Dutch bishop: Call God ?Allah? to ease relations

AMSTERDAM - A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew ridicule.

"Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper.

Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, told the paper he welcomed any attempt to "create more dialogue", but added: "Calling God 'Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."

A spokesman from the union of Moroccan mosques in Amsterdam said Muslims had not asked for such a gesture.

Signs of tension had already surfaced in the last two weeks after the head of a committee for former Muslims was attacked and populist anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders called for the Koran to be banned.

Bishop Muskens, who will shortly retire, has raised eyebrows in the past with suggestions that those who are hungry may steal bread and that condoms should be permissible in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Quran a "fascist book" in the vein of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" which legitimizes violence.

Wilders, whose new party won nine seats out of the 150 in parliament in last November's elections, is well known for his firebrand remarks on Islam.

He said an attack by two Moroccans and a Somali on the head of a Dutch group for "ex-Muslims" had spurred him to write.

Issues of immigration and integration had faded from the Dutch political agenda over the last year, after a period of unprecedented social tension sparked by the 2004 murder of Theo Van Gogh, a filmmaker critical of Islam, by a Muslim militant.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20279326/?GT1=10252

God has many names...

Well being Catholic I find this offensive. Personally I think the Islam religon sounds like a bad cell phone plan. I mean you can only pray to God at 5 specific times during the day and you have to be pointed in the direction of Mecca?

Jesus has any time minutes. And he always has 5 bars of service.

I really shouldnt say that about muslims. I mean I can see how they think they are God's chosen ppl. Didnt in the Bible it say Abe was going to be the father of a great nation? Well he fathered a child w/Sarah's servent first because Sara was barren. Then when he found out that Sara could get preggers he dumped his first kid and that servent in the desert.

They believe in the same God as us though as far as I know. They just do not consider Jesus to be a savior, but just a prophet. Kinda like we see Moses or Noah, I am guessing.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sup-rbeast</div><div class="ubbcode-body">God has many names... </div></div>

Of which allah isn't one.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: boney</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sup-rbeast</div><div class="ubbcode-body">God has many names... </div></div>

Of which allah isn't one. </div></div>

Exactly. Christians and Muslims cannot worship the same god. Christians worship the God and Father of the great God Man Jesus, born of a virgin. This Jesus who existed in the form of God before creation and manifested Himself in the flesh is the ONLY way to the Father. A claim He himself attested to in the Gospel of John. If one comes to a god in any different way, then that god is an idol and not the one true God of the Bible.

It doesn't matter if you're hindu, muslim, buddhist, or an earth worshiper there is only One God in three Persons, Father, Son and Spirit and this Godhead makes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all true believers down through the centuries all others are the figments of mens imaginations...

Well said, GC1. The muslims are the antithesis of Christian ideology and thought. But the liberal theologians think they can find some "common" ground. That will never happen. I think it's in Ex 23:23 that we are instructed not to even speak the name of another god. We are also told not to take the name of the Lord in vain, and He tells us that He is "I am". This poor bishop is a total wreck.

Your faith teaches one thing, theirs teaches another..but both worship one god...and unless you were around for the creation, they have as much proof for their faith as you have yours...If you were born in the middle east you'd be on the other side of the fence as well.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sup-rbeast</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Your faith teaches one thing, theirs teaches another..but both worship one god...and unless you were around for the creation, they have as much proof for their faith as you have yours...If you were born in the middle east you'd be on the other side of the fence as well. </div></div>

Right, mine teaches one thing, theirs another. So both can't be right. And while I wasn't around at the time Jesus became incarnate I can only read about the accounts of His healings, raising people from the dead, and finally raising himself from the tomb after 3 days. And I can also attest to the fact that he took a broke down, drug using, blaspheming wretch and made a new creation out of him by the Power of the Holy Spirit.

And I thank Him for His grace and mercy in that I very well could have been born in another country never to hear the light of the Gospel preached and would have lived my life in the deep darkness of false religions.....Have you ever wondered why the nations who have historically Christian have been the most blessed and prosperous?

Amen!!