployed and he was a very polite student but he told me I just can't be in your classroom when you're lecturing on Islam and he said I just seen too much and I said I can't even imagine what you've seen in war but I want you to know that what you saw is not Islam its first of all war and secondly the culture and he said I'm totally in agreement with you he said I completely believe you and yet I can't do it it's because of his own well post-traumatic stress disorder that he was going through so he didn't he didn't listen to the lectures on Islam because they were just too triggering but at least he knew that the religion wasn't to blame for all the you know hell that he saw and so he and I spoke individually about what Islam is at isn't and we kind of parsed out some of that stuff so there were some tough times I remember there was one student who came to me and said she said my priest is and this is nothing against all priests it was just one individual you know she said my priest is telling our congregation that the Quran is telling Muslims to bomb Americans and she said is that true when I said no you know America wasn't even known yet when the Quran was written you know so I mean just because things get made up and passed down doesn't make them true so I suggested to her that she'd go buy a copy of the Quran I mean it's a book it's in the bookstores it's like it Barnes & Noble it's on Amazon you could easily buy a copy pick it up and read it now some things might confuse it just like some things in the Bible are confusing and you got to understand them in context just like you do with biblical studies and with our Bible but it certainly does not tell Muslims to go bottom there I mean no of course not so but these are these kinds of rumors and fears and suspicions that have been built up around this religion that in my day teaching were not built up around Confucianism Zen Buddhism and some other religions and so therefore I really enjoyed and still enjoy teaching Islam because it helps people kind of settle down if they have those sorts of fears like that so have you heard thinkers in our culture about Islam I'm sure you know right good bad and indifferent what are some of the things right or wrong that you've heard in our culture about Islam yeah there you go right we're not gonna find one student oh yeah yeah it's all about terrorism and killing Americans etc okay first of all that's totally wrong as a fact of the religion but it is something that some people have unfortunately heard in our culture okay what else anything else I heard some strange Terry : yeah go ahead that those people on planes more or less heaven it's generally referred to as paradise paradise they would have 87 first conversions yeah I'm thinking come on yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah right anything else for it dary we're talking about what people have heard about Islam good or bad right or wrong in our culture anything else how about the status of women in Islam ever heard anything good or bad rather it was just cows I'm sorry their way to the battery too badly yeah like subjugated okay so we've heard these things so again that's not true it's hella me do you do you see how it's helpful then to talk about this stuff because if we don't talk about it we just hear rumors from our friends who might not know and we might consider this to be true but imagine I mean we're all Lutheran's in this room and most Nazis were baptized Lutheran's unfortunately and so imagine if you know people were doing a show on Lutheranism or Lutheran Christianity and they had you know just this this view of what Nazis do and say and stand for now wouldn't you go wait a minute that's not fair that's not right and so that's very similar to some of this stuff happening Islam is not about terrorism at all anymore than Christianity is about Nazism but when you have that connection and when that connection is given a lot of media time then that is what is built up and that is what is known so thus my interest in teaching this religion so that I can you know help people with a little bit of the fears of the wonders about that so Jerry you have those two pages yes they do okay so the the one is terms those are some of the most important terms we'll be going over some of them and I will be writing a lot on the board as well so let's just go ahead and get started this will probably take about I'm thinking three sessions we please know we are not meeting next Wednesday next the entire week I need to be gone at a synod conference out in Palm Desert so I will be out of the office entirely Monday through Thursday so that means this Wednesday next Wednesday the 23rd we're not having a class we will then come back the next week on the 30th and okay all right so Islam Islam is the name of the religion the practitioners are called Muslim so it's like Christianity is the religion and Christians are the practitioners okay so the name Islam is a name an Arabic name related to the word surrender or submission and what it refers to is surrender or submission to God do you know the Arabic word for peace Salaam Salaam so Islam is related to that word for peace so sometimes Islam people say means peace but it means more like surrender or submission and Salaam is related to the word Shalom what which is the Hebrew word peace so they're all very connected here in one simple phrase this is the religion of Islam surrender or submission to God submitting to God the Arabic word for God and you know as we say before and a lot of religions religions should be cross-referenced with foreign languages here because so when so many of the terms are of another language than English and I might be unusual to you the language that Islam uses is Arabic and there are Arabic Christians as well not just Arabic Muslims I'm Arabia is an area geographical area so the Arabic word for God is Allah Allah just simply means God and so Arabic Christians when they refer to God say Allah it just simply means God so whenever you hear somebody talk about you know worshiping Allah do not think of it please as they are worshiping some foreign distant bizarre God they're literally saying we're worshipping God like you and I would be saying or worshiping God this is a Western religious tradition of course it's in what we call the Middle East it's actually all over the world but it is in the family of Western religions and so what we talked about before was how Judaism is the foundational religion for all of the Western religions and then Christianity is built upon that foundation it's it's large its larger and numerically but actually it's built on that foundation and in Islam is built on the foundation of both of those so these three have a lot in common these three religions are much more similar than any of them would be to Hinduism or Buddhism or Shinto keynesian ism or something like that the type of Eastern religious tradition these all talk about the Prophet Abraham remember the Prophet Abraham okay who understood that there was only one God so all of these religions look back to the Prophet Abraham as being sort of their spiritual prophetic leader so we say in our Western traditions that we all belong to Abrahamic faiths these three are all Abrahamic faiths meaning that if we're looking at like a family tree Abraham in terms of a person not a divinity fit Abraham is on top of this family trade with Judaism Christianity and Islam and then there's a lot of branching up but we all are related or cousins in this sense or siblings of in this Abrahamic tradition so we have a lot in common one thing that we have in common is believing that there is only one God so Judaism was the first to introduce that concept in the Western world and this came out of the indigenous culture of the ancient Israelites where if you remember when we talked about primal religious traditions almost every single criminal religion was polytheistic remember talking about that this belief in many many many gods and so it was radical really for Judaism to say there is or there can only be one guy Christianity then followed suit and said there's only one God now we have the work to do to talk about having a belief in a trinity but there's not three gods there's only one that's that falls heavy work theologically for us to define what on earth do we mean by that because it can sound like we're talking about three gods or one God and then the son of God who's not divine right so we have a complicated way of understanding what God is long also followed suit by saying if there is only one God so Muhammad who was a great prophet in Islam is not divine they do not understand how Hamid as divine it is not equivalent to how Christians understand Jesus Muhammad is only and forevermore and always will be a prophet like we would talk about Moses or Abraham or some of the other prophets okay but the similarity here is that we're all the Abrahamic faiths and one of the things that we have in common is that we all three believe that there is only one God we are all monotheistic religions so when Islam when Muslims talk about God they often just use the Arabic karma Allah it might be how you might hear a Jewish tradition say Yahweh although in Judaism Jews don't generally say that word it's thought to be too sacred to say Yahweh I'm only saying it because I'm Christian and not a Jew but that would be like the equivalent it's just it's just it's a certain religious way to refer to God but it just simply means God okay today Islam has more than 1 billion followers and so it makes Islam the second largest world religion you know what the first one is the largest world religion Christianity Christianity is the largest world religion by far but Islam is very large as well and Islam is also the fastest growing religion it is in the United States and it is all over Europe and Africa the continent of Africa the Middle East of course but it's not correct to just associate Islam with the Middle East in fact it's larger in Indonesia on some other places than it is in the Middle East since 9/11 the West has had a great interest particularly in America about what is Islam what is not Islam should we be afraid of his alam that was one of the big things after 9/11 and people like a lot of my students particularly Christian students are surprised to learn so much about Islam that Islam Revere's the great prophets that Christians talk about Islam also has a special love for Jesus although Muslims do not regard Jesus as divine because if they did they would be called Christians but they regard Jesus is a great prophet they believe that he was born of a virgin virgin mary' the Quran talks a lot about Mary many also were surprised to know that as long as done a lot in shaping Western culture especially since the Middle Ages and a lot of the terms that we use a lot of the concepts that we have a lot of the books that we read we use those terms know those concepts and read those books because they've been preserved through Islam for instance the word algebra is an Arabic word and the whole concept of algebra is from Islam we know calligraphy from Islam we know geometry from Islam many of our classic Western texts have been preserved through the religion of Islam so if Islam never had existed our Western civilization would look very very different many of our vocabulary words much that we know would be very different and virtually we're not even really aware of that so as long as it had a major role in world affairs especially lately so I think it's really important to know what this religion is so we're going to touch upon basically four major groups of topics throughout these I think three days I think we'll get through this in three different days the first we'll talk about the Quran the Quran the holiness sacred text of Islam then we will talk about the Prophet Mohammed then we will talk about the primary teachings of Islam and that will take a while and then we will talk about the Islamic community the development of the community and just like in most major religious traditions there are divisions you know we can talk like in Christianity about the three major divisions of Roman Catholic Eastern Orthodox and Protestants we can talk also about divisions in Judaism like we talked about the Orthodox conservative and Reform Jews well so too in Islam there are some major divisions Sunni Shiite Sufi you might have some of that was so we'll go over this so any questions so far we just basically touched on it intro and then an understanding of God the primary teachings of Islam yeah teachings of Islam about you know the nature of the world the nature of the person the nature of the body the nature of science and how we understand science just some basic teachings and also some of the main ones called the five pillars of Islam five things that Muslims must must do that are obligatory and then the last one is the Islamic community which is also called the Ummah the Ummah is the community all right so let's jump into the foundations of Islam starting with the Quran the Quran II is Islam's sacred presence in the world so we often think we meaning the Christians that are in this room listening to this right now we often think that in terms of religious studies that we can make an equivalent between the Christian Bible and the Quran and make it equivalent between Jesus and Muhammad right because here we have the sacred texts the Christian Bible and this is the Islamic sacred texts and here we have you know this this mean person and here's the main person but that's not a fair equivalency what is a better equivalency is more like this because in Christianity Jesus is the sacred presence in the world Jesus didn't just deliver the sacred presence according to our tradition our religious tradition Jesus is the sacred presence in the world was 2,000 years ago but Christians also believe that Jesus still lives today and is among us as the sacred presence in the world the Quran in Islam is the sacred presence in the warbles not a book about it but the sacred presence in the world now there's only really one sacred presence that's Allah God but these are the literal words of God dictated to Muhammad so Muhammad then is not the sacred presence in the world Muhammad is the one that delivered it he's the one that brought it so the Quran is the primary sacred text it is Islam's earthly center and the Quran is about four fifths the sides of the Christian New Testament so it's actually pretty small compared to your Bible okay so the Christian New Testament is smaller than the Christian Old Testament were the Jewish Scriptures and the Quran is about four fits the size of the Christian New Testament so again pick it up and read it if you're ever curious about it it's just a book for you I mean it would not be considered quote-unquote to just a book to Muslims but I don't mean any disrespect but what I mean by that is you can just buy one so if you're ever curious I've had students all the time saying does the Quran say this you think look it's not a mysterious thing just buy one and you can read it I have several of them at home and they're really interesting to read it's divided into 114 surahs' or chapters hundred and fourteen Sara's chapters it was originally written in Arabic language of Arabic and there's only one Arabic version because he said the Quran was directly revealed to Prophet Muhammad that they are the direct words of Allah that it's not just the inspired message as we would say the Bible is the inspired message of God we would not say at least in our Christian understanding our Christian theology we're not fundamentalist we would not say that the Bible is a literal direct transmission from God to the people that wrote the Christian Bible we would say that the Bible is inspired so that means that the Spirit of God came to the writers of the Christian Bible and the writers of the Christian Bible didn't dictate the voice of God but had an inspiration to write some things down but we Christians again in our denomination and we believe that there is human error in our Bible now not all denominations of Christianity would say this some denominations would say that the Bible is infallible meaning without error that is a relatively relatively recent addition to the understanding of the Christian Bible that it could be infallible or inerrant without error for thousands of years it was thought to be inspired and not inerrant or infallible but inspired that means we believe that the Christian Bible can and does have human error so we have to study it and interpret it contextually so where it says you know women should always cover their heads we say well that's the context of the time and it's not necessarily what we need to do now or when it says the Christian Bible if your son disobey them disobeys you take him out to the courtyard and stoned him to death we say whoa that was definitely human error Jesus would not want that we have to interpret it in context right that's what we do in our theological study because we don't believe it was directly given verbatim from God to the writers we also in our Christian understanding believed that the Bible is translatable you know we can read it in English and we feel like we're getting the spirit of the thing but the Quran was thought to be directly revealed from Allah to the Prophet Muhammad and written down in its present form by the prophets earliest followers and it is not able to be directly translated into another language and so one of the currents that I have and this is pretty common is when you get a Quran in your language in my case it's English then I have English down one column and Arabic down the other so that you can see the actual original language I can't read Arabic but it's right there on it's beautiful written in calligraphy so it's not thought to be directly translatable now we can kind of understand that because we many of us know different languages and you know when you translate from one language to another anything you lose some of the new want some of the meaning and so it's thought that when you do that with Arabic you're gonna lose something but especially because it's the right words I've got also the Quran has often been chanted and so when you chant it and it's most known historically in its oral tradition chanting and singing it then you're gonna lose something if you translate that that that lyrical that the song like quality and also Arabic is calligraphy as I've said we in the West have learned calligraphy through Islam through the influence of Arabic we have not learned our calligraphy in the west through Japanese or Chinese calligraphy because they have played with you too well we haven't learned it that way we have learned it through Arabic and so calligraphy is beautiful script and so when you see it even written there's some beauty there and so there's the thought also that you can't completely translate that into another fonts because you lose the beauty the artwork of the calligraphy by the way have any of you ever going to a mosque I don't like Kevin you and I were in a lot together I have you been in a mosque any view okay when you go into a mosque in Islam it is forbidden to have pictures depicted of people animals faces because that seems to Muslims like making something in a graven image so there wouldn't be statues of people or saints or prophets or whatever there would not be pictures of Muhammad some of the earliest Muslims said look at what the Christians did with their prophet Jesus they started making mosaics and then paintings of their prophet Jesus and then because you make something into an image you start worshipping it and look what the Christians did with their prophet when they made him into a picture they started worshipping it and believing Jesus was God so we're not going to do that you get that line of thinking okay so from the Muslim perspective it's dangerous to do that and we're not going to do that we're not going to make images of Muhammad etc you probably have heard that sometimes protest when people make a cartoon of Mohammed you know Muslims saying please don't do you know that's please that's done not only what we do not ever want to worship Muhammad with absolute respect for him as a prophet but we don't want to go the route that the Christians did frankly so when you go into a mosque what you'll see around the world is gorgeous decoration but in nodding human face form or animal face form what you see is a couple of things first of all beautiful geometric patterns so gorgeous most and geometric patterns incredible artwork with beautiful geometry but also you'll see arabic scripts beautiful calligraphy written all over the place parts of the quran and then parts of the sunnah the custom of the Prophet written in beautiful script all over so those are the ways that it's most commonly decorated connect you know mosque okay so the term Quran literally means reading or recitation as as I said oral recitation has been the one that's been favored throughout the years it's commonly regarded as the most beautiful work ever composed in the Arabic language it is regarded as a miracle of God especially because Muhammad is thought to have been illiterate miraculously yes today the Quran is the world's most read and memorized book imagine memorizing the entire New Testament this is 4/5 aside the New Testaments pretty big so the Quran begins with a prayer called the opening here's the prayer listen to this in the name of God the compassionate the merciful praise be to God Lord of the universe the compassionate the merciful sovereign of the day of judgment you alone we worship and to you alone return for help guide us to the straight path the path of those whom you have favoured not of those who have incurred your wrath nor of those who have gone astray okay just a prayer of God we're yours and that's what Islam is this absolute submission God we are yours you are the compassionate the merciful the sovereign guide us to the straight path all right secondly so we talk to be just touching the Quran secondly the Prophet Muhammad let's talk about who he is as long as purely monotheistic as I said and they're very careful to regard Muhammad as only a person he is not God Allah and Muhammad are not the same thing Allah is God Muhammad is a person but even so Islam celebrates Muhammad as the most perfect of all human beings referring to him as a jewel among stones so this is his life just some some highlights of his life he was born out of and about we're not exactly sure of it about a D or C E Common Era 570 around the year 570 into the leading tribe of Mecca and Mecca is a city on the Arabian Peninsula and you probably know Mecca now because you know Muslims go there on pilgrimage so he was born into Mecca it was an important center of commerce and trade at the time because it's right there on the water he was orphaned as an early at an early age and Muhammad grew up with his uncle he was known as an honest hard-working dependable boy he worked hard as a shepherd and then later in the trading business so he was very diligent as a worker even as a child eventually he became a caravan manager for a wealthy widow named Khadija and she becomes an important person so he worked for her and eventually they married that when he was 25 and she was about 40 years old older woman there this couple had at least six children and they enjoyed a long and happy marriage together so along with raising his family and also pursuing his business interests which she kept going he also spent a lot of time and really contemplation and you would like to go to this cave on Mount Hira to meditate probably quieter than his home with six kids so he went to Mount Hira to meditate to spend time in prayer and time with God and according to tradition during one of his visits to the cave the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him in a dream now we know Gabriel right we're going to Gabriel appear in our stories so Mary's right and Joseph in a dream okay so Gabriel the word angel means messenger you know like messenger from God the word el means God so an angel as a messenger from God so Gabriel from God and he appeared to Muhammad and commanded him recites the site he you should the command and he pressed hard on Muhammad's body and he Muhammad feared that he would even die because he was pressing so hard and finally in desperation Mohammed asked the angel what shall I recite and Gabriel answered this is from the Quran Gabriel said recite in the name of your Lord who created created man from clots of blood recites your Lord is the most bountiful one who by the pen taught man what he did No so this event occurred in the year 610 and it is celebrated still as it's called the night of power and excellence the nights of power X pixels and this marked the beginning of Muhammad's career as a prophet so you might know this if you've been in my Bible study the word prophet is a word that means mouthpiece a mouthpiece of God somebody who it's not about their intelligence particularly although mom it was an incredibly intelligent man but it's not just about his intelligence or when we talk about Moses or Abraham or any of the prophets it's about people becoming available to be used by God as a mouthpiece for the voice of God so he said became a prophet saying okay you can you can use me as you will God to share your message so that was the earliest recitation containing the Quran but he wouldn't receive many more visits from the angel and many more of the things to recite and then write down eventually they wrote him down over the next 22 years of his life until his death in 632 so at this first night he questioned several wives that was a much later phase in his life not for a long time so and we'll get we'll get to all of that work that's all that so when he first had this experience of Gabriel he told Khadijah his wife about this experience and she became the first convert to Islam and he at first found very few others willing to lose after 10 years several hundred families were Muslim now that sounds like a huge amount but it was very small compared to what was to come in the years that followed so only several hundred families because for the most part Mohammed's fellow Meccans reacted with hostility to him to Khadija and to their message for a couple of reasons first he taught that there was only one God and this was radical bizarre were used to this but they were not this was a mostly polytheistic culture now not only were they used to polytheism but also there were in Mecca alone 360 shrines to various gods and so what happened was people would come into the city as tourists basically and go to all these pilgrimages to visit all the shrines boosting the economy of the entire city so if it was to be believed that there was only one God what would that mean not only all the shrines but to the economy people wouldn't come if they didn't believe it there were all these gods and you know this cultures we have a hard time changing right and accepting new ways of doing things especially something this huge and this financial Amina earned a lot of capital for the city so in addition Mohammed also challenged the largely corrupt social and economic justice of his day there were all kinds of things that were going on that we were very very corrupt and Meccans were not ready to give up their largely corrupt standards of behavior here's one example out of many women a child works at home which is what women have mostly done for most of history and girls were not as wanted which has been the case for most of history and so it was a practice then there in in the homes if a woman gave birth to a girl and the family want the baby girl they could go outside of the house and in the sand bury alive and Muhammad said absolutely not you may not do that he put an end to all kinds of abuses toward children and toward women which is so ironic then now when you hear it said that Muhammad didn't want women to have a lot of you know rights and authority you know that because he stepped up justice for women hugely hugely in Arabia at the time which by the way pretty much all religious founders did if you look back and you look at the lives and the teachings and the methods of the Buddha and Confucius and Muhammad and Jesus said all of these founders one of the things you'll find is that there's so there's a huge jump in a sense of equality now it's not always perfect equality or how you and I in 21st century United States understanding quality but for the time there's a huge jump in terms of equality among the genders equality among the social classes equality among the rich and poor equality among the slave and free there's not a perfection or a total equaling out but there's a huge jump whenever a huge religious founder comes into into being and that's the case here with Mohammed as well so Meccans weren't ready than to do that to go into those new ways of thinking so Muhammad and his family were faced with a lot of hostility and so in the face of this hostility Muhammad and his followers migrated northward to the city of Yathrib in the year 622 Yathrib later became no that the name was changed and became known as Medina so to this day it's referred to as Medina not Yathrib anymore Medina is assured shortened from a phrase that means city of the Prophet so this by the way 622 when they did this when they migrated northward to Medina this is known as the hijra and the Islamic system of dating faces they're dating on the Hydra when that emigration happens so well we would call year 622 ad is known as aah after the drug which would be in our language one what we would call 622 ad okay because that's when all things began what time did he die six what what time no what he died in 632 3632 yeah I don't remember date very well yeah yeah for me because I'm not a real numbers dates kind of person for me what what I think of is Christianity begins around here era now where our system of dating is off by 4 to 6 years but around Year Zero 500 BC that's when we have a lot of Asian religions we have Buddhism beginning here Taoism Confucianism etc 500 year before now here we have 500 years relative approximately after here we have this long got it so that might be easier way if you're like me and not as much of a numbers person 500 years earlier is a lot of East Asian religions 500 years after is it love you know in your calendar remember I gave you a timeline okay it lists this but it also lists Islam get back here because Islam this is what Mohammed was around but his love looks at their own roots and goes back to Abraham and says that was the beginning of our tradition okay so this is Mohammed but when you're talking about Abraham virgin about way back okay so so Mohammed dad he proved in his life to be when he was now in Medina or a belt drive at the time which later became known as Medina he proved himself to be a brilliant administrator of the city he was he was in charge of the city and he was merciful it's to to his followers but he was also firm in his justice and he was a very good businessman very good administrator so eight years later after this migration there after several battles with his mekin opponents there were some battles and lest you think of it such a violent religion look at your own Bible and this is how the Israelites came in you know moved on in to what they called the Promised Land through a whole lot of battle so this is similar not identical but similar so there were several battles with mekin opponents but eight years after the migration up north where Eagle River Medina Muhammad returned back home in triumph to his home city of Mecca and then by the time of his death two years later most of Arabia had converted to Islam most of Arabia who had never managed to unite only anything before in terms of justice and politics and religion and not just warring and United over this and most of Arabia had converted to Islam so he is Sikkim instead for Islam and by the way you probably have noticed we if you're Muslims talk about Mohammed they say this Muhammad peace be upon him do you hear them say that yeah okay when you when it's written often you see Muhammad and then after the word Muhammad you see this you ever seen that it stands for peace be upon him so if you ever hear me saying that because I'm talking to a Muslim I might say that out of respect for them and their prophet they say you need to convert to our religion or River there were some contextual battles like that just like there are in our scriptures but that's not at all what Islam is today you are never including and it's Christians have said the same thing by the way I like to Native Americans that's we get we baptize you or we will kill you if you're from Northern Europe yeah odds are yeah if your ancestry is great you're in odds are as well but that is not an Islamic practice today if anybody does that they're doing that in direct opposition to their own religious practice so if somebody from you know say Isis or some fringe terrorist organization if they're doing that they're doing that in opposition to a standard of Islam that you're only supposed to be Islam if you are not coerced into being I always was a Muslim if you're not coerced into being Muslim and I would say the same thing of Christianity if somebody said well so so and so says you know become Krishna will kill you in the Spanish Inquisition forever ago I would say the Spanish suppose I shouldn't went against what Jesus Christ with Jennifer and what I is a Christian stead for today I'm never going to hold a gun to somebody's head and say profess Jesus as your Lord and Savior that's ridiculous it's not only a little bit off its antithetical it's the opposite of what Jesus would ever do right same with Islam you're never supposed to coerce to conversion and in Islam ever at any in mom who is clergy at any religious scholar worth their salt in his love would tell you that the question yep get the Romans in to the puzzles fight was a great battle between Bill I'm not aware of battles I completely could be just not aware but I hear sometimes yeah the arugba never seen it collapsed around the 400 yeah yeah the Roman Empire collapsed in the 450s and was supplanted by the Byzantine Empire so that's where Constantinople that was rather than being wrong that the capital of the Byzantine Empire was Constantinople yes there was conflict there between Islamic but there was also a conflict between Germanic tribes yeah and the Frankish trumpets oh yes okay so Muhammad's unique significance for Islam is the belief that he is the final prophet he is not the only prophet but he's the final prophet revealing the will of Allah fully and precisely and for all time and so there have been occasionally groups that have said well we we love Islam and we love mohamad but we believe it there's another prophet that came after like for instance the Baha'i tradition the Baha'i tradition believes that there are that they love Muhammad but then there are other prophets that came later well the the Muslim tradition of Islam would say that's not that's not really Islam then because real Islam is saying that he was the last prophet and there cannot be any more prophets after that he is what's called the seal of the prophets the last one there was no need for a lot to choose enough so it is believed that in different times God has revealed different prophets to reveal God's will partially and Allah revealed the absolute last part of it so there's no need for another one so Muhammad as I said is merely human but his revered revered does not being worshipped it means really greatly respected as the best of all humans and his actions and his own teachings he was careful to regard them as different distinguish them differently his teachings from the Quran he was careful to say this is my thought but this is the Quran okay just to make that play but his teachings that together his actions and teachings together constitute what's called the Sunnah or custom of the Prophet so Sunnah means custom and if you hear people talk about the Sunnah then that's what that is his teachings and his actions this is the second most important Authority for Islam after the Quran yeah after the Quran yes he ever performed many miracles yeah no not someone perform like in a divine way he was involved in miracles and so the big one was the night of power and excellence where he was given the miracle and being able to read the Quran another big one that Muslims hold to is this night of where it's believed that he was miraculously transported from mecca to jerusalem the holy city of jerusalem and then from there he ascended with the archangel gabriel through the seven heavens that the quran specifies the quran specifies that god made seven heavens and he ascended through the seven heavens and he saw the prophets Moses he saw Abraham he saw Jesus and then he was in the very presence of Allah that night is called the ascension to heaven and that's one of two miracles involving Muhammad so the night of power and excellence and the ascension to heaven from Jerusalem so when we say sometimes people say you know why does Jerusalem thought to be such a holy city from Muslims I mean we get the mecca but why Jerusalem it's because of that it's because it was transit or ascension to heaven so this is all good but it came in yes yes so this is a focal point of Muslim piety alright let's talk a little bit further about Islam's primary teachings that we've touched on some of these already but the teachings of Islam are based ultimately on the Quran first of all on the Quran and then secondly on the Sunnah or the custom of Bahamut but of course great theological achievements have come about during the centuries just like you have in Judaism and Christianity the Western religions care very much about theology which is different if you've been in this course all along it's different than looking at say for instance East Asian religions of Zen Buddhism and Taoism where the East Asian religious thought is that words get in the way they complicate things you cannot have a direct divine experience or understanding of God if you use too many words in too much logic and too much rational plot it's distracting um that's a nice term in philosophy and so you'll have you know Zen gardens that are very simple and very calm and tranquil and and poems with very few words not a lot okay but in the Western religions Judaism Christianity and Islam there's a great reference for the word the written and the spoken word these three religions share many stories many myths sacred stories and so there's the sense of appreciating theology appreciating rational thought appreciating the spoken and written word that these degree religions really show so there's a lack of consistent agreement between Muslim scholars a Muslim theologians throughout the ages which explains why Islam tends to be very diverse which is the same in Christianity and Judaism if you're going to have religions that are based on a lot of theology a lot of analysis you're not going to have everybody agreeing so I always say that if you meet someone and they're a Christian and that's all you know about them you know very little about them right I mean you know some things like they probably love Jesus I mean some some basics you know but you know very little about that they could be on one end of the space drum or the other that could be a high church Roman Catholic or incredibly simple Amish person they could be extraordinarily conservative or liberal both politically and in terms of their religious piety they could be any anything on the map right I said is everything like if you meet somebody who says I'm an American you know very little about them okay I've even said this about denominations like Catholicism if you meet somebody and they say I'm a Catholic you know very little about them well the same thing is true with Islam and we we that are not in that group you know if you're not Muslim we tend to think that other groups are not diverse we tend to think that our groups whatever our groups are our diverse let me tell you a little aside I know what I have a friend who is a he's a scholar of ethnic studies at a university in New York and he asked his students he's an African American man he asked his students he said he said I don't want you to be inoffensive I want you to just shout out any kind of racial slurs you've ever heard about these categories of people and they're like whoa really yes just shout it out anything you've heard and he said different categories of people and people shouting out the racial slurs and then he said Caucasian and they said well I mean it depends I mean are you talking about suddenly there was all this room for diversity because he's students for Caucasian so when they're in that group it's old there's all this diversity in terms of being Caucasian you could be a Caucasian this kind of person my patient location that kind of person whereas before there was no diversity when he said Asian they said book-smart see what I'm saying see how easily we can pack people when they're in a group other than ours but then it gets to ours and we go oh well it depends what do you mean you know very little about that okay so I want to bring that up because if we talk about Islam and we do very little about them we know some things but there's a whole lot of diversity okay so the diversity then in its multi faceted nature has something to do with location and remember we had our incredible scholars here in our sanctuary a few months ago I was so grateful they were here what incredible speakers on Islam and one thing that they talked about particularly the man his name is escaping the video remember him right he said that a lot of what people think is Islam is the culture it's not Islam it's that particular country or that particular culture and again if we're talking about Lutheranism in Nazi Germany it's not going to look like what you and I do so we think culture that we're talking about so a lot of what Islam is has to do with how it shows up in the different cultures in the world so when you're going to see Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia for instance it's going to look more conservative much more traditional much stricter than Islam as practiced in Egypt or France or the United States it's just going to look different depending on where you're looking where you're going virtually all Muslims though agree on some basic teachings and so that's what I'm going to be talking about right now all the basic teachings so just know there's a lot of diversity but we're going to get to just the basics right now okay Muslims understand Allah or God to be transcendent going beyond just are created worlds and we've talked about this before that in general and again everything I say is a generalization for the purposes of your education but there are always exceptions to everything I'm talking about here and we'll get some of those a couple of days but generally the Western religious traditions remember this whole type thing remember this okay I've been talking about this a lot Eastern traditions okay in general the Western traditions most people in the West think of God as transcendence meaning God goes beyond us okay we think of God as the other the holy other that we are in relationship with now this small piece of pie here would be the mystics the mystics in Judaism Christianity and Islam think of God more as imminent all right that word over here imminent so God has seen as within or do the divine is experienced as coming from within so in the east the majority of the eastern folks generalized perceive the divine as arising from within them so Buddhist meditate in order for the Buddha nature to be come more numb okay he news talk about how autumn on their soul is Brahma on the divine essence so through meditation they can understand this connection with the divine within you do though of course have make Eastern folks that are more devotional looking at God is a holy other but the majority are more understanding the right as within so back to Western Islam as it wasn't religion and by that it doesn't mean that they're not in the East they are but is a it's a voice from the South all category and so most the majority of Muslims understand God as transcendence going beyond but also God according to Islam is also imminent and personal in our lives meaning not just going beyond but also personal to you and to me now as a Christian I would say the same thing I would say that God does go beyond all this the creative world I mean if the world was destroyed it wouldn't destroy God but God also is very eminent and personal and knows you and me we talked about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all of us so that's how Islam understands Allah or God Allah is also genderless God is not just a mother or a father because God is limitless and gender is a limit it's a limitation I mean when I say Christian is a boy what I mean by that is that my son is is limited to boyishness right like he is thereby not girl it's saying a gender is saying a limitation it's saying an identification too but it also is a limit and so God is thought to be beyond that beyond the limit of that beyond maleness and femaleness and also those are sort of human qualities and God is not human muslims are careful to say that they Allah goes beyond humanists because that would again limit God's Meechum as I said before Muslims avoid artistic representations of Allah because they do not want to invoke any human characteristics to God one of the interesting things is that in order for Muslims to have some kind of connection to Allah because it's hard to understand this limitless genderless you know without human qualities kind of God it's hard to like wrap our brain around that and so what Islam does in order people that have a point of connection or point of entry I understand God is they talk about the 99 names of God the 99 names fact Eric you know Eric teaches religious studies talks about how there's really 100 but the 101 is not pronounceable it's that beautiful mysterious and divine it's kind of neat idea right when you go into mosques and sometimes into administrators offices in mosques they have on their wall a plaque of the 99 names of God and so the names are for instance here some of them that compassionate or the real real with the capital are real like the most real thing you could ever know you know so when you look at God is being like like I can't understand this limitless genderless without human quality God but if I think of the compassionate the merciful the job good just right and some of the names are interesting because it's like the I don't know if I'm saying this exactly correctly but like the giver of life lets you the difficult life and the taker of life like an opposite you know like like God gifts and God takes away you know so there it's beautiful names okay so and that's how people can have points of entry and understanding God while maintaining Islam some strict monotheism which one done so prophets then prophets provide a crucial link via Allah and human history it is thought in all Western religions that history only goes in one direction history is not and the universe is not cyclical like we would understand it to be in Hinduism or Buddhism time is not simple for those of another direction and so just as Judaism and Christianity says this in his vlog it is thought that God interacts with human history throughout human history God is part of the story of human history in fact we humans are part of story of God's divine history so certain prophets have come along in certain historical times in order to deliver in part God's will to humanity which is exactly of Christianity understands prophets as well when we look at our Christian Bible Jeremiah comes to deliver a message or Isaiah comes to deliver a message to prophets Khan to be the mouthpiece of God to deliver a message well this begins with Adam so Muslims Jews Christians we all have the same story of Genesis and the Garden of Eden and what happened in the garden we have different interpretations of the story well we all have the same story in the Quran or in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Christian Bible so the first prophet was Adam and he is one of only two people ever to have been completely created only by God and not like you know the regular way babies are made first Adam and secondly Mary Virgin Mary so beginning with Adam and ending with Muhammad many thousands of prophets have walked this earth but there's this elite few that are so important that they've changed the nature of humankind relationship with Allah Abraham is the first major one that changed people's relationship with Allah and Muslims regard Abraham as the father of the Arabs just as Jews regard Abraham as the father of the Israelites so the story goes in your Bible in mine that Abraham had this wife that later on became known as Sarah that she was called sir I appreciated the story abram and sarai and they were expected to have this child but she was not getting pregnant she was well on in years so she said to Abraham go ahead and impregnate my servant Hagar because you need to have this child and this is in the our Bible this shouldn't be completely unfamiliar to you and Abraham didn't protest much and so eventually Hagar got pregnant and they together had this baby Ishmael see the el was that mean okay so finally Sarah and Abraham had a baby Isaac so according to Judaism Isaac was the chosen one the special one and so he was to be the father of many nations little Isaac and on down and so this has been the family for Judaism and then later Christianity well according to Islam he was the one who was the chosen one but she was sent away with Ishmael they were sent away you could read this in your Bible they were sent away and they became the ancestors of the Erich Arabic people and so they are seen as the father or the the line of Islam and so Islam regards Ishmael is incredibly important and they regard Hagar as incredibly important or the one of rituals done in beckylyn people go for the Hajj of the pilgrimage to Mecca one of them where they remember Hagar and her witness I really loved her in the Bible she's the first one that named God she called she called God el L me God Roy the one the God who sees the God who sees me because she was in such dire straits and God gave her all kinds of provisions in Hell term and she said while God really sees me she was absolutely desperate and God saw and cared for her and she was the first one in the Bible to give God a name so anyway she's a really interesting character but so is long traces their heritage back up through Ishmael to Abraham that's how I said like where the you know we all are in Abrahamic faiths so Abraham was the first prophet in Islam and what he did what he pronouns because remember prophets means mouthpiece and they pronounce something when he pronounced it was huge was monotheism one God then eventually Moses came along now you all know Moses is Judaism his greatest prophet and the understanding is that what he pronounced when Moses came along when the time was right when history was ready for it what he pronounced was the law and we would send that too it was Christmas in his shoes I mean he doesn't want to receive the Ten Commandments and other laws as well and was the first to give some order to this like total chaos of the original Israelites and so Moses was a great a great prophet he gave Israel their ethical code their ethical laws and so according to Islam he pronounced ethical law to the people and that was wonderful that was great you see so far how similar we all are okay then then came Jesus so Jesus is seen as another incredibly important prophet so we have Abraham we have Moses we have Jesus what Jesus Burnett pronounced was the golden rule do to others what you would want then what you would want done to you okay so what he gave was love or mercy who can argue with that right he did he went beyond law so it's like it's the Sun shinning in history two Western religions that time has to be ready for the next thing time has to be full enough for people understand monotheism ethics law and mercy which goes beyond law those God what's just and goes into great love great great understanding so he is very much revered as a as a prophet and then finally Muhammad came along and he was the seal of the prophets revealing the very last thing and what he revealed was the Quran and the Quran according to Islam is how to love how to do what Jesus is telling us to do how do how to understand the law and love and mercy in the Golden Rule how to do this is in the Quran now there is no need for another prophet it's done it's been all revealed everything we need to know has been revealed so the revelation of a laws will to humanity was then complete ok let's do just a little bit more and then we'll wrap it up we might even be able to do this in two nights um are you okay with me you're you're going around okay all right a little bit more in terms of what islam teaches about humans human nature and human destiny islam teaches that human nature is essentially naturally good not naturally evil and not even natural neutral but here's the thing we've talked about this before where religions basically say this will look incredibly familiar to you here we are human condition and we we know that there's something better be for better but we know there's some kind of goal or greater spiritual truth or something and so here's the path to salvation but first we have to define what's going on in the human condition specifically what's the problem why are we not living in a state of like the Garden of Eden that story at the beginning of time that all three Western religions tell what's the problem in the Garden of Eden now the interesting thing to me as a religious person is the different interpretations of the garden if you ask Judaism how do you understand that story of the Garden of Eden it's seen as a story of maturity and growing up and having to leave the garden maybe a little bit of rebellious and rebellious it's against God and all that but if you ask a Christian although to Islam in a second if you ask a Christian about the story of the Garden of Eden you would hear yeah there's the rebellious --mess but we all inherited it we inherited Adam's sin we heard that before original sin right original sin is a term that is not in Genesis it's a term that was created by Paul the Apostle our Paul our Christian Paul who said as a theologian he is dead one man sent Adam and we then inherited this and so to even more he said how much more did one other man ID Jesus bring grace of Mercy which we then inherited so this understanding of us inheriting Adam's sin often it's blamed on you but anyway inheriting adamson was all a Christian thought in Judaism we no more have to pay for Adam and Eve sin and we have to pay for David's foolishness to get your right up child in the line of battle because he was having an affair with your right his wife Bathsheba that was about nama that's nothing new with me right so in Judaism the idea that we are all somehow responsible for or are still working out Adam's sin is kind of crazy like that was the then this is now but in Christianity that's how Paul understood it so you see the difference here between Christianity and Judaism in terms of the Garden of Eden okay so we in Islam there's a third interpretation Islam talks about how when Eve ate of the fruit of the tree and the story is in the Quran and oh by the way if you might say well how how did how did they know the story well Muslims would say it was revealed to us by God that's how the Quran came to Mohammed others who aren't Muslim would say well the stories were circulating all throughout the Arabian area with the Jews and the Christians in that area got it so if you're talking to an anthropologist you're talking to a Muslim practitioner you're gonna hear differently of how they got that story but nevertheless the stories in the Quran about Adam and even and all that so the Intercity is when Eve ate the fruit did Eve was the first one to do it and then Adam it caused a state of forgetfulness to fall upon them it caused almost like an amnesia to fall upon them and that is the human condition you know every religion says the problem is well according to Judaism the problem is that the Israelites are going peirong off of the path of the chosen ones right so prophets are always trying to get the entire group of Jews back on the path that's the definition of the problem according to Judaism Korda Christianity the problem is sin not the pad leaving the path but you and me and our proclivity to sin specifically original sin okay that's how Christians understand the problem of human the human condition how Muslims understand the problem of human condition is forgetfulness that's it and let me give you an example so let's say I take my children to especially when they were really little they know better now but like say if they're really little and I take a bit like a doctor's office now I could get them all sugared up and we run into the doctor's office and that's not gonna go very well how would we go better when they're little is too personal like every sugar and then to say before we get the doctor's office like in the car ride on the way there okay kids remember they're going to the doctor's office how do we act in the waiting room do we hate your brother and sister pull each other's hair no do we do we shell loudly do we throw things do we run around I just say this parable about church do we run up and down the aisles do you run up to mommy which is behind the altar Bertie you sit with Daddy and wait well mommy's dud the dog here right Sophia would talk right up to me as I was in the middle of serving Communion she was very very tight anyway you know how do you walk through these things and they know it but they just need reminders they're like oh yeah yeah right okay I remember how to be a member okay so that is how Islam sees human beings we are forgetful we wake up in the morning we might say a prayer we might meditate for 30 minutes and read the Bible and do all the good things and then we get our car on the freeway and somebody cuts us off and how quickly it is that we forget all the highfalutin thoughts and the spiritualism that we had and we come crashing right back down to the human race and we're just as petty as everybody else's right we quickly forget who we belong to we belong to God we Obot everything we have this momentary forgetfulness that comes over us all the time and so therefore our basic passions and drives lead to sin that's how Islam understands the problem we're not naturally evil we're naturally forgetful so we then struggle each of us for remembering remembering who we belong to and we struggle for goodness we struggle to be good we struggle to do the right thing like my kids try to be good at the doctor's office or whatever we struggle to be good that by the way is what the term jihad means the inner inward struggle to be good misunderstanding that it means some kind of holy war where people slaughter each other Thank You media for taking that way gonna pick up a road where it doesn't belong that's a tiny way a very thin way that some a few people have used that term but what that means to every Muslim is your and my and our internal not external against somebody else internal struggle for goodness to remember who we belong to which is God to surrender and submit to God and to behave accordingly the understanding in Islam is that because we have so much forgetfulness we all need directives so that we can remember who we are and have correct behavior so that goodness compassion charity kindness may prevail we need directives not because we're image of not because we need to just be kept in line constantly but because we have amnesia so often we forget we forget who we are so the reward for the righteous then those who die that are primarily in the struggle to be good trying to be good nobody's gonna be perfect but I mean trying to you know live rightly and all that the reward is known as paradise and the the punishment for people who are doing all kinds of evil is known as hell so as you see the Western religious develop Judaism talks very little about an afterlife the focus on Judaism is not on the off it's on this world this life the next religion to develop historically was Christianity it talks more about an afterlife than Judaism the next religion to develop was is love and it talks and much more about an afterlife so as you see each of these religions progressed historically you've seen more of an emphasis on afterlife then in the previous one which is interesting also emphasis in Islam is placed on a day called the day of judgment where all human beings will stand before Allah before God and their destiny will be made known and Islam also talks about looking for someone called the Mahdi the muddy is similar to Judaism Thunder standing at the Messiah this Messiah or this Mahdi you will come and it's like a savior figure like the Messiah and the Mahdi you will before the day of judgment the Mahdi will restore Islam and bring order on earth so a lot of thought and bomani not that I know of no but the Ayatollah Khomeni was alive by some by a certain group of people a certain group and we'll get into that later because most Muslims would not think that but a certain okay in terms of the natural world not human nature not you and me but in terms of everything else we see creation Muslims believe that the natural world is the creation of Allah and so it is good and worthy of reverence it is in fact another form of the revelation of God's will the natural world and so sometimes the natural world the Stars the moon the forests you know the not the world is called the cosmic Quran the cosmic Quran it's interesting because Christianity has unfortunately I think very very unfortunately Christianity has had a historical battle with science if you look at how science and religion have been at war with each other from I mean Galileo to you know evolutionary theory I mean seriously just at war that has not been the case with Islam and science it's really interesting studying how Islam has historically opened their hearts and their minds to science and said science is one more way though we can understand the will of God and so we're not going to struggle against it we're going to work with science it's fascinating and I respect that and and Christianity not has not always been like that I mean I certainly try to not struggle with science but to say that we're two different ways of getting at wisdom and getting at truth but historically Christianity has struggle science and as long as not so that's really fascinating I think okay we're gonna stop right there for right now and then when we come back in two weeks we'll talk about the community of Muslims that OMA but what I'd like you to know what am i can you do now let's just talk as a group because we only have like maybe seven six or seven minutes left let's just talk in the whole group instead of it tables just Kevin would be all by myself it so is there anything that you heard tonight that was surprising anything that stood out to you yeah yeah amen absolutely absolutely I think you know there were when I was at the front of the world's religions in 2015 I went to two of them but I was the first one there was a man there one of the speakers who works for our government in the United States and the government paid him it was his job to go interview terrorists Islamic terrorists and to say what do you want and what's behind what you're doing so he said that the people that hired him from our government thought that what was behind what they were doing their motivation was religion and he said when he went and he literally interviewed terrorism engine that job he said that basically what they said was that religion was not at all the motivation for why they were doing what they were doing but they were angry about these particular people was they were angry that their land was taken from them now right or wrong donor bad doesn't matter that's what they said so that's what they believe their land has been taken they were also afraid for the lives of their children now religion was not the motivation for why they were doing what they were doing but they knew religion had power over people so religion was a tool it was to get the people to obey some people certainly not everybody but think of how many times in the Christian past when our beautiful religion of love of Jesus the forgiveness and mercy and peace when it was used to get people to shut up sit down and obey without question right religion is a tool that's incredibly powerful like fire it can be used for a great good and great harm and what religions are hijacked as they have been on a regular basis they've also done beautiful thing if all you think is religions have been hijacked then you haven't studied because religion has done beautiful things and we'll talk later about some of the beautiful things Islam has done as what as a lot of culture has done which has been glorious and Christian Christianity of course - is done beautiful things but unfortunately it hasn't always been used for beauty and good it's been used for manipulation and control and power and all kinds of things not because religion is inherently evil I don't believe at all it's because religion is inherently powerful if you say God and I think this then how much power do I now have I'm signing up with God so y'all better just shut up and do what I'm telling you right if that is abused like that and that's called the hijacking of a religion so the Hydra or the religion was hijacked and what the United States saw after 9/11 was this you know terrifying well terrorist act and then some religious language was used and so because the religious language was used people were like you know freaking out and terrified and when you're scared you're not thinking in your most rational call himself anyway but Muslims died on 9/11 Muslims were in planes that came crashing down Muslims were in buildings that came crashing down Muslims Muslim Americans died Islam wasn't the enemy it's particularly political and crazy that did horrible things they were particular people that was not Islam that did that to us but because people got so afraid you know fear does crazy things I mean Sikhs you know the religion of Sikhism people that wear turbans the men wear turbans it's an entirely different religion from Islam it's not even the same religion and Sikhs were killed after 9/11 in retaliation from some people who were afraid and furious and didn't even know that was another religion so I mean people do crazy things don't don't don't they and don't we you know but if you look at the if you look at religion how religion has been used and misused but know when people say level then religion is the problem I I disagree I disagree i think the misuse of religion the hijacking of religion is the problem religion is often the solution religion done well and done right is the path to peace but like fire or like money or like anything that's like a powerful thing you could do great or horrific things with it anything that's powerful so anyway what else will surprise you what did we take from take in terms of land oh it was it was talking about the wars that we've been fighting over there and Iraq and Afghanistan homes occupy again that's a whole political conversation of which I'm not as schooled as I need to be to teach that so like like I said whether they're right or wrong bad people what I never took anything I hear you but I'm just saying that's what they're saying I guess you're talking dr. oil I guess well the point of what they're saying that I'm trying to say is that they did not say I mean think of all the things they did not say they did not say our Islamic faith is being desecrated they did not say if we want all the world to be Muslims they did not say the Quran tells us to kill Americans they did not even reference anything in the Islamic faith that's my point well I don't care about the study of it yes they were together right what I'm talking about is this guy that was sent over to interview people who were like masterminds behind this and and we thought they would say we did this because of our religion not that America believed that all Islam was like this anybody that knows Islam myself included know was good as long as not about this but we thought that this small faction this small terrorist organization we thought that they would say and claim that it was the religion that had inspired them they didn't even mention it so it was immediate all right that's that's fine I guarantee no sir okay he was killed by one of his wives because Mohammed was killed by one of his wives he plays an English she poison - poison I'm not really familiar with that I need to look more into that yeah I'll look I'll look into that I don't like he was married to young girls 13 years old or 11 years old and raped that's also what we'll be really careful of the sources that you're reading - Wow got it from the Lutheran village well again yeah okay well again you got to be careful of the sources that you're looking at for that it could be Nazism I don't know I don't know the sources that you're looking at but I will look so what else stands out as interesting or surprising to you about anything we've talked about why do you all want to do all these people then they were hijacked by these terrorists this this group of people why do they then not condemn them why do they not I have never heard them ever come out the city yeah okay so I want it I want to answer this in two ways first of all they have over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over I'm gonna have enough time tonight for me to keep saying the words over and over but they never heard I'm sorry you have it I have endlessly secondly a few thank you did you hear the guy that was here from the sanctuary he condemned them yeah okay so we need to stop saying they're not condemning it because they are and they have and they keep doing it but I'm not going to forever be condemning the KKK because I'm going to get busy doing what Christians do it's not my job that forever condemned the KKK and people who are doing Christianity badly I'll do it for a little while but then I'm going to move on being a Christian but I'm going to get again back to my question what is interesting what is wise about Islam yeah I like that idea forgive wholeness yeah you know it's I don't agree with and I'm sure this because I've been raised put that that idea of you know you're right but it's a mess you know I agree with it totally that's why we come to church every Sunday because we'd go and we remember when I when I was first a preacher I'm used to really wrestled with the fact that I was not preaching anything that I thought was new because I was so used to being a professor and my students I would assume came into the class not really knowing Confucianism and then would leave knowing Confucianism and I felt like I was doing something like I was being useful like I was giving them something new when I started preaching I was like I keep saying this thing Jesus loves you stuff like everybody knows this and I had to come to grips with the fact that we in the pulpit aren't necessarily teaching we are like the sacrament says do this in remembrance of me write remembrance do this in remembrance of me same thing in preaching we're remembering remembering in fact is we member we we are remembering them with who God is and what our wisdom is of God and we have to come every Sunday don't wait to go oh yeah oh yeah right oh yeah yeah yeah I remember yeah I got it because then we go along our week and we kind of forget and then oh right yeah now I know who God is right I pray many times a day his mom prays five times a day equally spaced out throughout the day Muslims pray five times a day in order to go to turn back to turn back to turn back turn back the words repent means you turn back to God and so five times throughout the day you reap at you and I'm not and I belong to you so I pray in the morning at every meal and at night when I go to bed that's five times throughout the day and I'm not Bosley but I've always thought it was good to keep turning back turning back turning back so yeah I I do believe we have that amnesia or at least maybe I can speak for myself I have that empty shot because I get caught up in just the cares of the world and you know the whole person you go whatever sense right exactly it's a perspective that we read where you're forgetful or so on like that yeah that comes with age that I don't know necessarily forget as in it's left my right my mind is it forgetting the right path you know yes to both of those I I know how to get from A to B but sometimes I forget that that's the best way to do it exactly sometimes you know what God once you do you still want to do it yeah and that's not necessarily it leaving your head I do that all the time yeah yeah yeah the motivation to do that yeah and one time you know Sophie and I were out it I think was Knott's Berry Farm and she was probably five or six and we saw a woman that was a Muslim woman put down a little prayer rug in the corner I'm like she she was doing it very discreetly you know kind of like in the corner but outside and I was very proud to pray and when Muslims pray they they bend down you know straining on it on a prayer rug facing in the direction of Mecca and I explained to Sophia what was going on and I said something neat that she's doing that that like instead of just running from one ride to another or to cotton candy or whatever she's taking out just a few minutes doesn't take long to say like thank you God I mean member our Sunday lesson about the one a leper who said thank you when jesus healed him and the nine that ran off on their merry way and and she's taking out time you know just to say thank you and I said to Sophia that's a model and I'm an example of what we're all calling you to say thank you but I'm yours you know I belong to you we know God everything every breath that we heartbeat every relationship every you know our eyesight our hearing our senses our I mean my gosh we could what do we not know God literally every moment of every day so then to take you know a time throughout the day to turn back and turn back and turn back and reaffirm you know I belong to you and I like the God of my own life but you're the god of me and you love me and you want what's best for me and so I will remember reconnect again with you and and you know yeah we do it differently as Christians but you know when we give communion when I give you communion as I'm the as I always have the FedEx delivery guy of the sacrament that's not mine but Jesus is remembering with you he's member in his body with yours and now you when you receive giving and you have the blood of Jesus running in your own veins you have the flesh of Jesus as your flesh now you are remembered again and that's such a powerful sacrament to me because it's just one more way when you hear the word that's all you know faith comes through hearing as Porter says you hear it all but then you have something else that's super tangible with love Christ to say okay yeah this isn't me remembering no no I mean there are meals shared but no not like that no that's a very Christian thing well we have our Muslim guests guests here they were asking me you know like I took him up they were in the chancel area which is you know the area about altar and they were saying you know what is like I just curiosity and everybody very respectful but they were like you know saying what is this and I was explaining when Jesus had his meal you know how do we do this in that and you know they were very interested but they regard me like a cousin and I regard them like a cousin of the Abrahamic faiths and if I was born in you know a joke what are the chances I would have been a Lutheran Christian like none I would have been a Muslim like them but I come from my family and my culture and my tradition and this is how I understand God and who's to say that I have the complete you know handle on all the truths of everything and they are completely lost I that was that's the intelligent mind of God figuring all of that out all I know is that we are super close religiously and I love Buddhists and Hindus and I hey if somebody's on the path trying to seek after the divine I already feel like you and I are best friends because you know really I'd on the path to and if you're on the path and we've got a lot to talk about and we've that we share but on another extra level I feel particularly close to those in the Abrahamic faiths Jewish and Muslim because we share so much in common really we really do but just like when I meet with my cousin I have literal physical cousins and when I meet with them we share a ton of things and you know and I'm sure they're looking at me like you're a little weird you're not quite exactly the same and so you know obviously we're not the same in our religions but we don't have to focus on that constantly we can focus on what we do have in common and how we can share with one another and things like that I mean I have a brother and sister and the three of us are not identical and we could talk forever about how we're different or we could say but here's what we share and we have so much that we can share so that's my hope for these religious traditions that we can meet together and find commonalities and remember our manners and speak with each other with respect to things and not be afraid nobody's up to kill us unless they're like Psychopaths of any nature [Music] yeah when they talk about the Moors coming up and going where they Muslim yes Spanish yes but they they didn't call them yeah like if you read Shakespeare's Othello you know yeah yeah we're gonna talk about Muslim Spain the next time we meet Muslim Spain was a really interesting period in history where most of Europe was going through you know horrible times and like the dark ages you know and and under Muslim rule in Spain a lot of civilization was flourishing yeah anyway so yeah there's a connection with Africa and Islam through there yeah so anything else then let's wrap it up well there is John but John the Baptist's into : no no they never Paul I mean John was a prophet so they're always you physically Oh was the I thought you mean is there an equivalent no I don't believe I I don't know I don't believe so I can look that up yeah well thank you so much for coming out so no class next Wednesday but than the one after that thank you all right

Channel: Cross and Crown Lutheran

Views: 12,140

Rating: 4.7925925 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: AUD19coT6jY

Length: 100min 2sec (6002 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019