Crossing one’s fingers behind one’s back means that what one is saying is not the truth.

The recent death has been reported of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This organization is a cult that preaches an aberrant non-orthodox Christian theology while claiming (falsely) to be Christian - see here. What really caught my eye about the report of their president’s death was a comment as follows… Over the years, Hinckley laboured long to burnish the faith’s image as a world religion far removed from its peculiar and polygamous roots. Still, during his tenure the Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention and United Methodist Church - the three largest U.S. denominations - each declared Mormon doctrines depart from mainstream Christianity. “We are not a weird people,” Hinckley told Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” in 1996. “The more people come to know us, the better they will understand us,” Hinckley said in an interview with The Associated Press in late 2005. “We’re a little different. We don’t smoke. We don’t drink. We do things in a little different way. That’s not dishonourable. I believe that’s to our credit.”

Yes, it may be considered to their credit… that they don’t smoke nor drink (although a little red wine has proven advantages to health, thus credit worthiness may be disputed) …and it is not dishonourable; not as a rule.

But that is NOT what was meant by the churches mentioned in the comment - the Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists and United Methodists. The now late Mr Hinckley sneakily shifted the topic of conversation sideways to avoid the issue of doctrine. Nobody was saying those things were dishonourable. It is their non-orthodox theology that is a departure from mainstream Christianity, and that was the issue which Mr Hinckley seemed to have preferred to avoid.

Sneaky, eh?

It needs to be said…

Jesus is not honoured by being called a great prophet.
He was and is the Messiah, the Christ. He is the Son of God.

To think that one honours Him by regarding Him as a great prophet, but not as the Christ, is to belittle and denigrate Him instead.

This is what Islam does to our Saviour.
Not just Islam, but any religion - and any individual - who does not recognize Him for who He is.

And yet I know they are not.

Actors in the Islamic movie, “Jesus, the Spirit of God”.

A director has produced what he says is the first film giving an Islamic view of Jesus Christ, in a bid to show the “common ground” between Muslims and Christians. Nader Talebzadeh sees his movie, “Jesus, the Spirit of God,” as an Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ,” which he praised as admirable but quite simply “wrong”. “Gibson’s film is a very good film. I mean that it is a well-crafted movie but the story is wrong — it was not like that,” he said, referring to two key differences: Islam sees Jesus as a prophet, not the son of God, and does not believe he was crucified.

These folk are convinced they are right. But wait, the Jesus of the Bible lived seven centuries before the Qur’an was written, and the New Testament gospels were already in existence. Did the Qur’an come up with new evidence about Jesus? No. There isn’t any that was not already known in Christendom. Nothing has been discovered since that favours the Islamic stories over and above the Biblical stories. Where did their version come from then? Islam tells us that the Qur’an was handed down to Mohammad, from Allah, via the Angel Gabriel. The Islamic stories of Jesus - or rather, of the Prophet ‘Isa, as they believe they know of him - come from their god, Allah. When I compare these stories with those of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of the New Testament, I seriously wonder if we are meaning the same person. In fact, I think this has to be a case of mistaken identity. The purported facts are so different in each case. Even Islam is saying exactly that, and that the purpose of this film is supposedly to give the truth. If that is the truth, then it has to be about somebody else - not Jesus of the Bible.

Talebzadeh says it aims to bridge differences between Christianity and Islam, despite the stark divergence from Christian doctrine about Christ’s final hours on earth.

“It is fascinating for Christians to know that Islam gives such devotion to and has so much knowledge about Jesus,” Talebzadeh said.

“By making this film I wanted to make a bridge between Christianity and Islam, to open the door for dialogue since there is much common ground between Islam and Christianity,” he said.

Source

But how does such a film “bridge the differences between Christianity and Islam” ?

I would say it points out the differences between Christianity and Islam, and just makes them so much more obvious. There is no bridge there at all.

There are two main sources for the stories of the Islamic prohet ‘Isa - the Qur’an, and the aHadith. The Qur'an gives a history of his life, whilst the Hadith collections, which are recollections of Muhammad's words and deeds, establish his place in the Muslim understanding of the future. The Qur’an declares that the true name of Jesus is ‘Isa, and his message was pure Islam - submission to Allah. ‘Isa was born to Mariam, daughter of ‘Imran, under a date palm tree and spoke while still a baby in the cradle. He breathed life into clay birds and foretold the coming of Muhammad. Apparently ‘Isa was given a book, namely the gospel, and the message revealed in that book is Islam. The book in its original form has since been lost, but his teachings are now incorporated in the Qur’an. ‘Isa was “supported” by the Holy Spirit and his disciples were all Muslims. ‘Isa was not crucified but he did ascend to Allah, and on the Day of Judgement he will be a witness against Jews and Christians for believing in his death. The prophet ‘Isa will have an important role in the end times, establishing Islam and making war until he destroys all religions save Islam.

However… The Qur'an, written in the 7th century AD, cannot be regarded as having any authority whatsoever to inform us about Jesus of Nazareth. It offers no evidence for its claims about biblical history. The Qur’an’s numerous historical errors reflect a garbled understanding of the Bible. ‘Isa is not an historical figure. His identity and role as a prophet of Islam is based solely on supposed revelations to Muhammad over half a millennium after the Jesus of history lived and died.

Jesus' mother tongue was Aramaic. In his own lifetime he was called Yeshua in Aramaic, and Jesu in Greek. It is interesting that Jesus’ name Yehoshua' contains within it the proper Hebrew name for God, the first syllable Yeh- being short for YHWH ‘the LORD'. Yeshua of Nazareth was never called ‘Isa, the name the Qur'an gives to him. Arab-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Yasou' (from Yeshua) not ‘Isa.

Jesus did not receive a book. He spoke as He was given to speak from God, the Father.

The claim that Jesus was not executed by crucifixion is without any historical support. One of the things that all the early sources (and that includes historical texts ex-biblical) agree on is Jesus' crucifixion. Check that out here.

Mariam the mother of ‘Isa is called a sister of Aaron, and also the daughter of Aaron's father ‘Imran (Hebr. Amram). Clearly Muhammad has confused Mary (Hebr. Miriam) with Miriam of the Exodus. The two lived more than a thousand years apart! In the Bible Haman is the minister of Ahasuerus in Media and Persia (The Book of Esther 3:1-2). Yet the Qur'an places him over a thousand years earlier, as a minister of Pharoah in Egypt. The claim that Christians believe in three Gods — Father, son Jesus and mother Mary — is mistaken. The Qur'an is also mistaken to claim that Jews say Ezra was a son of God. (At-Taubah 9:30) The charge of polytheism against Christianity and Judaism is ill-informed and false. (Deuteronomy 6:4, James 2:19a)

Jesus' alleged foretelling of Muhammad's coming (As-Saff 61:6) appears to be based on a garbled reading of John 14:26, a passage which in fact refers to the Spirit.

Dr Mark Durie sums up as follows:

‘Isa (Jesus) of the Qur'an is a product of fable, imagination and ignorance. When Muslims venerate this ‘Isa, they have someone different in mind from the Yeshua or Jesus of the Bible and of history. The ‘Isa of the Qur'an is based on no recognized form of historical evidence, but on fables current in seventh century Arabia.

For most faithful Muslims ‘Isa is the only Jesus they know. But if one accepts this Muslim ‘Jesus', then one also accepts the Qur'an: one accepts Islam. Belief in this ‘Isa is won at the cost of the libel that Jews and Christians have corrupted their scriptures, a charge that is without historical support. Belief in this ‘Isa implies that much of Christian and Jewish history is in fact Islamic history.

The Jesus of the gospels is the base upon which Christianity developed. By Islamicizing him, and making of him a Muslim prophet who preached the Qur'an, Islam destroys Christianity and takes over all its history. It does the same to Judaism.

In the end times as described by Muhammad, ‘Isa becomes a warrior who will return with his sword and lance. He will destroy the Christian religion and make Islam the only religion in all the world. Finally at the last judgement he will condemn Christians to hell for believing in the crucifixion and the incarnation.

This final act of the Muslim ‘Isa reflects Islam's apologetic strategy in relation to Christianity, which is to deny the Yeshua of history, and replace him with a facsimile of Muhammad, so that nothing remains but Islam.

Source

And to cap it all off, our Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. The prophet ‘Isa is not the Son of God, nor the son of Allah, since Allah is not a father and he has no son at all.

It beggars belief that anyone can think that Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus of the Bible, is the same as the Prophet ‘Isa of Islam. Just who do they think they are kidding?