Dome of the Rock Shrine detail
Islam: the word and the religion inspires fear and causes confusion in many Christians. Islam–what is it? Is the Taliban and Al Qaeda all you know of Islam?
What if the Crusades and American soldiers in your town was all a young Middle Eastern child knew about Christianity? Muslims are our neighbors in the US. Muslims are our neighbors in the world. Islam is the second largest religion in the world. But who are they? What do they believe to be true and of ultimate value?
Christians need to know. We need to know more than news headlines and what angry people tell us.
Therefore we are adding a CD edition of The Teaching Company’s course, “Great World Religions: Islam” to the Tabernacle Church library. It is a 12 lecture course with each lecture taking 30 minutes. The instructor is Professor John Esposito, a distinguished instructor at Georgetown University. He himself is a Christian, but is respectful of his topic and has written over 25 books and is editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of Islam. In other words, he’s no slacker.
Lecture topics include: The Five Pillars of Islam, the life of Muhammad–the founder of the faith, the Quran (Muslim scriptures), community in Islam, different spiritualities within Islam, women in Islam, and Islam in the West, among others.
The length of the lectures makes it easy to listen to, and to repeat if desired. And though Eposito is an academic, he is a good teacher. This is a college level course, but don’t let that scare you. There is no test, and you can re-listen to the teachings as you feel the need.
The course is good, not great. At times Eposito makes pleas for tolerance and understanding and respect that are not grounded on anything more than the current prejudice that tolerance is the supreme value. He does not wrestle with the truth claims of Islam, nor does he deal adequately with the theology that separates Christians, Muslims and Jews. That will have to wait for another course.
Because the need to understand Islam is so crucial in our day I recommend this set of CD for Christians.
