Moslems by T. E. BOWEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 29, 1912

Moslems

By T. E. BOWEN

T. E. BOWEN

JAMES P. McNAUGHTON, in the Moslem World, touches the root of the weakness of the Mohammedan faith to uplift the soul, in the following:—

“Although ninety names are used in characterizing God, Father is not one of them. Moslems have no conception of God in the capacity of fatherhood; their idea is more that of an Oriental despot, — merciful, if you will, but arbitrary to the last degree. It offers no hope of salvation except through personal merit; no Saviour, no atonement. . . . Lying, licentiousness, cheating, polygamy, divorce, and heaven are a program that so completely suits fallen man that it is no wonder Islam is gaining followers rapidly.

“The Moslem problem is difficult of solution on account of its strong points. A religion containing some of the cardinal truths of our faith is much harder to influence than that which is burdened with the crude conceptions of fetishism or crass idolatry. The Moslem holds much truth mixed up with much error. He believes in one God, maker of heaven and earth; he believes that Christ was a prophet, but not divine; he believes in the forgiveness of sins, in the resurrection

and life everlasting. Now, a man holding in firm conviction so much that is strong can not be expected to abandon his fortress without a struggle; indeed, he thinks his fortress stronger than ours. We find men in the home land who say, ‘Why do you not leave the Mohammedan alone? His religion is good enough for him.’ Is it? Hear what Schlegel, the German scholar, has to say of it: ‘A prophet without miracles, a religion without mysteries, and a morality without love, which has encouraged a thirst for blood, and which began and ended in unbounded sensuality.’ ”

It is the incarnation of Christ—the divine Son of the living God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth—that tolls the death knell of Mohammedanism.

“Now why does not the Moslem accept Christianity that presents so much richer a monotheism, not only a God of infinite power, but a God of infinite love, interpreted to us through the blessed incarnation? It is just here that the difficulty appears. The presentation of Christ in his divinity is a direct attack upon monotheism. The Trinity to the Moslem is tritheism. It is the disintegration of the great thought of God’s oneness.”

“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” is a statement wholly incomprehensible to a Moslem mind. What avail is it to him that the Holy Spirit penned, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”? Thus the very hopelessness of the Moslem faith should be the strongest appeal possible to lead those who know the living Christ, who have experienced the blessedness of his love, to seek to win to him the followers of Mohammed. The third angel’s message has power in it to win Moslems. And it has already won some to Christ, the living Leader of this movement which is going to the nations of the earth to-day.