The Battle of Ideas
By Ranald Macaulay
Whatever Muslims say it remains a fact that Islam began with war. First Mohammed himself subdued the Arabian peninsular by force. Then muslim armies over-ran the Middle East, the whole of North Africa and almost all Spain – and France would have succumbed but for Charles Martel! No wonder, therefore, that, despite opposition from moderate muslims, the militaristic theme remains prominent even now. Only with difficulty, too, can the popular terminology of Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb (‘House of Islam and House of War’) be given a non-militaristic interpretation in the light of this original expansion.
According to this division of the world, the problems of society can be reduced to a conflict between Truth and Error, between Right and Wrong. Since human experience is inescapably religious, it says, what lies at the heart of all individual and social distress is not religion per sebut false-religion.
How strikingly similar to Christianity all this sounds, does it not, yet how profound the difference. True, there are irreconcilable kingdoms at war with one another, the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness. But, as Paul says in the passage above, the weapons of the Christian faith are not the weapons of the world. The spread of the gospel results from the spread of God’s written and spoken Word, not through physical might. Hence our objection to the Crusades.
The corollary of this, therefore, is that Christians are caught up in a battle of ideas. We are called to ‘demolish arguments’ and ‘bring every thought obedient to Christ’. How? In a multitude of ways: through preaching, teaching, discussion, education, books, tracts and so on. What we do not have is the luxury to be ‘tolerant’ in the modern sense: to allow people to think that religious ideas are like homogenised milk, all swirled together and essentially without distinction.
Hence our programme of apologetic talks this academic year. We started during November with the Worldview Series – ‘the real problem with Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Secular Humanism.’ Then the Ethics Conference on Cloning and Nanotechnology in March. Then finally came the Existence of God Debate at the end of April. Thank you for praying for that. The turnout of over 350 was beyond our expectations. Ian decided last minute to move the venue to a larger hall but we were worried up to the last 15 minutes that we’d be rattling around in it. Then came the hordes, many of them students identifying with the atheist side of the debate. From 5pm till 7pm there was a lively exchange of ideas. Bill Craig from the States spoke well and gave a winsome testimony at the end after an evidently sobering challenge to the opposition. All this, if you want to follow it up, will soon be available on our website. Already, in fact, a lively discussion is going on there following an excellent summary and critique by a young Chinese philosophy student.
Warmly
Ranald
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Ranald Macaulay, 05/05/2005 |
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