May I simply state, in Father Dave's own words, what I understand this book to be about.
"I’m hoping that this book will have a transforming effect on many lives, and on church people in particular ... We are on a road that has not been well-travelled of late. Our destination though is glorious." "I’m not suggesting that world peace will suddenly fall into our laps once we learn to get along, but neither do I underestimate the positive impact that the church could have on the domestic and global situation if we stood up and showed ourselves to be true to our creed."
"I also want to say more. I want to state that it’s never ‘what the Bible says’ or ‘what the Qur’an says’ that is the problem. It’s what believers think their scriptures say that is the issue. Nobody ever went to war simply because of the wording of their scripture. It’s always a matter of interpretation. It’s what you think your scripture says that is important."
"I’m not suggesting for a moment that there is no connection between what is written in the scripture and how it is interpreted. I’m not even suggesting that the Qur’an isn’t a more fertile source of martial inspiration than the New Testament. Even so, the variety of denominations and sects within both Christianity and Islam are testimony to the fact that both the Bible and the Qur’an can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and indeed, there are preachers of violence and non-violence within both religions."
"Unfortunately, I have heard numerous Christian apologists citing inflammatory passages from the Qur’an with complete disregard for how the passages are interpreted by those who treat them as Scripture and, of course, they do so as if there were no inflammatory passages within their own Scriptures. The truth is that both the Qur’an and the Bible contain significant amounts of potentially inflammatory material, depending upon how it is interpreted."
"‘Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks’ says the Psalmist (Psalm 137) in one of any number of Old Testament verses that could be used to incite a holy war. And those who think that such jihadist catch-cries are limited to the Jewish Bible forget how the words of Christ used in the parable of the great feast – ‘force them to come in’ (Luke 14:23) – were used by the Crusaders to justify forcing Christian conversion on Muslim peoples they conquered."
"Of course, I don’t believe the words of Christ in the parable were meant to encourage forced conversion any more than I believe Psalm 137 justifies violence against children. If you want to know how I and the vast majority of Christians interpret these passages, you only need to ask us. Likewise, if we want to know how Muslims deal with passages in the Qur’an that sound inflammatory to us then we need to ask them how they interpret these passages, and surely, we should ask them before jumping to conclusions.
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Top reviews from other countries
Samuel
This is a book written by a Christian for Christians
Reviewed in the United States on 24 January 2021Verified Purchase
Laura
Good
Reviewed in Spain on 28 November 2020Verified Purchase
