Christianity and Islam are the world’s top two religions in terms of numbers: Christianity ranks first, Islam second. Numbers are no proof of truth, and many people included in the numbers are not very committed or genuine. Still, Christianity and Islam are the two most popular and powerful faiths in the world today.
The way Christians and Muslims deal with each other is extremely important. The number of people involved is so huge, the feeling so strong, and the history of conflict so painful, that it would be foolish and dangerous to provoke each other needlessly. At the same time, it’s also foolish and dangerous to pretend there’s little difference between Christianity and Islam.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, some church officials were so eager to get along with Muslims that they talked as though Muhammad, the chief prophet of Islam, and Jesus, the central figure of Christianity, simply offer different paths to the same God. Nathan Baxter, dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., addressed a prayer to “the God of Abraham, Muhammad, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.“ This may sound like a nice prayer that includes both Christianity and Islam. But in fact it excludes both.
No real Muslim can pray to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, because no real Muslim believes that God is the Father of Jesus. Muslim don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son and Lord of the universe. Muhammad taught that such belief is wicked blasphemy.
Meanwhile, no real Christian can pray to the god of Muhammad. Muhammad rejected the Holy Trinity, which means he denied the God worshiped by Christians. Muhammad denied that God the Son came to earth as a human in the person of Jesus.
If a church official prays to the god of Muhammad and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, it means the official is not a Christian but a theological liberal who has invented his own religion. Theological liberals claim to respect both religions, but they don’t really believe either one.
I’m as eager as anyone for Christians and Muslims to get along better. But let’s not insult both Christianity and Islam by offering a mix that betrays both. Instead, let’s be honest about our differences. Let’s not attack or kill each other over those differences, but let’s recognize that the differences are real.
Shared Strengths
It’s wrong to equate the God of Christianity with the God of Islam, and we’re going to look at some key differences. Before going further into that, however, let’s highlight some strengths that Islam has in common with Christianity.
Both religions are monotheistic, insisting that there are not many gods but one. Both religions reject the pagan belief in various gods and goddesses. Both religions reject the pantheistic belief that all things are God or part of God. Both religions insist there is one all—powerful, all—knowing being, with no beginning or end, who rules over all things.
Islam, like Christianity, teaches divine creation and rejects random evolution. The world and the things in it are products of intelligent design, not mindless chance. This is plain to anyone willing to look at the evidence. Islam agrees with Christianity, over against agnostics and atheists, that all things began with a supernatural creative act.
[Muslim and Christians have both made major contributions to society and civilization. Many of the world’s great philosophers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and inventors were Christians from predominantly Christian countries. But Muslim societies also have made major contributions. Arabic numerals are used by almost all of us. Muslim concern for clean living and healing has produced advances in medicine. Muslims have written powerful poetry, gripping stories, and brilliant philosophy.]
“Islam stands with Christianity on many social issues,“ points out Marvin Olasky, editor of World magazine. “Islam opposes homosexuality and (generally) abortion. Islam emphasizes honesty in business. Muslims are not supposed to sell blemished produce, to cheat in weights and measures, to hoard, or to conceal a product’s faults.“ Many ethical rules in the Koran are similar to statements in the Bible.
It’s good to note the shared strengths of Christianity and Islam. But along with the shared strengths, there are deep differences. There are differences about what the supreme being is really like, about who Jesus is and what he accomplished, and about how to be right with God and enjoy everlasting blessings.
Who is God?
Let’s focus first on what God is like. A student at a Christian college wrote in a college publication about his perceptions of Islam after listening to Muslim visitors to the campus. This young man somehow got the impression that “the God of Christianity is the same God of Islam.“ He wrote that Muslims “pray five times a day to the same wonderful, merciful God that I serve.“ That’s a common idea in some circles, but it’s wrong. Christians and Muslims don’t worship the same God.
Christianity teaches that there is one God and that this one God is a union of three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The oneness of Father, Son, and Spirit is such that it is wrong to speak of three Gods. There is only one God, an eternal union of love in the Holy Trinity. When the Bible says “God is love,“ it’s not just because God is loving toward us but also because God’s inner being is characterized by the eternal love that unites Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Islam believes in one god but not in the God Christians love and worship. Muhammad rejected the Trinity. He fiercely opposed the Christian belief that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, with the same divine nature as God the Father. He denied that the Holy Spirit is a divine person along with the Father and the Son. In fact, the Koran (5:72—75) threatens painful punishment and hell for those who say Christ is God and who believe in the Trinity. A Muslim writer says, “The doctrine of Trinity, equality with Allah, and sonship, are repudiated as blasphemies.“
The Bible is not describing the god of Muhammad when it says of Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word“ (Hebrews 1:3). The god of Muhammad is not the same God Christians worship. I am not trying to insult anyone when I say this. I am simply stating a fact. When I worship the Holy Trinity and revere Jesus Christ as God, I am doing something no Koran—believing Muslim is permitted to do. Let’s be honest about this, rather than pretending we all worship the same God.
I cringe when some church leaders at civic events try to pretend they worship the same God as non—Christians worship. It’s wrong to take part in interfaith prayer events with people who don’t accept Jesus as Lord. Such events may serve a political purpose, but they dishonor the living God. It’s even worse when supposedly Christian participants in such events don’t mention the name of Jesus in prayer because they fear offending someone.
At a memorial service in Yankee Stadium for people who died in terrorist attacks, there were leaders from various religions. Some of these leaders were supposed to be Christians, but they gave little sign of it. They prayed to a vague god and said nothing of Jesus. Someone sang a hymn to Mary, “Ave Maria,“ but nobody sang a hymn to Christ. A priest ended his prayer by saying, “Mary, queen of peace, pray for us,“ but he didn’t mention Jesus, nor did other supposedly Christian clergy. Apparently, it was considered okay to pray to Mary but too offensive to pray in Jesus’ name in the presence of those who don’t accept Jesus as God with us.
Meanwhile, a Muslim cleric at the same event made no effort to hide his convictions. He declared repeatedly, “Muhammad is the prophet of Allah,“ without embarrassment or apology. Though I don’t share his belief, I respect his honest declaration of where he stands. But I have little respect for church officials who don’t have the courage or conviction even to mention Jesus, let alone declare that Christ is God and the one way to be saved.
As a Christian, I do not pray to the same God as Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus. I pray to the God who is Trinity, the God who came to us in Jesus Christ. If anyone does not accept Christ as the Son of God, then he and I do not pray to the same God.
The Real Jesus
Muslims believe that Jesus was born of a virgin through a great miracle. They believe that Jesus was a prophet. They even speak of Jesus as Messiah in some sense. But they do not accept Jesus as the Son of God, with all the divine attributes of God the Father. Anyone who claims to accept Jesus as a prophet but rejects him as God is not accepting Jesus at all. They are accepting only their own made—up version of Jesus.
The Bible contains many statements from Jesus himself and from his closest friends, clearly identifying Jesus as God. Muslims dismiss such statements as falsehoods that have crept into the Bible over the centuries. They say that the Koran, not the Bible, is the final authority when it comes to understanding who Jesus is. But think about it. The authors of the Bible knew Jesus personally, saw him in action, heard him speak, enjoyed close friendship with him, and wrote exactly what the Lord directed them to write. Muhammad, on the other hand, lived 600 years after Jesus walked this earth and never knew Jesus at all. Why believe someone six centuries removed from Christ, rather than the Bible’s eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ closest friends?
The apostle John was the dearest personal friend of Jesus during his time on earth. John heard Jesus say, “I and the Father are one.“ John heard Jesus’ enemies accuse him of blasphemy and snarl, “You, a mere man, claim to be God“ (John 10:30,33). But Jesus proved his claim by rising from the dead and by accepting the worship of a disciple who called him, “My Lord and my God“ (John 20:28). John heard these things and wrote them down. His purpose in writing about Jesus, he said, is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name“ (John 20:31).
Many people did believe in Jesus as God’s Son, but others, already in John’s time, starting doing something similar to what Muhammad would later do: they said Jesus was special but denied that he was the eternal Son of God who came to earth in human flesh. John, under God’s direction, responded by saying, “Such a man is the antichrist——he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also“ (1 John 2:22). It’s not enough to say Jesus was a prophet or someone special. To speak of Jesus as anything less than God with us in human flesh is antichrist thinking.
Eternal Life
John writes in the Bible, “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God“ (1 John 4:15). “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life“ (1 John 5:10) “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding… He is the true God and eternal life“ (1 John 5:20)..
Christianity accepts Jesus as God and trusts the death and resurrection of Jesus as the basis of forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus died on a cross to pay the penalty of sin for all who trust him. He rose again to give joyous eternal life to his people. This salvation is a free gift of God to all who believe and entrust themselves to Jesus. Christianity teaches this, but Islam denies it all.
As one Muslim puts it, “Muslims do not believe that Jesus is God, nor do they believe that God ever chose to come down to earth in a form of a man to die for our sins to purify us and forgive us.“ Muslims don’t believe that our sins can be paid for by the suffering and death of Jesus. In fact, they don’t believe Jesus died at all. They say that Jesus’ enemies thought they killed him but were fooled by appearances. Islam says Jesus didn’t really die but went directly to heaven, so he didn’t die to pay for the sins of others and he didn’t conquer death by rising again.
This contradicts the Bible, which says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us“ (Romans 5:8). When Islam denies that Jesus died to pay for people’s sins, it rejects God’s greatest gift of love.
Islam bases eternal life on how good a person is, not on how loving God is. A Muslim seeks eternal life by working for it, not by trusting Jesus Christ to provide free forgiveness through his death and eternal life through the power of his resurrection. Now, if people are saved by being good enough and deserving it, then it’s necessary to deny that people are born in powerful grip of sin. Christianity teaches that we are born sinners, but Islam denies it. Christianity teaches that even biblical heroes of faith were sinners who did some terrible things, but Islam says otherwise. The Bible says the Noah got drunk (Genesis 9:21), that Abraham lied (Genesis 20:2), that David committed adultery and murder (2 Samuel 11). But Islam denies that such serious sins were ever committed by prophets of God. However, the Bible tells the truth about human nature and doesn’t cover up the faults even of those who belonged to God. These people were saved not by being good enough but by repenting and trusting God to forgive their sins for the sake of the Savior God had promised.
Islam prefers the idea that we have the ability, through our own efforts, to do what is necessary to have eternal life. [A Muslim must submit to the Five Pillars of Islam: (1) declare that there is no god except the god, Allah, whose prophet is Muhammad; (2) pray five times each day; (3) give to the poor; (4) fast each year during the month of Ramadan; and, (5) if possible, go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the Arabian city were Muhammad established Islam. Islam teaches that if a Muslim observes these Five Pillars faithfully and submits to the many other rules and regulations in the Koran, he can earn entrance into heaven.] According to Islam, humans are not born in sin, so they don’t need salvation——they just need the guidance of Islamic law on what they must do to measure up to the requirements for getting into heaven.
This contradicts the Bible’s message. The Bible reveals God’s law and calls us to holy living, not as a way to earn our own salvation, but as a response to God’s loving gift of salvation. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith——and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God——not by works, so that no one can boast“ (Ephesians 2:8—9).
Living in Love
Christianity differs greatly from Islam on how to receive eternal life and on how to relate to other people and to God. These differences go all the way back to the source, to the differences between Jesus and Muhammad.
The Bible tells of a woman caught in adultery who was brought to Jesus. Some men wanted to stone her, but Jesus spared her life and told her, “Go now and leave your life of sin“ (John 8:11). Contrast that with a Muslim account of a woman who came to Muhammad after getting pregnant through adultery. Muhammad treated her decently until she gave birth, and then had her stoned to death.
Jesus and Muhammad were very different, and they gained a following in very different ways. Christianity is rooted in the love of Jesus Christ, who chose to lay down his life to pay for the sins of others, rather than destroying the sinners. Christ’s mission was not to kill but to die. In the first three centuries after his resurrection, Jesus’ followers spread his message by preaching, persuasion, and love, not by force. Muhammad, on the other hand, did not establish Islam through peaceful persuasion or by laying down his life. Muhammad used military measures to conquer Arabia, and after his death Islam spread to other countries through military conquest. There is a huge difference between the way Jesus established Christianity and the way Muhammad established Islam.
This doesn’t mean that all Christians throughout history have been peaceful and kind or that all Muslims have been warlike and cruel. But Jesus’ methods were clearly not Muhammad’s methods. The difference continues to be felt in the way many countries with biblical background enjoy freedom, while those that emphasize Islamic law have less freedom of religion, less freedom of speech, and almost no freely elected governments.
Christianity and Islam also have significant differences in the realm of marriage and family. Jesus taught that that God designed marriage as a lifelong union of love between one man and one woman and that it’s wrong to divorce without just cause (Matthew 19:3—9). The Bible tells husbands to love their wives enough to die for them, as Christ gave himself for his bride, the church (Ephesians 5:25). Islamic law, on the other hand, allows men to beat their wives. A man can have up to four wives, and if the man divorces one of them, he gets to keep the kids. This doesn’t mean all Muslims are wife—beaters and polygamists or that all people who claim to be Christians have ideal marriages. Far from it! But there’s a big difference between the Christian teaching on marriage and the Muslim teaching.
Religious worldview can affect government structures and family relationships, but nowhere is the impact of religious differences more profound than in the way a person relates to God. The god of Islam is mainly a master who deals with his servants on the basis of whether they follow his rules. The God of Christianity is a great King, but for those who trust him, he is also a Father and a Friend who made a huge sacrifice to pay for the sins of those he loves. Christians must approach God with reverence and awe, but we may also pray to him with confidence. God is not just a supreme monarch far above us. He is a close companion who has lived among us in the person of Jesus and who lives within us Christians in the person of the Holy Spirit. This makes possible a warm, intimate relationship with God that Islam could never dream of.
In pointing out some differences between Christianity and Islam, I don’t want to add any fuel to the flames of hatred. But I want to make it clear that the god of Muhammad is not the Father of Jesus Christ. What is your response? Will you trust the Trinity of love, whose very being has been love from all eternity? Will you receive eternal life by trusting the love of God poured out for sinners when Jesus died and rose again? That is the way of salvation. There is no other.
David Feddes
Dr. David Feddes is pastor of Family of Faith Church and provost of Christian Leaders Institute, which supports mentor-based ministry training through online courses. David is also adjunct missiologist for Crossroad Bible Institute, which provides biblical distance education to more than 40,000 people in prison. Previously he served as broadcast minister for the Back to God radio program, reaching people in more than fifty countries. David earned his Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL and is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Wendy, have nine children (one in heaven).
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