Description
How can Christians committed to the classical Christian tradition, both Evangelical and Catholic, address the issues raised by contemporary Islam? Before a much-needed dialogue between Christians and Muslims is established, Christians need to ask themselves how their Scriptures and traditions might come to bear on such a dialogue. Do the divisions among Catholic and Evangelical Christians fracture the classical Christian tradition in ways that undercut Christian-Muslim dialogue before it has even begun?
Or could the classical tradition provide invaluable resources for resolving divisions between Catholic and Evangelical Christians in ways that would prepare them for meaningful conversation with Muslim brothers and sisters? And what does it have to teach us about what Christians can and must learn from Muslims about their own traditions? The scholarly essays compiled in Christian Theology and Islam consider these and further questions, offering valuable insight for concerned Christians and academics in the fields of theology and religion.
About the Author
Michael Root is Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America and Executive Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He was formerly the Director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg, France.
James J. Buckley is Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland. He has contributed to and edited (with Frederick Bauerschmidt and Trent Pomplun) The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism (2007). He is an associate director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.
Contents
Contributors
Introduction
Michael Root and James J. Buckley
1. The Unity and Trinity of God: Christian Doctrinal Development in Response
to the Challenge of Islam – An Historical Perspective
Sidney H. Griffith
2. Abu Ra’ita al-Takriti and God’s Divine Pedagogy
Sandra Keating
3. Apology or Its Evasion?: Some Ninth-Century Arabic Christian Texts on Discerning the True Religion
Mark N. Swanson
4. Christian Theology in Conversation with Judaism and Islam: How Theologians
of the Period Engaged with Non-Christian Sources and Traditions
David B. Burrell, CSC
5. The Missing Peace of Evangelical Missiology: Peacemaking and Respectful Witness
Rick Love
6. In Search of New Approaches to Inter- and Intra-Religious Christian and Muslim Debates
Nelly van Doorn-Harder
Endorsements and Reviews
The importance of this book is it brings together the voices of Catholic and Evangelical Christians. … This book shows that there have been times in which Christians took the challenge of Islamic theology seriously, and it serves as a foretaste for new forms of Christian theology in conversation with Islam in the near future.
Pim Valkenberg, The Catholic University of America, Washington
Christian Theology and Islam is a fascinatingly eclectic book. … This would be a useful addition to the shelves of a library or specialist scholar, but anyone with any interest in engaging with Muslims should buy the book just for chapters three and five.
Anvil, Vol 31, No 1
Full of scholarly detail … the gem in the book is an essay on The Missing Peace of Evangelical Missiology in which the author argues that the Christian’s mandates of peace-making and evangelising not only can go hand in hand but must be pursued together. This has application well beyond the area of Christian-Muslim dialogue which is the focus of the book.
Gertrud Sollars, in The Reader, Vol 113, Issue 2
The merit of this book consists in presenting effective systems for approaching an interfaith dialogue with Islam.
Alessandro Giostra, in Reviews in Religion and Theology, Vol 23:1
