Mistaken Identity

Ironically enough, though this blog is titled "Notes from the back pew", I can normally be found sitting right up front on the first or second pew. That, thankfully, was not the case this last Sunday however. We had a special combined service this week and all 3 of our services met together in the fellowship hall at a mutual hour. I sat with some of the families of the youth group near the back of the Hall. The service started out beautifully with the entire congregation standing together and lifting up God's name in praise and adoration. I was transported through divine glory right into the very presence of God seeing our divided congregations singing out to God as one. It was magnificent.
Until...

We had a guest speaker come to speak on the current situation in the holy lands between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I had had an uneasy feeling about this all morning. I did not agree with the decision to allow the pulpit to be used as a forum for a public service announcement in lieu of a proclamation of God's word, but had resigned my self to not "rock the boat". What I heard proclaimed from the pulpit shocked, frightened and saddened me. It almost made me physically ill. Our esteemed guest speaker first twisted scripture to imply that when Jesus mourned for his Children in Jerusalem He was referring to modern day Jerusalem and all of her current inhabitants, Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. This flew in the face of all I knew to be true about scripture. Every time Israel, Judah, or Jerusalem is mentioned in scripture it refers to the people who originally inhabited those lands under those names, more specifically the chosen people of God, the Jews. While this sat heavily upon my heart I was content to sit through the rest of our speakers presentation, because while this was a misrepresentation of scripture it was not yet heretical. I chose to believe that she could still be going somewhere good with her message. I pray I had been right, but what she said shortly after had me walking out of the service.
Our invited guest informed our congregation that God is known to many people by many different names. "Some call Him YHWH, others call Him Jesus, and others call him allah." My wife tells me that I turned white upon hearing this message proclaimed from the pulpit of a Christian Church. I immediately gathered my belongings and walked out of the service.
It pains me to think of the damage being done globally in the name of "love" and "acceptance". While I agree with the premise of our speakers message, that we should do everything within our power to help and support our Islamic neighbors and to attempt to bring peace to their region, I cannot sit idly by and allow their false god to be equated to The Master and Creator and Savior of the universe. Doing so goes against everything our speaker claims to want for these hurting and dying people. She was correct in her assertion that God has many names, and one of them is Prince of Peace. How can people hope to bring Him , the instrument of peace, to this region when they don't acknowledge that He is who He says He is, and who He is not.
As a member of the United Methodist Church I proudly acknowledge that our is the denomination of social justice. I firmly believe that we as God's children, brothers and sisters of Christ himself, are to act upon our faith and take God's love and compassion to the farthest reaches of this globe. We are to be His hands and Feet serving the least, the last and the lost. We are to champion the causes of the underprivileged, and to attempt to bring an end to needless bloodshed and warring. But we cannot forget or worse yet twist and pervert the scripture while we are doing so! Jesus the Christ is the Way, THE TRUTH, and the Life! Any one who believes that allah and He are one in the same is sadly mistaken and at greater risk of eternal damnation than those who believe that allah is the one and only true god. These "appeasers" and "deniers" hope to bring about social harmony by denying the deity of the One they claim to be serving, and in the process lead several people astray, preaching a false gospel and a false god.
Let us pray for these people that the One True God may speak to them and show them the folly of their supposition before it is too late. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters and neighbors in the war torn regions of this world that true Peace, The Prince of Peace Himself, may come and bring an end to these conflicts, after all He is the Only Way, the Only Truth, and the Only Life. Let us pray that His name stop being maligned and equated with false religion and dogma. Let us pray without ceasing for His will to finally, once and for all, be done here on this very earth which He created exactly as it is done in heaven. Let us pray!

- Roman