"Now when Muslim scholars refer to Christians as people of the book, are they only talking about the tiny fraction who consider Jesus as a mere prophet and not Christ?"
Muslim Scholars ... It depends on who you talk to. If you talk to an Imam who's grandfather was defeated and lost the family estate in Jerusalem (or some other radicalized leader), they will likely say those people no longer exist since they had their chance to follow the Message of Mohammad and rejected it, and now live to persecute Muslims. Similarly if you listen to someone who has only known a very narrow monotheistic society all their lives they will swear the teachings of their village elders represent the only possible path to salvation. If you meet someone who has grown up in a thriving progressive community of diverse international people and interfaith openness you would probably hear that it means anyone who believes in the message God has sent to all believing people on how to extend a hand of mercy, live with compassion toward all of creation, love for others that which you love for yourself, and stand for justice in all circumstance. Since Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts all carry this message authored by the Alpha and Omega of existence, then all should live accordingly first and formost by doing goodness unto others, and all who do are the people of God.
I'm glad you have a church community that sticks together for community strength, but be honest. When you go to your Church the scholars of your particular sect probably clarify that the other sects aren't quite going to make it on the 144K in crowd. In fact, say some, the 144K is to be gathered from the population of the Earth since Adam and there have been some pretty outstanding representatives of the human race since then, so that might leave very few seats for those of us standing around the malt shop today. Also, some of those others around here are so out of line they may find themselves headed the other direction. Then within your church the gossips know who the hypocrits are, ruining it for most of you by their back sliding behavior. Then within the uppity crust of the church they gossip about each other behind each other's backs. Then the wife of the preacher begs her father to have a talk with the preacher guy about some of his behavior.
But I'm not picking on your group. You show me a hundred groups and pick one hundred members from each from Catholics, to Mormons, to Seventh Day Adventists to Southern Babtists to Lutherans to Coptics, etc who wouldn't disagree strongly with each other over what it means to be a TRUE saved Christian, and Who exactly the Saved group is that gets the 144K seats.
Once you reach that level of honesty then you should be able to figure, correctly, that Muslims are no different. The people on this thread started out being at each others throats over Christian divisions, then found it easier to have a common target, Muslims. Muslims find it easier to band together and target non-muslims for their religious bashes. But if you wiped all the Non-Muslims off the planet, the Muslims would be back at each other's throats tomorrow. If you Christians wiped every Muslim alive today off the planet, this argument would be redirected at some other group, maybe one of those I mentioned above, and you know it.
Do you get that? I hope I answered your question. |
