THE ALTERNATIVE With Reno Omokri
This is a recurring question and there is a lot of misinformation and ignorance on this issue and it affects peaceful coexistence, therefore, it is worth treating. With facts. Not emotions. Yes, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic faiths, but whether or not they lead to the same God should be settled by what the holy scriptures of these religions say, rather than what we think or feel. Religious conflicts occur when we let our EMOTIONS dominate us. If we want to be stable persons, we must obey these four things before we obey our EMOTIONS.
• CONSCIENCE
• PRINCIPLES
• WISDOM
• INTELLIGENCE
All four of them are greater than EMOTION when it comes to making religious decisions.
I tried to reach Daddy Freeze privately to no avail because I hate to disagree with him publicly, and I am only doing this because from the comments on his post about Christians and Muslims having the same God, I saw that the faith of many believers was and is being undermined.
I strongly disagree with Freeze when he says we are worshipping the same God with Muslims. I have read The Bible and the Quran. The God of The Bible called Christ His Son with His own Voice (He did not speak through a prophet. He spoke by Himself from heaven to the hearing of those standing with Christ and Yohannan (John the Baptist) by the River Jordan in Matthew 3:17. Meanwhile, the Quran rejects that Christ is the Son of God in Quran 5:116. By this alone, it is indisputable that we do not serve the same God.
Allah is not the name of God. Allah means God in Arabic, just as El means God in Hebrew. The word Allah existed even before Islam existed. One of the companions of Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was a Christian priest. He used the word Allah and it referred and refers to God. For the Christian, God’s name is not God. He has a Name that is Holy and that Name is written in Scripture.
Daddy Freeze says that all those who disagree that Christians and Muslims worship the same God are motivated by money. I give my congregants money, and I do not take from them. I don’t receive tithes. So, this is not about money. I have no other motive for saying this other than loyalty to God.
John 14:6 says “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. Any route to the God of our Lord and Saviour that does not go through Christ is a route to another deity. “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things”-1 Corinthians 8:6. Your statement may be accurate if you say ‘we all want to serve the same one God’.
Daddy Freeze has promised to go into prayers to reflect on what I said. We remain as close as we have always been. But there is a deeper aspect to this fallacy that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
In search of coexistence, those who love peace sometimes overzealously seek to compromise, to syncretize our various faiths and come up with a hybrid faith that pleases everybody. But guess what, religion is not meant to please man. It is meant to please God. So, no matter how annoying your faith may be to the next man, do not try to seek peace with him by amending your beliefs to suit his. Instead, seek peace by understanding his religion for the purpose that as much as depends on you, you should not do anything to offend his religion.
it is better to be willing to die for your faith than to live to see it watered down or synchronized with another religion. That is why I respect Leah Sharibu and have gone to 36 countries at my own personal expense, begging influential world leaders to help secure her release.
The God and Father of our Lord, the Christ, is not the same God as is worshipped by other religions, with the exception of Judaism. He cannot be. Galatians 1:8 put paid to that. That verse says “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel OTHER than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!”.
I will never make a judgment on Islam or on any other religion. There is no compulsion in religion. But I am a Christian and I make no apologies for that. I do not believe in any other holy book outside Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, though I have read the Quran and the holy books of other religions. The difference between Christianity and Islam can never be forgotten. It can only be understood. What the Quran said in Quran 5:116 about Christ denying that He is the Son of God, is a direct contradiction of what the God of the Scriptures said directly from His throne in Heaven in Matthew 3:17 (“This is my beloved SON, in whom I am well pleased”). It is the same thing as saying that that Voice which Spoke from heaven lied and I do not believe that our God is a liar. So, the best thing is that we agree to disagree without fighting each other.
The first person who actually made the statement to my hearing that we, Christians, worship the same God as Muslims, was not my friend, Daddy Freeze, but an Archbishop and former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, whose name a present leader of CAN has appealed to me to keep out of this article. I will only say that this fellow recently retired from his office as an Archbishop.
The fellow said that to my hearing on November 7, 2013. He said and I quote “we (Christians and Muslims) worship the same God. When we get to heaven we will know who is right”. Nowhere is that statement by Archbishop ********* supported in Scripture.
Two months ago, I saw Archbishop ********* at the Business Class lounge of Ethiopian Airlines at Addis Ababa, and he looked perhaps surprised when I walked past him and totally ignored him. I have nothing but contempt for Archbishop *********. On the day he made the statement, I felt like giving him a piece of my mind. I was fuming!! I had to restrain myself because I was representing then President Goodluck Jonathan at the Interfaith Activities and Partnership for Peace and it was being aired on television.
You may say, it is unChristlike for me to have shunned Archbishop ********* as I did this past September. I direct your attention to Romans 16:17 “MARK them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the DOCTRINE which you have learned; and AVOID them.”
I have to say that that statement by Archbishop ********* undermined the faith of many believers. By saying (and it is caught on camera in case he tries to deny it), that “we worship the same God. When we get to heaven we will know who is right”, Archbishop ********* exposes the fact that he does not know his God and as Scripture says “the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”-Daniel 11:32.
Beyond that, it also betrays the fact that Archbishop *********’s faith is not certain because he says it is “when we get to heaven that we will know”. That is not faith. That is speculation.
Job 19:25 says, “I KNOW that my Redeemer lives”. (NIV). That is certainty! It does not say that I GUESS that my Redeemer lives and when I get to heaven, I will be sure! I pray that Archbishop ********* gets an encounter with God.
Any faith that is built on ‘when we get to heaven we will know who is right” cannot rightly be said to be a faith. It is best described as gambling. John 3:16 is the cornerstone of Christianity. That verse says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Salvation is only for those who BELIEVE. That is why Romans 10:9 says “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and BELIEVE in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be SAVED.”. There is no room for UNCERTAINTY. You must BELIEVE 100% or your salvation is questionable.
I appeal to you, if you are a Christian and you are reading this, do not force your faith on anyone. But much more importantly, do not compromise on your faith just to promote peaceful coexistence. Remember what Christ said.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”-Matthew 10:28.
Finally, let me state categorically that to me, there is only one God, and He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Samuel, David, Daniel and Christ is the only Way to Him. I do not care who is offended by that. I will say that at pain of death. I do not have to go to heaven to know that this is true. A faith that you can only be sure of when you get to heaven is not blessed. For as Christ said “because you have seen me, you have believed: BLESSED are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”-John 20:29.
I might have been representing then President Jonathan that day on November 7, 2013, but I represent God every single day of my life. And that is of greater importance to me.
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Avid traveller. Table Shaker. Hollywood Magazine Film Festival Humanitarian of the Year, 2019.
