In a well-intentioned but utterly foolish over-reaction to the mosque massacre in New Zealand, the prime minister is calling for everyone - men and women alike - to wear the hijab for a day of solidarity. She is also broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer over the entire country. How should Christians respond?
The first question to ask is whether Christians, in a display of national unity, can put on the hijab and answer the call to prayer and offer prayers to Allah?
And the only way to answer this question is to ask whether Muslims and Christians are even praying to the same God.
If the Muslim god is the same as the Christian God, no problem. But if they are not the same god, then the god who is not the true God is a demonic imposter and must not be prayed to or worshiped by Christ-followers under any circumstance.
Do Christians and Muslims pray to the same God? The answer is an unequivocal and unambiguous “No.” Muslims themselves will confirm this to you if you know the questions to ask.
We can stipulate that “Allah” is the generic word for “God” in Arabic, just as “El” is in Hebrew and “theos” is in Greek. Thus there are many Christians in the Arabic speaking world who refer to the God of the Bible as “Allah,” and who use it in phrases such as “Inshallah,” which means “God willing.”
(It’s worth noting in passing that the highest court in Malaysia recently ruled that Muslims and Muslims alone are permitted to use the word “Allah.”)
But generic words for God, because they are generic, can be used to refer to a multiplicity of gods. So the term must be narrowed down. If someone uses a generic word for “God,” the follow-up question must be asked, “Which ‘god’ are you referring to?”
In New Testament times, where Greek was the lingua franca of the civilized world, there was a virtually unlimited pantheon of both Greek and Roman “gods,” all of whom were identified using the generic term “theos.” (As you might guess, we get our word “theology” from this word.)
So when the apostles needed to make sure their readers knew which God they were talking about when they used the word “theos,” and that they were referring to none of the Roman and Greek gods, they added a clear qualifier. They referred to the true and living God (emphasis mine throughout) as “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:3; Colossians 1:3; 2 Peter 1:3).
It was their way of saying, “Look, the God I am referring to here is not Zeus, or Jupiter, or Hermes, or Mercury, or Neptune, or Diana or Aphrodite, or another god called Allah who might show up in the future. No, the God I am talking about is the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Jesus, according to the New Testament, is the unique, one and only begotten Son of God. (We can become sons of God by adoption, but he is the Son of God by his very nature.)
Here is the point. The God of the Bible has a Son. The god of Islam does not.
In fact, Muslims in 2008 hung a large banner in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth stating flatly that Allah has no son, and quoting a passage from the Qur’an as proof: “He begetteth not, nor is begotten, and there is none like unto him” (Surah 112:1-4).
Contrast this with this declaration from the gospel of John: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, NASB).
And again we read in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
The plain declaration of Christianity, then, is that Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of the true and living God. There never was a time, not even in eternity past, when He was not the Son of God.
Islam, on the other hand, flatly denies that Allah has a son at all. “He begetteth not, nor is begotten.” In fact, believing that God has a begotten Son will get you stoned to death in many parts of the Muslim world.
On top of all this, and of particular offense to orthodox Muslims, is the fact that Christians worship Jesus himself as God as the second member of the Trinity. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:3). When Thomas saw the resurrected Christ, he fell at His feet and declared, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Muslims are horrified at the thought that Jesus could be worshipped as God and consider such a belief as blasphemy worthy of death.
So, do Christians and Muslims worship and pray to the same God? Absolutely and unequivocally not.
So what should New Zealand’s Christians do when the call to prayer is sounded?
First, they must not bow the knee to Baal by putting on the hijab, which is a symbol of submission to Allah.
Secondly, they should treat the call to prayer as a call to arms. It’s a call to go to war in the Spirit against the demon-god Allah and the spiritual deception of Islam. Almost 2 billion people worldwide have come under its spell, which can only be broken in the name of Jesus. It’s time for all of New Zealand’s Christians to put on the full armor of God and use the weapons of our warfare to assault this demonic stronghold, pull it down, and reduce it to rubble before Allah reduces all of New Zealand to spiritual slavery.
