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Chapter One: The Pope and the Prince – God, the Great Chasm and the Building of Bridges

In February 2006, the global crisis triggered by the Danish satirical caricatures of the prophet Muhammed even led to the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, to speak out. Six months later, in September 2006 the Pope said in his Regensburg speech: ‘Intolerance and violence can never be justified as a response to offences’ – causing the ‘Arab street’ again in various places to erupt in violence. The Pope’s speech suggested that Islam’s ‘inner nature’ shows an undeniable connection to violence. Benedict’s Christianity posits: ‘Reason is God and God is Reason’. Islam’s God ‘is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.’ Which is a way of saying the Muslim God is an arbitrary deity, and therefore Islam is incompatible with deliberative democracy.

In an Open Letter to the Pope, Muslim scholars wrote that the famous verse from the Qu’ran ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ is binding in Islam, and those who have engaged in forced conversions have ‘violated Islamic tenets’. The Open Letter reminded Benedict XVI that, since Vatican 2 (1962-5) the Catholic Church has affirmed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Astonishingly (says Volf) at the end of the Open Letter the ‘common essence’ of Christianity and Islam are affirmed: Jesus’ two greatest commandments – love of God and neighbor.

Within a year, an authoritative document – ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’ – was issued by a group of renowned Islamic scholars from all major streams of Islamic thought (‘the intellectual and organizational force behind it was Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal’) , arguing that the commands of God unite Muslims and Christians much more than they divide them. A Common Word affirmed that ‘love’ for God (though that phrase does not exist in the hadith) is implied: ‘Muslims’ hearts… souls and all their faculties must be totally devoted… to God.’ Love of neighbor? Muhammed said (hadith): ‘None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself’.

In Islam, as in Christianity, love of God and love of neighbor are central, argue the signatories of the ‘Common Word’; and ‘If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace’.

There’s room for vigorous debate here. What does it mean to ‘love’? Who counts as ‘neighbor’? How to best describe ‘God’? Is love conditional or unconditional?

The most critical issue: do Christians and Muslims believe in the same God? Is the object of Christians’ and Muslims’ faith the same (even though there are differences between these faiths and within them)?

The ‘Yale Response’ to the ‘Common Word’ (NY Times November 2007: Volf was among the drafters) worked with the ‘same God’ assumption. But Evangelical scholars – like John Piper – disagree: Jesus Christ is the litmus test as to whether we are talking about the same God (see John 14:6-10): ‘the Muslim God is not like Jesus’.

This crucial issue – as to whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God – was faced starkly twice before in history: at the time of the Sack of Constantinople and then the Seige of Vienna: and in the next two chapters we will discuss the responses of two key Christian protagonists (both Germans) at those times: the conciliatory Catholic cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and the fiery Protestant reformer Martin Luther.