Southern Baptist Leader Calls Fuller Seminary's Agreement With Muslims 'Impossible'
by Chad Groening
December 9, 2003
(AgapePress) - A major Christian denomination is concerned over the decision of an evangelical seminary to enter into a federally-funded interfaith program with Muslims.Fuller Theological Seminary in California is using a federal grant from the Department of Justice to launch a one-million-dollar program designed to ease strained relations with the Muslim community. The program's code of ethics restricts proselytizing for two years and affirms a mutual belief in one God.
But John Revell of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention says it is impossible for evangelicals to be in agreement with Muslims because the doctrine of Islam denies the deity of Jesus Christ.
He contends that Christians and Muslims do not share a belief in the same Almighty God. In fact, Revell says, "Allah basically prohibits his followers from referring to him with the term Trinity. Muslims recoil at the notion of a triune God-head."
And while Christians believe Christ to be the self-acknowledged son of God, the Southern Baptist leader points to passages in the Koran that have Islam's "Jesus" in conversation with Allah, denying his own deity. "The Muslim belief not only eliminates the biblical teaching of the triune godhead; it adamantly denies the deity of Jesus Christ," Revell says. "So it's inconsistent for a group that identifies itself as evangelical to say we agree with Muslims that we worship the same god."
Revell also asserts that the federally-funded program's requirement that both Christians and Muslims refrain from proselytizing for the span of the project is another sticking point, since it goes against the Christian tenet of the "Great Commission."
