SAYING the LORD's PRAYER INSIDE a MUSLIM MOSQUE

MAY, 2008
SAYING THE LORDS PRAYER INSIDE A MUSLIM MOSQUE

MISBELIEF VERSUS DISBELIEF
SAYING THE LORD’S PRAYER EVERYWHERE
TAGS: PRAYER, LORD’S PRAYER, MOSQUE, SECULAR, HUMANISM, SECULAR HUMANISM

Yesterday, I stepped inside the KING FAHAD MOSQUE at around 1 o’clock p.m. and said the LORDS PRAYER, while a few other Muslim men paid their respect to ALLAH.

I had never been inside a mosque before and did NOT know what to expect. Unlike the SIKH service (which is not Muslim) I attended a few weeks ago in Temple City there were NOT many people present. At the SIKH service all male heads were covered by scarves and all women were dressed in colorful robes, and they were on separate sides of the room; and a leader led the service.

At the MUSLIM MOSQUE there was NO worship leader when I was there. Like the Sikh service at the GURDWARA we were expected to take our shoes off at the door. A sign at the King Fahad mosque made that clear.

There was nobody at the door at the MOSQUE. Nobody STARED INTENTLY at me as I entered wondering what’s this American gringo doing here ? I walked in without being questioned and entered the worship hall undeterred.

There were two men in the worship hall. One was sitting in a chair, presumably praying, in the back. The other man was in front by the “altar”(?). I sat in the back on the opposite side of the room from the other man sitting. The man in front suddenly clicked a microphone with his foot and then did some chants for everybody to hear via the loudspeaker. He was obviously well-versed in his chant—there was a rhythm to it. After a few moments he turned the mic off and continued his adoration of allah by bowing down towards the altar.

I sat quietly in the back and silently chanted the LORDS PRAYER. As I said my prayer to the FATHER-SON-and-HOLY SPIRT another Muslim man came in and stood next to the other standing man in front and made some similar motions of reverence & prayer towards the front.

The room itself, and the mosque, in general was plain & simple. There were not a lot of pictures of decorations. The walls looked like solid marble or some other heavy rock. The one thing that came to mind as I sat there was that GOD does NOT need fancy temples, churches, cathedrals, or mosques to be honored.

The TRUTH of that becomes VERY CLEAR when you read the BIBLE, both OLD & NEW testaments, and when you reflect on the WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST, OUR SAVIOR who said HE could tear down the temple and rebuild it again in three days :
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple , and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple , and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple He had spoken of was His body. John 2:19-21

I’ve been to many different churches, cathedrals, as well as a Gurdwara & a Buddhist temple and now a Muslim mosque in the last few months and one thing that becomes exceedingly clear is that the TRUE fellowship of believers are the PEOPLE themselves. If nobody is in the mosque it is just a large building, nothing more, nothing less. If no believers are in the church building it is NOT the church, it is a building for the church—the BODY OF CHRIST.

We DON’T “go to church.” We ARE the church ! We ARE the BODY OF CHRIST, and this is why I place such a STRONG emphasis on HOLY COMMUNION and have increasingly reached out to others with HOLY COMMUNION or EUCHARIST.

Anyways, I only stayed at the Muslim Mosque for a few moments. I said the LORDS PRAYER, observed quietly for a few moments and then I left. As I left I E-mailed a few people saying I “OVERCAME A MENTAL BLOCK” and noted my previous mental association between Muslims & terrorism. And I noted by e-mail that Islam may be LESS of a terror to our country than SECULAR HUMANISM  .

The RADICALS that rise up to terrorize our country such as those who bombed the WORLD TRADE CENTER on September 11, 2001 were misguided persons who happened to be of MID-EAST descent and maybe associated in some way with some form of Islamic belief in Allah & the Koran, BUT they are NOT the majority.

The FIRST Muslims I MET were two fellows who own a copy shop in Pasadena, not far from Fuller Seminary. These two fellows were the nicest two guys in the world. They didn’t wear anything on their heads. They gave me good deals on copy jobs. They didn’t seem radical.

But YET as much as I want to minimize Muslims as a threat to national security and downplay their presence as merely religious at the SAME TIME I believe as A CHRISTIAN EVANGELICAL that amongst them are some LOST SHEEP and we are CALLED, brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ, to REACH OUT to them, like all others, with THE LOVE OF CHRIST !

“Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.”
1 Peter 2:17

Who are the “BROTHERHOOD OF BELIEVERS?” Without doing an exegesis of this passage I would assume the “brotherhood” are the brothers [and sisters] in Christ, AND in fact the GREEK for “brotherhood”is
> adelphotes (ad-el-fot'-ace) which my commentary says refers to “the (Christian) fraternity”

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

BUT believers are believers, even if they do not believe in Christ. And if they BELIEVE in something that keeps them out of trouble it is better than no belief at all. And so maybe the BROTHERHOOD OF BELIEVERS should include all those who believe in something that keeps them out of trouble EVEN IF THIS IS NOT A SAVING FAITH OR BELIEF.

This is why I say SECULAR HUMANISM sometimes scares me more than any terrorists. For in fact, YES, terrorists CAN literally kill us. They can STOP our physical hearts from beating. But they CANNOT stop us from believing in the one true SAVIOR !

BUT YET secular humanism PRETENDS to be non-religious and not concerned with matters of spirituality or religion and PRETENDS they will not tell people who to worship or what to believe but in such a PRETENSE in fact their “god” BECOMES disbelief ! And UTTER DISBELIEF is much more dangerous than MISBELIEF.

You see, MISBELIEF can be RE-DIRECTED towards TRUTH . Misbelief still has some sort of integrity to it whereas DISBELIEF is completely self-serving and eventually becomes SELF-SERVING. And when a person or group of persons becomes totally self-directed and self-serving they DON’T CARE about anybody or anything outside themself or their group.

And the CHRISTIAN CHURCH must remember that we are called to CONTINUE to reach OUTWARD to others, both other parts of the BODY OF CHRIST as well as those who are not in Christ. If WE, the BODY OF CHRIST, become inward-turning and self-serving we become nothing more than another form of secular humanism as well.

I’ve been going ONLINE for many months now doing “SOCIAL NETWORKING” and still seeking a wife of “female life partner” as I sometimes say, and have been “winked” at and “poked” and officially “flirted” with on various online dating sites, and recently a woman in Chatsworth, a single mom, who initially winked at me, expressing tentative interest in me, responded subsequently that I was “TOO RELIGIOUS.”

She was WRONG. I am NOT religious. I am RELATIONAL. That’s what makes Christians [or should] DIFFERENT ! We know JESUS CHRIST AS OUR PERSONAL SAVIOR and that dictates how we live. However, there are THOSE who will nefariously try to DICTATE who we are in a negative manner to the rest of the world. They do this for self-serving reasons and to simply DEPOPULARIZE us.

I was at a high school earlier this week and the HONORS ENGLISH CLASS was reading THE CRUCIBLE about the SALEM WITCH HUNT. And a lot of teachers in various public schools are liberal and went to liberal universities where “CHRISTIANITY” gets maligned and attacked and the SALEM WITCH HUNT is used to depopularize all of Christianity from beginning to the present.

So I got up in front of the class and said, “DON’T THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER.” But despite this being an honors class NONE of them knew the meaning of that cliché and sat there looking at me without comprehension. So I explained the meaning of the phrase and then some of them nodded and there was an “AHA !” look on some of their faces.

You see, I doubt the regular teacher even dares to present the CRUCIBLE in a way that says, YES, this was a problem at one point in time in the Christian Church, but does not mean that all of Christianity is bad. It is POPULAR to attack Christianity and the Christian church in secular education. It is popular to attack Christianity in the Church of Secular Humanism. And they can DO SO without fear of repercussion because they PRETEND to NOT be a religion or a church and therefore their criticism is not considered a form of proselytizaation. BUT YET IT VERY MUCH IS SO !

IRONICALLY, however, even the UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT has spoken of secular humanism as a religion:

John Dewey described Humanism as our "common faith." Julian Huxley called it "Religion without Revelation." The first Humanist Manifesto spoke openly of Humanism as a religion. Many other Humanists could be cited who have acknowledged that Humanism is a religion. In fact, claiming that Humanism was "the new religion" was trendy for at least 100 years, perhaps beginning in 1875 with the publication of The Religion of Humanity by Octavius Brooks Frothingham (1822-1895), son of the distinguished Unitarian clergyman, Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870), pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Boston, 1815-1850. In the 1950's, Humanists sought and obtained tax-exempt status as religious organizations. Even the Supreme Court of the United States spoke in 1961 of Secular Humanism as a religion. It was a struggle to get atheism accepted as a religion, but it happened. From 1962-1980 this was not a controversial issue.
But then Christians began to challenge the "establishment of religion" which Secular Humanism in public schools represented. They used the same tactic Atheists had used to challenge prayer and Bible reading under the "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment. Now the ACLU is involved. Now the question is controversial. Now Secular Humanists have completely reversed their strategy, and claim that Humanism is not at all religious, but is "scientific."
http://members.aol.com/Patriarchy/definitions/humanism_religion.htm

We have “NON-RELIGIOUS” people in various SPHERES very actively PROSELYTIZING their non-religion. Sometimes their non-religion is secular humanism. Other times it is ethnic-cultural loyalty or a form of gangsterism.

Even KIDS, including middle-school age kids, are PROSELYTIZING both secular humanism as well as their ethnic-cultural loyalties. At some schools I visit as a GUEST TEACHER they see me coming from a mile away and their TACTIC to minimize my presence is, recently, to ask me LOUDLY & REPEATEDLY, “ARE YOU JEWISH?”

Their question is NOT SINCERE. They are NOT ASKING because they genuinely wonder. I am NOT Jewish, nor do I wear any garb that really truly makes me appear Jewish other than having a beard, but who can SINCERELY assume a person is Jewish merely because they have a beard? NO-the question is asked repeatedly & loudly and without sincerity to RATTLE ME and to DETRACT from my presence as a GOOD PERSON trying to simply DO WHAT IS RIGHT, which is WHY I went into education in the first place.

Ironically, I even had a SECULAR HUMANIST teacher ask me “ARE YOU JEWISH” under the pretense that she was teaching her kids about Judaism and she maintained the pretense as we walked towards our separate classrooms even going so far as to ask me what do JEWS believe even after I had ALREADY told her that I am NOT Jewish.

We have SECULAR HUMANISTS that are ACTIVELY PROSELTYZING THEMSELVES as the CENTER of all things, and they do so under the PRETENSE that they are NOT religious nor really know much, if anything, about religion. And so what is MOST IMPORTANT to them is SELF and therefore SELF is their religion and that is SECULAR HUMANISM, by-and-large.

And the SECULAR HUMANISTS are saying, “STAY OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL, CHRISTIAN MAN” or “STAY OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL, JEWISH MAN.” We don’t want your ‘RELIGION” Christian man or Jewish man or Muslim man. It’s JUST A FEW who are actively promoting their own RELIGION very clearly , partly humanism and partly ethnic-cultural, OR SIMPLY POPULARISM!
Their “religion” comes down to SELF AND POPULARITY and it is the MOST UNFAIR RELIGION OF ALL—because it has NO MORALITY OR INTEGRITY.

And in some cases TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING FOR THIS CHURCH TO OPERATE under the guise of being a “public school” devoted to serving ANYBODY BUT Christians, Jews, Muslims, et.al.

The MEMBERS of this church sometimes work all their lives in the main office or in the classroom or in administration or “security” or as “teachers assistants” and some of them get WELL PAID for it. Some of them have told me very clearly (without words of course) that I am NOT WANTED and even sometimes enlist students to UNDERCUT me, so that I don’t even want to come back.

They tell me by REPEATEDLY asking me “ARE
YOU JEWISH” that I am different and NOT one of “them” even AFTER I tell them that I am NOT Jewish. But then I RECENTLY THOUGHT—maybe I AM JEWISH ! In fact, I AM JEWISH—I AM A JEW FOR JESUS ! or a MESSIANIC JEW ! But I have no RITUALS or old testament laws that bind me to ritualism. I believe in the TEN COMMANDMENTS, but I don’t abide by any of the PRECEPTS of the O.T.

But if it helps people to “CAST” me as “Jewish” maybe I should say YES, I AM JEWISH ! I AM A JEW FOR JESUS ! Will that help people relate to me or at least “cast” me? Secular humanists who maintain they believe in nothing other than self and self-serving apparently have a need to CAST other people into roles. Maybe Hollywood is made up of a lot of secular humanists. Maybe they rely on CENTRAL CASTING to portray myths that actually UNDERCUT our larger purpose in society to try to bring people together in TRUE COMMUNITY.

Some of my MENTAL BLOCKS concerning ISLAM & TERRORISM come from watching TV as a child –when anybody mid-Eastern was depicted as sinister and with a “towel” on his head. How much is HOLLYWOOD and the attached CHURCH OF SECULAR HUMANISM to blame for some of the stereotypes in the minds of people, especially our young people?

Thankfully, we have ONE TRUE GOD: the FATHER-SON-and-HOLY SPIRIT to EMPOWER and ENABLE us in CHRIST to continue to REACH OUT to the world. WE ARE THE TRUE CENTER ! PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW !

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28:19-20


PASTOR KOK III
CHIEF BIG FAITH

Pastor Kok III is the FOUNDER of Mustard seed Ministries and attended CALVIN SEMINARY & FULLER SEMINARY .

BA/BA/M.Div.

NOTE:

By the way, later, I looked up information about the KING FAHAD MOSQUE in Culver City and found out it just opened less than ten years ago.

The speakers at the opening ceremony, in addition to Prince Abdulaziz himself, were Dr. Abdullah Al-Obaid, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League; the Honorable Imam Warith Edeen Muhammad, of the Muslim American Society; Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, President of the Islamic Society of North America; and the Honorable Pete Wilson, Governor of the State of California

During the dinner party, speeches were delivered praising the inauguration of the King Fahd Mosque by former chief of the White House staff John Sununu; Mahir Athour, head of one of the Islamic Centers in California; William Baker, the American writer; and Ahmed Al-Tuweijri, member of the Consultative Council (Majlis Al-Shura) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In an impromptu speech during the dinner party, Prince Abdulaziz said: "Islam rejects all forms of terrorism, extremism and aggression and at the same time it does not accept any transgression against it". He went on to point out that in Islam: "there is no form of racism or nationalism since people are all equal before Allah, the Almighty".
http://www.saudiembassy.net/1998News/News/IslDetail.asp?cIndex=1496