This is a new draft of an idea for Christian evangelist who are interested in Muslims. This may end up as an essay someday. Presently it is in rough condition.

9/17/06 11:38 PM Tips on Evangelizing Muslims

I am writing to Christians who wish to make Christians out of Muslims. The key, I now see, is the utilization of the greatest strength of the Muslim claim, namely the purity of the transmission of the divine message.

We are told in many words that there is a book which holds the literal word of God and this sits before God and an angel Gabriel read the book and recited what he read to Mohammed who either memorized it or else had the angel take charge of Mohammed’s vocal mechanism and speak directly through it to men who both memorized what Mohammed said and also wrote it down and put it in safe keeping.

And so we are led to understand that what is in the Koran is identical with the book before God in heaven. Word for word. There is no mistake. This is what the book says.

Now then we accept this premise for the moment and begin to consider the matter of the practical use of this book in determining what one must do in order to be a good slave of Allah, the first thing that pops up among the Muslims themselves is enormous confusion with regard to what it is that Allah is saying that he wants. There is a need of mullahs and inams and specialists and schools of interpretation, and there is a stark lack of clarity, sometimes agreement, very often disagreement.

[* This is true not merely with the notrious disagreement as to the selection of a Caliph, but also in just all aspects of live, e.g., which foot to use first when leaving a bathroom.]

To press this point we will present a contrast. Even by his most ardent supports, the writings of Paul are merely divinely inspired, not dictated as in the case with Mohammed. And so you might very well expect some confusion, due to the understanding and expressions of the human writer. Like an author as opposed to a stenographer. And yet the practical rule is so clear and simple, namely love one’s neighbor as one loves one’s self. And that is the only practical, action-oriented rule. Now this can be understood by children of Paul’s time as well as children of our own time, equally well. And nothing else is required, in a practical, action-oriented way. Children at an early age already possess the notion of fairness and unfairness, and it is on this that the love of neighbor finally rests, in a practical sense.

Now then here is the point. The works of Allah, like his dictation, will be superior to all that any human could ever do, even with the regard to poetic expression as well as clarity. But this he has failed to do with regard to clarity.* Since Paul was able to do this with clarity of the children of all generations, you would think that Allah would have to pull in also the infants, in order to best the best human at his own game, i.e., clear and concise pronouncements of human conduct.

[* It would be interesting, but difficult to compare the poetry of the Koran with that of Paul in 1 Corth 13 and Milton’s ode on his blindness. In terms of beauty or power.]

And so we find a problem in the Islamic story in that this part just doesn’t really quite make any sense. Why would God make a story so that it would be confusing and unclear? Would he perhaps want to make it so that some people would never understand and so, perhaps?, be fitted for a hell that he has in mind? But if he wanted to do this, then he is the same sort of God who would be willing to deceive his believers and finally throw them into hell and send the nonbelievers to paradise, to laugh with him, perhaps, forever.

This should be so troubling as to warrant a more general discussion. What sort of conception would be required in order that such confusion might be thought of in a rational way? Suppose there were a demon named Joe who was supernaturally powerful and who wanted to spread mischief in the world. Such a being would be set on the destruction of the perfection of God’s creation. This is what he might do if he were rational and could find a susceptible mouthpiece for entry into human society. He would tell him many, many things, all sorts of things, all of importance and majesty, and some of these things would be to do good deeds and some to do evil deeds and some to do inane deeds and to mix them all up with personal, each-man-for-himself incentives and thereby remove the moral core of the human and leave instead a lone slave in a cosmic "dog eat dog." Because the human, as the Muslim will admit, is endowed with knowledge of what is good and evil, and acts good due to a respect the moral law of his own rationality (in conceiving of a social world of free beings), we humans cannot accept a blatant immorality and so have to be seduced. We are then seduced through the identification of the good, the evil and the inane under the banner of self-above-all-else. In this way this demon would be able to sow moral corruption in the divine work and thereby finally end morality entirely.

And so we could now make an analysis of the moral make up of Islam, and we find something like this. Everything that is commanded to be done carries with it a threat and a promise, and for that reason the Muslim will bow according to clock and compass and also give something to the poor. The morality of the latter is no more real than if the money were ordered to be burned in a fire. The incentive is not a good deed, but is a bribe of Allah, essentially, for by doing these commanded things, whatever they may be, their reward will be determined, and especially if the mind is set on obedience as opposed to some presumed sense of personal morality. The point is to be conscious of being obedient to Allah in all that one does, for anything else in insincerity, and Allah really hates that, for example delighting in good for the sake of goodness without the consciousness of submission to Allah, as though you were somebody.

This hypothesis finds validation in the high esteem that Abraham is held for his willingness to slay his innocent son. In other words, it is conceivable that God will call for an immoral act. A demon may call for a moral act in an act of subterfuge and disguise, but God will never call for an immoral act. That much we know by virtue of this knowledge of Good and Evil that the Muslim admits to as innate in every human being.

And so the demonic hypothesis does a better fit in explaining the why of the confusion than does the divine hypothesis. It is purposeful in the moral seduction of the human (to cast morality aside). And now let the Muslim sort it out for himself.


This introduces the notion of recognition of the divine and the demonic. The only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that God will never command the immoral. This corresponds to the universal, innate knowledge of the human concerning good and evil (Genesis 3:22a).

[To make a meaningful introduction of the Christian religion to Muslims you really need to be an American Episcopalian in spirit, for then you can show that the only law is the law of love which produces a unified search for truth on the part of like minds and spirits. This is where the "awe" comes in.]

[A place must be made for the Zachaeen member of Christ’s Church]


Paul. Then the case may be made for the Christian faiths. I recommend beginning with Paul as a proper link from Mohammed to Jesus. He is a man like Mohammed who has a vision and comes to produce a communication which he considers to be divinely inspired.* And these writings have a pedigree equal to that of the Koran, i.e., these are the actual words of Paul.

[* It is difficult to talk to the Muslim about Jesus since the Muslim recitation has much to say about Jesus which diverges from the Christian story. And while the Koran has been here discredited, these old ideas of Jesus will linger and so I think Paul makes a better entry way for Muslims, especially since the Muslims are counted among the fortunate gentiles to whom Paul was also sent.]

The man reports a transformed life, from an enemy of Jesus to his evangelist to the gentiles. he tells us that Jesus appeared as a Jew, due to the promises the Jews sincerely believed, but actually was appearing as a human to all the world. The laws of religion are swept all away by this man and were replaced by the single: in the application of the law of love all things are lawful and only expediency in the application was a question. The supremacy of this single rule of all Christian conduct is borne out by John 5 where Jesus himself breaks the revealed law of God in order to do good immediately.*

[* Here most current evangelists will have problems with this carte blanche to the law of love, and will have others rules and requirements, e.g., if you have a penis you may not touch another penis with your mouth. Until this is overcome, the appeal to the Muslim will lack in power and awe. For you have already entered into confusion as now the bible must be studied in order to know what it is that is required to be pleasing to God. A exposition and defense of the notion of the liberty of the gentile Christian would be helpful to evangelists who wish to tread along the way being outlined here.]

He goes further and tells people that this Jesus went voluntarily along with a plot to take this life and that he did it in order to assure people that their sins were forgiven in the sight of God by following the way. And then, according to Paul, he rose from the death to assure those who knew him and who loved him that they would never fail in their quest for perfection in love and in becoming “perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.” In brief: everyone has a second chance and success is guaranteed for those who take it, i.e., you will face God in a way acceptable to him.

The best explanation of the atonement can be given through the notion of the “binity” with Christ.

A binity is an object which can have two absolutely identical examples, but which are different. the left and right hands make up a binity of hand, for each is a perfect representation of a hand, and yet they cannot wear the same glove. In a like way we can think of a binity of Christ between Jesus and myself, where we both represent the same spirit, Jesus immediately and me progressively, and are both one and different. In this way then Jesus dies in binity with me and so I die with him, and likewise now I live with him in Christ and want to be prepared to die for him if called upon.

With regard to a possible Muslim question concerning justice and the payment of my sins, the rational answer is simple: by entering in upon the Way I take on a host of new ills that I would not have otherwise had to have, e.g., no longer lying but having to suffer the consequences of the truth, and this potentially infinite host cancels out all the sins that I was willing to do before entering in on the Way, even if I did not have the opportunity and which were also infinite in character. The sincere readiness to suffer these ills without complaint counts in a moral court as equal to the ills that I actually deserved (for we are dealing here with spirit and not with the acts which happen to ensue from this spirit in accordance with opportunity, and which are vary and which are not morally useful events) Morally my entering upon the way in this consciousness pays for my former sinful disposition.

And so there we have it. the clear message of Paul is that the only thing that counts with God is a pure heart of love and that all people who will join with Jesus in his death will also join with him in his resurrection, i.e., they will in fact achieve perfection and they are in fact deemed by God has having already achieved to that perfection (for it is just a matter of time).

Ramblings Follow

3:27 PM How was it that Paul was so certain that he had indeed experience Jesus in the sky? Immediately it will have been the blindness and the resumption of sight as predicated, and that was enough to prompt his baptism. But what must he had thought of in those intervening hours after this encounter? He is alive. And he has call me to serve him among the gentiles. What’s going on? He is alive and I have been called not to punishment, that I deserve by being his enemy, but rather to his service. I have been called to the gentiles. Why? Unless God loves then the gentiles just as much as the Jews and so he loves them both equally and greatly, and the Jew has his tradition to brag about to others. But why not make all people into Jews? I am to go for him to the gentiles and bring them the good news of his death and resurrection for them. I am the enemy turned friend, but they are the ones who simply do not know him.

Paul then would have realized that what pleased God was a clean heart and love of neighbor, and that this was sufficient for the fashioning of a perfect world, i.e., if all followed this principle first and foremost the world would be a happy place.

And so I think then that Paul is able to confirm his suspicion of the removal of all law as the purpose of Jesus’s call to him and the utilization of the law of love alone for constructing a perfect world and for pleasing God in doing so.

The man must be understood in his own understanding of different responsibilities among the things of the earth, men leading, women following, masters ordering, slaves complying, the sun rises and sets, and the sky is a hard metallic upside-down bowl.

He is impressed by the supernatural and wowed by the conception and of its correspondence with the moral heart of the human, i.e., all right thinking people will recognize the truth of this. It was Jesus’s Church, where all that counts is that one is on the Way, walking or running or stumbling as best he could.


Mohammed. Mohammed decides quit differently. He has this encounter with a being in the cave who declares that he is Gabriel of God. It is a powerful, supernatural encounter. Mohammed doesn’t know if it is a demon or an angel and asks his wife who tells him to get undressed the next time he sees the being and if it is an angel it will retire out of modesty, while if it is a demon he will stay and watch what you do when you are naked. Mohammed does this and the being retreats. Hence an angel. Also Mohammed’s wife checks with a Christian relative or friend and they both decide that this would have to be an angel, that Mohammed was too clean and decent for any demon to want to be around him. Hence indeed an angel. And then I think there is another scene told where Mohammed goes to the mountain to throw himself over, thinking himself possessed as one of the mad poets, and is stopped by the being in some way that is convincing to Mohammed that it is indeed and beyond question an angel.

Mohammed’s conception, current at the time I suppose, is that demons are brutes who have no reason and cannot think through to conclusions. They are attracted to filth and repelled by cleanness. Mohammed makes much of being clean and perhaps this could serve to silence those detractors who said it was a demon: “we are commanded to wash ourselves after passing wind in order to be acceptable to Allah. A demon would have you come to him filthy and nasty, but not Allah. This is no demon.”

The solution here is clear, Mohammed does not have an adequate conception of the possibilities of the supernatural, namely beings who are active in thwarting the creation of God, let us say, and who are rational and can think and act in terms of objectives and goals and who can act purposefully. We are dealing with the supernatural which means merely above human (and thus ultimately unknowable by us) and there is no reason not to think of demons as rational and purposeful beings who seek to spread mischief and evil in God’s creation. The human respects, though he still breaks, the moral law, while the demon can easily be conceived of as disrespecting the moral law and even hating it. Ero, he must enter into the equation as a possibility, for we are dealing with the future of one's soul.

Overview of the entire project:

1. show the vaunted perfection of the dictation is a two-edge sword which cuts both ways. This is shock and brings up the possibility of a problem. This encompasses the notion of utter perfection coupled with the confusion of the actual dictation and how this is obviously not superior of Paul’s effort. This is a problem for the Muslim.

2. Suggest perhaps that all revelations can be subjected to the demon-test or the two hypothesis for explaining the facts, an angel or a demon named Allah who called himself Gabriel.

3. Go through the procedure with Islam and find Mohammed's dictation is more easily explained by the demonic hypothesis than by the divine, and in fact the latter seems impossible due to the moral corruption which enters into the human soul by means of this recitation, and for which confusion in understanding would aid in the seduction into an immoral frame of mind (and whereby the entire world would be brought into a self-imposed slavery of the mind from which the knowledge of good and evil would simply vanish as a thought).

4. Show the shortcomings of Mohammed’s determination that his Gabriel was speaking the truth. Imperfect conception of a demon. And he should have known that God would not have told Abraham or anyone to commit an immoral act like slaying his own son.*

[* The Christians are able to consider Abraham as knowing that he would not kill his son because he would not be allow to harm the lad for the promise of the grandchildren had not yet been fulfilled. And so there was no question of murderous intent on the part of the Christian take on the tale reported by the Jews.]

6. Compare now again to Paul’s determination concerning the vision. Immediately the blindness and predicted recovery and then the conception of the universal love of God for all people. He was convinced of the sufficiency of the law of love for all human conduct. And so eventually the message itself convinced him, along with the change that he noticed in his own life, which he considered to be miraculous, that he the enemy of Christ was now seeking also to die for the sake of this same Christ, i.e., he had become his friend. community.

7. Lots remaining, e.g., how is it that the Paulian Christian of utter lawlessness was lost and replaced by the Peterian Christians from which it is only now making good strides in ending that confusion and clarifying things. Gets involved with church history and of course Great Constantine.