What do you as a Christian theologian make of the prophethood of Muhammad?
Do you have any thoughts about that?
I do think Muhammad was a genuine Prophet of God and that he was raised up by God
and that the Quran is in some way an expression of God's Revelation. So I do think that
I am a Christian, I'm a follower of Jesus, so clearly I'm not a Muslim but
I would I think I'm totally opposed to people who misunderstand Islam as a rejection of Christianity.
I think that is not true. I think Islam would as I see it and Muhammad I don't think he knew much
about Christianity. I would have thought he was opposed to some of the views of Christians that he
knew about and I think that's true, but I don't hold any of those views. In fact and none of my
colleagues do. So there are differences, I mean there are clear differences but I
think he was a genuine, Muhammed was a genuine Prophet of one God who stand against a sort of
popularized Christian version of there being three
gods or let's see three different things in god, was correct he was justified in this so I
see the difference between a school of Islam and a school of Christianity has
about the same sort of difference as a difference between me and conservative Evangelical Christians.
That there are differences I can live with those I can respect those who differ from me and I
think we have so I am not infallible so I'm not saying that I know that I'm right, to use
an expression from the Quran 'God will decide who is right' but you have to go along with your
own feelings so I follow Jesus because I think he was a human expression of the wisdom
and love of God and the main message of that is that God loves without exception everyone.
There are Christians who don't believe that, there are Muslims who do believe that, right but wouldn't
use words like Incarnation or the Trinity etc some certain forbidden terms but if you accept that
religious language is fluid and that all of us are unable to comprehend the nature of God precisely
I think islam and Christianity shouldn't really be regarded as two different religions. I
think they're two different ways of approaching God and I'm nearer to many Muslims than I am
to many Christians. So that's a very interesting answer can I ask this question it's really
really on behalf of i know some of the muslim viewers audience will want me to ask this.
Muslims also have a very high regard for Jesus clearly yes and see him as a an incredibly
wonderful human being who expressed the love of God to the outcasts and the sinners and so on and
and that's all wonderful, so your admiration for Jesus is shared by Muslims too, or they may be
expressed slightly differently of course. He's not seen as an Icon into God that we pray through
of course but they would wonder the question would be 'Why aren't you a Muslim?' If you accept it
in that mindset if you accept that Muhammad is a prophet of God and you believe in one god
god sent jesus that is virtually a definition of what a muslim believes anyway um so they would
ask why aren't you a muslim and and saying you're a christian is not an answer because
for the reasons you mentioned muslims can already encompass that understanding as well that he
is someone who expresses the love of God to you and the wisdom of God in a
very special way, you know many sufi muslims could say yeah absolutely we agree with you but we're
muslims so the question is 'Why are you not a Muslim?' That's the question. Well it's like
asking me why i'm an Anglican or an Episcopalian rather than a Methodist um because that's the way
of thinking of God which has i feel demanded my loyalty. So it's a bit like saying why
do you uh prefer one view of philosophy to another view of philosophy and you say well because
that that's the way that seems right to me that attracts me to demands my loyalty and once your
loyalty is demanded well i said this for a muslim too of course you stay true to what has revealed
god to you so i say all right the end why i'm a christian is because i have personally experienced
i believe that i have personally experienced the presence of jesus christ actually um
affecting what i feel and think. And so i have no alternative you know this is
this is the this is the person who has revealed god to me personally but i so i'm not denying
that muslims can have god revealed to them in a different way and i honor that way
but it's not my way that's not i would like to try to understand it more that's true
and be much in affinity with the Muslim world of thought but it's just not the way
that it's happened for me it's not my it's not my not part of my autobiography. A
supplementary question to that it just occurred to me you acknowledged that Muhammad is
a prophet, in your in your knowledge of your colleagues in in Christian theology globally
how widespread is that view do you think that Mohammed was a prophet of God amongst your
academic colleagues who are christian theologians? I think it's almost universally accepted, I mean as
you know even I suppose Roman Catholics are on the whole more conservative than i would be
as an episcopalian but they now officially believe that uh islam is a revelation of god and
that that's Vatican II, official electoration so i think it was my colleagues would undoubtedly
say that. I mean I know lots of Christians wouldn't. But no well that's
why i meant theologians, particularly those who know theologians would all accept
but you know the truth yeah well if you're asking the question how influential are
theologians on most christians the answer is not in this matter
yeah, no I there's some of you input yeah anyway but that's interesting that
that will come as quite a a revelation and a quite a shocking thing to say that
uh in your experience most of your academic christian theological colleagues who are
not catholics would actually see muhammad as a Prophet of God. Yes, yes, I think that's true. That's
remarkable! That I didn't know actually it was a genuine question of mine um that's interesting
so that that suggests a certain openness to other faiths and and overcoming these cultural barriers
and looking beyond our own comfort zones and and recognizing patterns of commonality and similar
spiritual dynamics and spiritual realities across the boundaries between religions and theologians
today are well equipped to do that in our world in our global village perhaps.
I know you will know the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith who was the founder of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions,
and he was an expert on islam that was his scholarly
field uh and he he actually recommended that we should stop using the word religion
as though there were different blocks of huge beliefs which everybody who's a christian has this
block and everybody who's a muslim has that block and we just should talk about ways of faith and
ways of approaching god and um i mean sympathy with that i think talking about a religion
you know some of my some of the christians i know don't believe anything that i believe
except they use the word jesus but they're talking about somebody else.
I think that this speaks of a yawning chasm shall we say between your world in that sense uh of the
academic theologians and certainly many in the pew say in the united states and and um africa
and other parts of the world where that they are exclusivists to the absolute you know only
i hear this all the time, only jesus will lead you to god and i say well okay so moses didn't
know jesus is he damned because you've got to believe in jesus to be saved well what about all
the prophets they didn't know and i'm not quite sure what the answer they give to that but it's
a very uh binary absolutist exclusive world view which is a million miles from your own of course
and it's a million miles away from uh saying that jesus is the savior of the world not of one little
group within the world and of course people like ME and again most most of my academic colleagues
would in general agree with this we would say that the savior of the world is of course god
and it's only insofar as jesus mediates god that jesus is the savior of the world and we believe
he does mediate god so we can say that but we're not excluding everybody else because god wants to
save the whole world and i'm very clear about that and i think some of my muslim friends and i have
been have a close association with the Oxford Islamic Centre and i think
most of them i think believe that too.
I just want to say thank you very much indeed for your time and um
it was really really fascinating and i know uh many muslims um will be very interested
in what you've said but in clarifying because we're often used to uh fundamentalist christians
having a go and to hear an alternative voice of which your voice is certainly
more more representative of christianity i think than the harsh extremism
that we hear of it's good that muslims hear this and you're more openness to
islam as well to be frank so um yeah thank you so much. I actually think Paul that until
all the the major developed spiritual faiths of the world i include india and buddhism
and forms of hinduism in this too until they come to a greater understanding of their own historical
perspective and development and and shared goals and their differences as well and but
have a sympathetic appreciation of that until that happens uh we're not going to adequately perceive
the truth of our own tradition that we belong to. Yes, excellent. Well thank you very much and
i'm going to end the discussion now and and thank you everyone for listening in and
please leave your comments and your thoughts as well. Until next time. Thank you. I do think
that Muhammad was a genuine Prophet of God. I do think that Muhammad was a genuine Prophet of God.