It may fascinate you to learn this… it certainly fascinated me… but holding as they do to essentially the same creation account and belief about the origins of human society (up until Isaac v Ishmael) as the Judeo Christian world – Islam has its own “Answers in Genesis” type organisation.
Slate writes a profile piece on the most prominent Islamic young earther here.
Here’s a quote (complete with links).
It may be tempting to dismiss Yahya as a crackpot, but he runs a sophisticated media operation, with perhaps several hundred members, that distributes books, articles, videos, and Web sites around the Muslim world. Two years ago he mailed, unsolicited, a visually stunning 13-pound, 800-page Atlas of Creation to at least 10,000 scientists, doctors, museums, and research centers in Europe and the United States. The cost of this publicity stunt, if that’s what it was, had to be staggering.
This must present an interesting dilemma. I mentioned a few weeks back my reservations about siding with fellow “theists” in debates about God – simply because Jesus is the key to my belief in God.
Do those who wish to fight passionately for the scientific veracity of Genesis side with the Muslims? Or do we keep our distance.
How far does ecumenical spirit extend on other issues where we share common ground – like issues of sanctity of life, and certain areas of morality?
It’s a tricky minefield to navigate where we emphasise similarities without those becoming defining issues and allowing us all to be lumped in the same category.
Comments
I don't think we should be too proud to acknowledge that we agree with other religions on certain aspects, whether that is creation, sanctity of life, et. Depending on the context of your discussion it doesn't have to be that hard to still distinguish yourself as inherently different to Muslims (or whatever religion you might be 'agreeing' with).
I guess the point I'm thinking through relates to marketing. And
fundamentally that's what evangelism is. We are seeking to present our
religion as the only true religion to an audience saturated with
similar options.
In a saturated marketplace advertisers look for a point of difference.
I'm thinking that our point of difference is Jesus and our gracious
God who forgives us by sending his son to die for us without regard to
our actions.
We should probably talk about that more – and the stuff religions all
agree on less… right?
If even the Muslims have creation scientists we're not offering
anything different as far as world views go when we talk about that
aspect of belief.
I think it's an indictment on the young earth only movement (similar
in many ways to the KJV only movement), in Australia, in my opinion,
are the least excited about Christ centric evangelism.
Most people in the Sydney Anglican Diocese and associated ministries
are either ambivalent about the correct interpretation of Genesis or
lean towards an old earth. And they're the ones doing the most
evangelism (in reformed circles – the pentecostals in Australia talk
about Jesus, believe in a young earth (generally) but also think God
is a get rich quick scheme).
I agree with your idea that showing a united front or otherwise would gain little in the long run. As a supporter or evolution I would support the latter but it wouldn’t gain anything to highlight another disagreement in the church.
Keeping the Christ story at the centre and other arguments as far less imporant side issues is a much better way of reaching others.
On the whole sanctity of life issue, Islam has a completely different take on fundamentals of the Christian position. They don't seem to have an analogous doctrine to Imago Dei – humans are vice-regents of Allah, but there is absolutely no similarity between human attributes and Allah's attributes. So much so, in fact, that Allah is entirely unknowable in that we (as humans) cannot even begin to comprehend what is meant by the attributes ascribed to him in the Qur'an. Words such as "merciful" when used to describe Allah become next to meaningless.
And something is niggling me that they have a pretty different doctrine of creation, too.
So, we can agree with the cover story, but not with the reasons behind it.