Islam and Christianity Dialogue

I've noticed that when we begin to discuss certain aspects of Christianity most notably Jesus, we begin to spiral in a dialogue of cut/past scripture text. Sometimes without even discussing things with our heart we've become literalist and determined to show our opponent that the truth in in their face in our respective doctrines. Our monotheistic culture is split up between two groups: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. Evenw ithin these two groups there are splitered groups in which those groups further evaluate doctrine in accordance to interpretation.

For Muslims most of you know that it's split between Shi'ite and Sunni and even within these groups there are several classes of people on both sides that are even divided more on interpretation. When we go to fiqh such interpretation is even thickened and deeper. The same is quite similar for Christianity of today and it sects. I've found through study that there are serveral types of groups: Literalist, allegorist, metaphyscians and pluralist.

Whichever class you belong to there is always the benefit and the consequence of belonging to that class because there is always a different interpretation on the nature of the religion. With regards to Islam those who hold the Qur'an in its literal meaning run the risk of misappropriating certain verses with the actions of people. Those who are mnetaphyscians run the risk of doing a similar act and those who are pluralist run the risk of being condemn3ed and being eternally at odds with the Metaphyscians and literalist.

We can therefore speculate that what if our doctrines are composed of all these qualities built for all classes of people? Do we also run the risk of assuming that God has intended to confuse people? In the world today we as Muslims cannot condemn Christians their concept of Jesus just because our views differ just like we cannot condemn the Siite who belongs to a school of thought of Islamic jurisprudence. The same can be said for Christians.

When we speculate and theorize on hell and heaven right and wrong we assume the position of God. This is quite diffeerent from God comissioning us to spread the word of Islam. The intention of this is for the purpose of knowledge not the purpose of enacting what God has spoken in the Qur'an. On a similar note to Christians if the dialogue becomes hostile how can such a person be propagating the words of Jesus if the inital dialogue begins with condemnation.

So the question he beckons to us: How do we (Muslism) reconcile our differences with our co-religionist Christians and Jews? What are your solutions? What have you done to actualize this?

Bismillah,

By believing that Allah, SWT, makes the decision of who will be in heaven or hell and on how many or few there will be there and how long or short their stay will be.  Even Bush can go to heaven if Allah, SWT, wills it or has ordained it to be.

True Islam is more than just a word or a book or something which can be read about in a library. Islam is the universe and beyond that. However there are written laws and documentation which must be followed, like any law the people must be cognizant of the importance of such laws. Although being pluralistic in thought is noble we must be aware that the laws which God has set are unchanged. This is perhaps similar to the Christian laws of the Ten commandments.