Recently I heard a young pastor express his
concern regarding the increasing number of marriages between young Christian
women and young Muslim men in Kenya. In Nairobi, he said, many young Christian
women believe it is acceptable for them to marry Muslim men, for―as they claim―“Christians
and Muslims worship the same God.”
But is it true that Christians and Muslims
worship the “same” God? Is “Allah” just another name for the God of the Holy
Bible? Or are there important differences between the God of Christianity and
the God of Islam? In this essay, I will show that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God. In addition, I
will show how the differences between Christian and Muslim beliefs about the
nature of God have major consequences for male-female relationships.
I write from a Christian perspective as a
Christian theologian. I am not a scholar of Islamic studies. Therefore, I will
focus primarily on the Christian doctrine of God, showing how the Christian
view of God, in contrast to the Muslim view of God, promotes equality between
men and women by encouraging mutual giving and receiving in the context of
loving relationships.[i]
The Christian God of
Love and Relationship
In order to better understand how our doctrine
of God affects our view of self and others, we must stretch our minds in order
to think our way into the very heart of God. According to the Holy Bible, the
sacred text of Christianity, “God is love” (1John 4:8, 16). That is, God’s
“being” or “nature” is “love.” God’s basic attitude toward the world is an
attitude of “love,” expressed in divine self-giving for his creation.
In his great treatise on godly “love,” recorded
in the New Testament (1Corinthians 13), the apostle Paul explains that “love”
is “patient” and “kind.” According to Paul, “love” does not “envy” or “dishonour”
others. “Love” is “not self-seeking.” “Love” is “not easily angered.” It “keeps
no record of wrongs.” Notice that Paul describes love in interpersonal
terms; that is, he describes love in terms of relationship. Love cannot exist apart from relationship, for love requires another. That is, there
must be at least one to give love and another to receive love.
To assert that love is relational brings us to the heart of the Christian doctrine of God.
The God of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”―three
equal divine persons, who eternally
exist in an intimate relationship of “love.”
God is eternally a Father loving his Son and a Son loving his Father.[ii] In addition to their
mutual love for one another, the Father and Son enjoy a shared love for the
Holy Spirit. The love that is shared among the three persons of the Holy
Trinity is expressed in an intimate relationship of mutual giving and receiving. The
mutual giving and receiving among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit reflects both
the equality and distinction of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.[iii] The Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are equal in their divinity: that
is, each divine person is fully “God.” At the same time, each divine person is distinct from the other: the Father is
not the Son and the Son is not the Father; likewise, the Holy Spirit is not the
Father or the Son.[iv]
The Christian belief that God eternally exists
in a relationship of three equal but
distinct divine persons, who express their love in mutual giving and receiving,
has vast implications for human beings. According to the great Christian
thinkers of the past, we cannot truly know ourselves until first we know God.
The Christian doctrine of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternally united
in a relationship of “love” provides the clue to the meaning and purpose of our
lives. By its very nature, love cannot be contained; love must reach out to another in order to express itself. Because
God is “love,” God reaches out to humanity
in order to share his love with us. God
created us in an act of overflowing love in order to share the joy of divine
life with us forever. Because we are created to share in the life and love of
the Holy Trinity and to enjoy the riches of God’s blessings forever, the proper
Christian attitude toward God is gratitude,
expressed in praise and thanksgiving.
The Muslim God of
Power and Submission
In contrast to the Christian view of God as “three
divine persons” who eternally exist in a relationship of “love,” the god of
Islam is a one-person deity, who
exists in eternal solitude. According to the Quran (Surah 2:163; 6:19), Allah
is “numerically and absolutely one.”[v] Allah has no “equal” or
“partner.”[vi] Unlike the loving Father
of Christianity, Allah has no son to love. Because he has no equal with whom he
can enjoy either mutual or shared love, mutual giving and receiving in the
context of loving relationships is foreign to Allah’s “being” or “nature.” Because
he eternally exists alone, in isolation from relationships, Allah cannot be eternal love, for love
requires another. Whereas the God of
Christianity relates to the world in love, Allah relates to the world through power. The word, “Islam,” means
“submission.” The appropriate response to the Islamic god of “power” is fear, expressed in absolute,
unquestioning submission to the will
of Allah.[vii]
The many differences between the God of
Christianity and the god of Islam may be construed in terms of the fundamental difference
between “love” and “power.” “Love” seeks to give
and receive in relationships defined
by equality and diversity. “Power” seeks to dominate
and control in hierarchies defined by
inequality and conformity. This basic difference in views between the Christian
God of “love” and the Muslim god of “power” has far-reaching implications for male-female
relationships.
Male-Female Relationships: A Comparison
The Christian doctrine of God provides the foundation
for understanding the proper relationship between men and women. According to
the Holy Bible, human beings are created in the “image of God”:
So
God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male
and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
When God created human beings in his “image,” he
created them as “male and female.” In other words, “man” and “woman” together―that is, in relationship to one another!―constitute
the “image of God.” Since God exists in an eternal relationship of love among
equal but distinct divine persons, the “image of God,” as embodied by human
beings, involves relationship between
beings who are both equal (both are
human) and diverse (male and female).
In regard to the relative status of men and women in the order of creation, “woman”
is afforded equal status with “man,”
for both male and female together constitute the “image of God.” In the
Christian view of male-female relationships, “man” and “woman” exist as fully equal but
complementary partners from the beginning
of creation.
The Christian doctrine of God shapes our view of
male-female relationships. For Christians, God is a fellowship of equal but
distinct persons eternally related in a fellowship of love. Human beings are
created in the image of God as male and female to reflect the fellowship,
equality and diversity of the Holy Trinity.[viii] The equality and
diversity of men and women ideally facilitates an egalitarian but richly
diverse society, where opportunity, personal growth and happiness are equally available
to all―regardless of sex. In a properly functioning Christian social structure,
both men and women enjoy equal opportunity not only in regard to personal
choice in marriage but also in familial, professional, academic and other important
aspects of life.[ix]
In contrast to the Christian view of equality
between men and women, however, Islam asserts a marked inequality in male-female relationships. In the world of Islam, men
and women do not enjoy equal status;
rather, men are regarded as “superior” to women.[x] Given their “inferior” status,
women’s lives are dominated and controlled by their male relatives―including husbands,
fathers, brothers, uncles and even distant male cousins.[xi] In regions and nations
ruled by shari’a, or Muslim law, women
are not allowed to own property or to participate in the political process. Muslim
women are valued primarily in terms of their sexuality, specifically their
ability to bear children―especially sons. A Muslim woman’s value is based on
her virginity. A woman who loses her virginity outside the context of marriage
is devalued in Islamic society because she brings shame and disgrace upon the men of her family―including her father,
brothers, uncles and even more distant male relatives. Virginity is prized in
the world of Islam not for the honour it brings to a chaste woman but as a
safeguard to male pride. A woman who
“disgraces’ her family by sexual promiscuity may even be murdered by her own
relatives![xii]
In order to safeguard female virginity, Muslim men
deny women access to the marketplace. Even adult women may be confined to their
homes and allowed access to a wider social context only when accompanied by a
male relative. Because their primary function is to bear sons, Muslim women are
denied education; hence, many Muslim women remain functionally illiterate and
ignorant. When outside the home, many Muslim women are required to wear burkas, or coverings, over their entire
bodies. While these coverings are intended, at least in principle, to safeguard
female virginity, they, in fact, negate women’s humanity by rendering them
effectively invisible! Islam essentially reduces women to the status of non-persons. The Muslim male obsession
with virginity reduces women to the status of property to be protected, like a
donkey or a prized goat.
The inferior position afforded women in Muslim
society is the inevitable consequence of the Islamic doctrine of God. The required human response to the Islamic God
of “power” is absolute submission and unquestioning obedience to the
inscrutable will of Allah. A theology of absolute power and total submission facilitates
a social hierarchy of authority and submission, most clearly evident in Muslim
marriages. In Muslim marriages, wives are required to submit to the will of
their husbands with the same unquestioning obedience that believers are
required to offer Allah. Wives who do not submit to their husbands’ authority
with unquestioning obedience may be beaten, imprisoned or even killed.[xiii] The hierarchy of power
and submission inevitably leads to violence. Violence against women is common
in Muslim societies. Muslim women who have escaped their social-marital
imprisonment and have immigrated to the West are unveiling the abuse of women
that is an inherent part of the Muslim social structure.[xiv]
Muslim social structure reflects the Islamic view
of a god of “power.” Since “power” seeks to dominate and control, Islamic social
structure is inevitably based on a hierarchy of power and authority from
“above,” where ruthless dictators dominate and control society at large, clergy
dominate and control believers, and men dominate and control women.
A Christian View of
Marriage
Unlike Islam, Christianity affords women equal
status with men. In the New Testament, the equal status of men and women is a
fundamental aspect of Christian marriage. In his important treatise on marriage
(Ephesians 5:22-28), the apostle Paul admonishes his readers―both male and
female!―to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In contrast to
Islam’s demand for wives’ total submission to their husbands, mutual submission as a sign of reverence
to Jesus Christ establishes the foundation for Christian marriage. Paul continues:
Wives,
submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband
is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which
he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should
submit to their husbands in everything.
According to the New Testament, wives should “submit”
to their husbands “as the Church submits to Christ,” for the husband is the
“head” of the wife. If the apostle Paul had finished his teaching at this point,
one could argue that the place of women in Christianity is little different
from the place of women in Islam. In contrast, however, to Islam’s hierarchy of
power and control, where female submission is a consequence of male
“superiority,” Christianity views submission in the context of the relationship
between Christ and his Church; that is, submission is a response to sacrificial “love.” Paul continues:
Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to
make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to
present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any
other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love
their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
According to the New Testament, husbands are to
love their wives “just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself” for her as
a sacrificial offering. Whereas wives are taught to submit to their husbands in
response to sacrificial love, men are instructed to give themselves to their wives in sacrificial love―in the same way that Christ loved the
Church and gave himself for her! Clearly the greater burden of marital
responsibility is upon husbands, who are taught to give themselves in
sacrificial love in order to protect, nurture and enhance the well-being of
their wives.
The Attitude of a
Servant
The command for sacrificial giving by husbands
is a direct reflection of the character of God, as revealed in Jesus Christ. In
the New Testament, the apostle Paul writes:
In
your relationships with one another, have the same mindset [attitude] as Christ
Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being
found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to
death—even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)
In our relationships
with one another we are to have the same “mindset” or “attitude” of self-giving
love as Jesus Christ. The Son of God took the position of a “servant,” humbling
himself in sacrificial love and giving his life on the cross for the sins of
the world. This “servant” attitude is attested in the teachings of Jesus. He
said: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” (Matthew
20:25-27). Jesus reveals that the heart of God is the heart of a “servant.” In stark
contrast to the absolute monarch of Islam, who wields unbending “power from
above,” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, offers himself for the world in humble
self-giving and sacrificial love. Jesus reveals that God is a “Servant-King,” who
expresses his power in terms of love,
pouring himself in self-giving for his creation.[xv]
Because we are created in the “image” of God, we
too are created to express our love through sacrificial love for God and
others. Our willingness to love and serve others is a direct reflection of the
heart of God, in whose image we are created. Just as God offers himself in
sacrificial love for the world, we too are to offer ourselves in self-giving for
others. We see, therefore, that the Christian doctrine of God expresses itself
in our daily lives in terms of mutual love and reciprocal service, where giving
and receiving in the context of relationships―whether marital, familial, or
communal―is a reflection of the heart of God in whose image we are created.
Summary
Ideas have consequences. Our ideas about the
nature of God, whether “love” or “power,” will be reflected in our most
important relationships―especially the relationship between men and women. Whereas
power seeks to dominate and control, thereby dehumanizing others, love seeks to
serve and empower, so that the personhood and well-being of others is nurtured,
preserved and enhanced. Whereas power brings personal stagnation and communal
suffering through violence, love brings personal flourishing and social
cohesion through mutual giving and receiving in the context of communal harmony
and peace.
In Islam, where the relationship between God and
humanity is one of absolute power and total submission, human relationships are
arranged in a hierarchy of power, authority and obedience―whether at the level
of marriage, family, community, tribe or nation. In Christianity, on the other
hand, where God is viewed as a loving Father who gives his beloved Son to save
the world from sin (John 3:16), healthy human relationships are built on a
democratic, egalitarian framework of mutual giving and receiving―particularly
at the level of marriage, family and community. Our doctrine of God, therefore,
is immensely important to our daily lives, for it shapes the way we interact
with others at the individual, familial, and communal levels.[xvi]
Of all God’s gifts to humanity there is none
greater than love. God has
demonstrated his love for the world by sending his Son to be our Saviour (John
3:16; Romans 5:8; 1John 4:9, 10). The Christian view of God encourages us to respond
to God’s love for the world as revealed in Jesus Christ with gratitude,
expressed by loving love one another with the self-giving love that God pours
out for the world. Therefore, let us love one another as God loves us (1John
4:11).
Effects of Doctrine
of God on Male-Female Relationships
Christianity
|
Islam
|
|
Nature of God
|
love and
relationship
|
power and
submission
|
Divine attitude
toward world
|
sacrificial giving
|
absolute power
|
Human response
|
gratitude
|
fear
|
Social structure
|
egalitarian, democratic
|
inequality, totalitarian
|
Male-female
relationships
|
equality in
diversity, mutual submission
|
inequality,
male domination-female
submission
|
Social consequences
for women
|
personal
flourishing in family, education and profession
|
personal stagnation:
child bearing
(sons)
housekeeping
illiteracy
|
[i] This essay is not intended as
a blanket indictment against all Muslims. As a Christian, I believe that God
the Holy Spirit is lovingly at work among many Muslims, drawing them to the
bosom of the Father and Creator of all as revealed in Jesus Christ. In this
essay, however, I do intend to show the harmful consequences of the Islamic
view of God in regard to male-female relationships.
[ii] To say that God is “Father”
does not mean that Almighty God is “male.” God is not an “old man” with a long
white beard. God transcends the limitations of sex and gender, possessing all
the loving characteristics of both a father and a mother. Jesus Christ, on the
other hand, is male. While he is the fully divine Son of God, he is also the
fully human son of the Virgin Mary.
[iii] According to the Christian doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, God is “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”: three distinct, equal divine
persons, united as “one God” in a “relationship of love,” expressed by mutual
giving and receiving.
[iv] Each person of the Holy Trinity is equal in divinity: that is, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit are equally “God.” At the same time, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are three distinct persons, each
with his own unique way of relating to the world.
[v] Robinson, S. Mosques & Miracles: Revealing Islam and
God’s Grace, rev. ed., (Upper Mt Gravatt Qld, Australia: City Harvest
Publications, 2004), p. 188.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Like Muslims, Christians are
taught to “submit” to the will of God. Submission to the God of “love,”
however, has very different consequences for human relationships than submission
to the God of “power” (see below).
[viii] The implications for human
relationships of the equality and diversity (“distinctness”) of the
persons of the Holy Trinity extend beyond male-female relationships to include
relationships among tribes, ethnic groups and races. At a variety of levels,
God has created human beings to express the diversity and equality of the Holy
Trinity, in whose “image” we are created. Perhaps the greatest earthly
reflection of the unity and diversity of the Holy Trinity is the Christian
Church―a diverse body of believers from all nations, ethnic groups, races and
socio-economic classes united (at least ideally) in an egalitarian fellowship
of love.
[ix] History shows that the
Christian Church has not always reflected the equality between men and women
that is the logical consequence of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Such
failures, however, reflect the shortcomings of the sinful human heart rather
than an inherently deficient doctrine of God.
[x] Robinson, p. 176. According
to Robinson, the Muslim belief in male “superiority” finds support in the Quran
(see Surah 4:11, 176). Male
“superiority” continues even in the afterlife, notes Robinson. Faithful males
are promised innumerable sensual pleasures in heaven, including the sexual
pleasures of perpetually virgin maidens. In contrast to the sensual delights
awaiting men in the afterlife, however, one Islamic tradition holds that women
may find salvation only under their husbands’ feet!
[xi] For much of what follows, I
am indebted to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim native of Somalia, who immigrated to
the West to escape an arranged marriage. Ali was elected to the Dutch
Parliament. She is an outspoken critic of the abuse of women not only in
traditional Islamic countries but also among Muslims who have immigrated to the
West. See Ali, A.H. The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation
Proclamation for Women and Islam, (New York: Free Press, 2006 English
Translation).
[xii] “Honour killings,” or
incidences of social-sanctioned murder designed to protect family (i.e., male) pride, occur even in the West
among Muslim immigrants.
[xiii] Likewise, in Muslim families,
daughters who do not obey their fathers’ absolute authority may be beaten,
imprisoned or killed―with no legal or social consequences for the male
perpetrators of violence!
[xiv] Violence against women is not
only prevalent in countries or regions ruled by Muslim law (shari’a). Even in the West, violence
against women is widespread among Muslim immigrants.
[xv] The God worshipped by
Christians is the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, whose power is
unlimited, whose wisdom is without measure, and who is present in all places at
all times. Although God is almighty, however, God has chosen to save his
creation from the destruction of sin by the power of love expressed at the cross of Jesus Christ. In redeeming his creation
by self-sacrificing love, God reveals that love is finally the greatest power
of all (1Corinthians 13:13).
[xvi] Many marital and familial
problems easily arise when a Christian woman marries a Muslim man. The New
Testament cautions Christians against being “yoked together” with unbelievers
(2Corinthians 6:14).
