islam and harvard and princeton and boston

i am deep in the heart of texas for a few weeks, visiting friends and enjoying the hospitality of the booher library at the epscopal theological seminary of the southwest.  sunday after "making my communion" as episcopalians sometimes say at all saints church, rite one in an historic building,  i went with friends to st. michael's, which is properly on a hill appropriate to it's patronage, and where there were lots of bells and whistles and howard galley's "star trek prayer," as it's fondly called, which i thought had found a happy rest.

there was also a guest preacher, the rev. jeffrey samuel, of the diocese of peshawar, in pakistan, who has been working on a diploma in theological studies at the seminary.  although english is not fr. jeffrey's first language, he was very eloquent.  one of the things he discussed was "the islamic concept about jesus."  there are, he said, two concepts.  the first concept held by many muslim people is that "they don't believe that he died on a cross.  why--because prophets were innocent people. this insulting death is against their prestige."  the second concept, "accepted by the ahmadi sect of the muslims [is that] . . . jesus [was]brought to the point of death on the cross, but he did not die on the cross.  jesus was just unconscious on the cross due to his suffering and persection.  people thought that jesus was dead, but he was not.  so they took jesus from the cross and after a few days jesus was healed and jesus went to kashmit.  and he lived 120 years in kashmit and then he died a natural death."

this, i thought, sounds familiar. over the past several months i have read several books claiming to be "christology," written by professors at universities as harvard and princeton and boston, which have suggested the same or very similar ideas.  these books were published by respectable publishing houses, and someof them are used as text books in respectable seminaries.  indeed the lesson from acts was described in the service leaflet as "written by the (unknown) author of luke-acts sometime between 90 and 110 ad.  . . . it is 'late second generation' and begins to reflecton the history of the jesus movement and how far it has come since the days when the church was founded . . . "  l. michael white.  from jesus to christianity (harpersanfrancisco:  2004), p. 252.

fr. jeffrey concluded:  "we all are called to be witnesses about jesus.  we, you and me, have to proclaim the good news not only to the christians, but also among the non-christians and save their souls for christ.  we are working very hard in pakistan to keep our faith and give testimony to non-christians.  we need your prayers and support.  thank you."

it does not seem that we are working very hard in this counry.  we need prayers and support, too.