Would the Christians who pray to ‘Allah’ please Stand Up?

Malaysiakini had published a statement by ‘Penyelaras Nasional Belia untuk Keadilan dan Keamanan’, K Sudhagaran Stanley on his plan to hold a peaceful assembly to protest against MAIS for refusing to return the Bibles to Bible Society Malaysia (BSM). Sudhagaran in his statement calls for all races and faiths, including Islam, to stand together against the Islamic Authority for the injustice done to the Christians.

He even calls for PAS leaders to join the ‘walk for peace and love’.

Another way to put this is, Sudhagaran is challenging the court for the rights to break the law. This looks no more like a political stunt by DAP to me – using an Indian to speak up against the Malay-Muslim authority while they watch and wait and heat it up in the oppositions’ media.

Before anybody decided to join Sudhagaran, can you please answer me this:

How many of the 9% Christians, particularly in the Peninsular, actually pray to ‘Allah’? I have asked the same question again and again but have not had any reply. We all know for a fact that even the newly eagerly converted Christian Chinese are not keen in using the word ‘Allah’ in their prayers.

None of the Christians I know would pray to ‘Allah’ simply because they don’t worship ‘Allah’. Many don’t even read the Bibles be it in any language.

‘Allah’ is the name of Muslim’s God but it’s not a direct translation of ‘God’ in Malay. If you want to have a fully Malay text in the Malay Bible translation then the word ‘God’ should be translated to ‘Tuhan’. Unless, you want to translate the Bible to Arabic, so maybe..just maybe, you have the rights to use the name ‘Allah’ as God.

But you have to take note that Allah for Muslims has no son. Allah for Muslims is one, and none other is associated to Him in any way. Allah for Muslims didn’t let Jesus die but saved him. Allah for Muslims is known as the All Merciful, All Loving and Forgiving.

Christians wants to include the name ‘Allah’ in the trinity concept and so ‘Allah’ for Christians is not one, but three in one. I don’t know whether the Christians is using ‘Allah’ to replace the ‘Holy Spirit’ or ‘Father’ but either way, they are not referring to the same ‘Allah’ as the Muslims for the Father has a son and the Holy Spirit is associated to both father and son. ‘Allah’ for Christians let Jesus die.

With this in mind, how could anybody claim that we are all praying to the same God?

We cannot claim that the Hindu Gods and Goddesses whom each has its own territory and capacity be taken as the same God as the Holy Spirit, Father and Jesus who is in charge of everything.

How can a boy named John who has blue eyes and perfect nose be taken as the same John across the street with green eyes and crooked nose? Can we take all Johns in the world as the same person? Just because BBC and TV3 are TV channels and both bring to us news and dramas, it doesn’t mean that they are the same body.

Some Christians in Malaysia are not up to argue on this academically or rationally. Instead, they disregard the Laws and sensitivity of others and went on with the use of the name ‘Allah’ in Malay Bibles and were ready to distribute them.

If this is not an act of evil, then what is?

It is only expected that such evil act is handled roughly by the authority. You may accuse me of betraying my Christian brothers and sisters but I’m telling you that this act of provoking and ignoring the law just to create tension in the country is an act of evil.

You see, this is what happen when you are too busy teaching Islam to the Muslims that you don’t know your own religion anymore. As a result, the Christians have become evil.

Not all though, but those who do not become evil, choose to keep quiet for fear of being labeled as a traitor to Christianity. Christians are aware that by using the word ‘Allah’ in Bibles means getting more followers among the lost souls of Malay-Muslims. And so, they condone the act of evil, believing that they are doing the right thing in the name of Christianity.

What is even more disgusting is that, there are Muslims or so they claimed to be, who choose to join this evil. These Muslims think that they are really fighting for justice in the name of ‘freedom of faith’, regardless of the fact that 99% Christians in the Peninsular don’t want, don’t need to and don’t use the name ‘Allah’ in their prayers. Perhaps, these Muslims don’t even know that.

Therefore, instead of keeping mum, the government could have approached these 99% Christians and get them to talk. Get them to tell the people that they don’t use the word ‘Allah’ in their prayers and they don’t need to. Get them to show to the people that these few Christians who want to pray to ‘Allah’ don’t represent the true Christianity.

The peaceful assembly against MAIS is supposed to serve as a challenge to the authority and the law. The objective is just to make things worse. I am sure, that they are counting on a confrontation from the Muslims which would raise more questions on Malaysia’s stability.

It looks like the evil is working hard to destroy the country. In time like this, true Christians should come out and make their presence and stance known. If the government don’t come to you then you come to the media and set things right. Tell the people whether you pray to ‘the one and only Allah that has no son nor an association’ or to the ‘Trinity God’? We don’t need to create tension just to use the name ‘Allah’ as Jesus hears us just the same.

I hereby call upon all true Christians to stand together with other Malaysians to make a pledge that we will never poke into each other’s religion just because we like their God’s name better.

Let no evil use our religions as weapon of mass destruction.

Son of God and the Crusaders of 13 May?

Christians and Muslims basically share the same history. They share the same prophets, with exception of Muhammad, for the Christians. The Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God while Muslims believe that Jesus is just another prophet, a human in every way, just like Muhammad.

Regardless of this little but significant difference, Muslims and Christians both like to make religion as the world’s matter, not a personal matter.

And of all the things in common of the two religions, there is one thing that the Christians have but the Muslims don’t, that is, power. The Christians gain power through knowledge. To put it in short: ‘Bright is Might’ and ‘Might is Right’, therefore, ‘Bright is Right’. At least, that’s how the world sees it which is why, people of other religions in Malaysia, such as Buddhists or Hindus, look up on the Christians and ‘want to be like’ the Christians. And it just so happened that the Christians represent the Mat Sallehs.

This is why it important to be bright because when you are bright everybody would say that you are right, even when you are wrong.

Even so, the ‘brighter and mightier Christians’ have issues with the Bibles, just like the Muslims with their Quran. The Muslims find that there are so many versions of Quran’s interpretation that some of them think Kassim Ahmad is a ‘kafir’ and some don’t think so. Some thinks that the Shiites are non-Muslims but some don’t think so.

Like the Muslims, the Christians are divided into so many churches of beliefs with three most common ones: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants.

Naturally, the Catholics think that they are hollier than the Protestants and the Orthodox and vice versa; and forever they disagree with each other on little things such as ‘what actually happened during Jesus’s Last Supper’.

Being the ones with power, the Christians have the ‘strength’ to come out with million-dollar movies to promote the religion and their versions of the truth. Over the years, there are few movies about Jesus Christ, eg. ‘Jesus’, “Passion of Christ’ and the up and coming soon, ‘Son of God’.

All of these movies had sparked controversies among Christians. The Passion of Christ, for instance, was said to be made by Catholics and so, the Evangelicals were a little uneasy, even ‘afraid’ to watch the movie.

The new movie ‘Son of God’ on the other hand, is said to be too Protestants and that the Catholics are called to not support the movie.

With all the fights with the Muslims over the name ‘Allah’ in Bibles, I foresee the ‘good Christians’ in Malaysia would be all too happy to embrace the controversy of the movie ‘Son of God’. The only difference is that, the Christians in Malaysia may not be looking at the movie from the Protestant’s, Catholic’s or Orthodox’s point of view, but rather from the Muslims’ point of view.

I’m not sure how many of the Malaysian Christians actually learn in-depth about which church to follow. Unlike the Mat Sallehs who firmly hold on to a particular version of Christianity with all their hearts, many Malaysians’ Chinese or Indian Christians I know, don’t really care about the many versions of Christians’ beliefs. They are not even interested to study it. All they want is to be Christians like the Mat Sallehs and who cares which version is the truth.

According to Wikipedia, the major Christian denominations in Malaysia include the Anglicans, Baptists, Brethren, non-denominational churches, independent Charismatic churches, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterian and Roman Catholics.

And for the record, among all these many Christians’ churches, the only parties that ‘permitted’ the word ‘Allah’ to be used in the Bibles is, the Catholics…and,..ironically, the Muslims’ liberalists.

The word ‘Allah’ in Bible had made headlines in the U.S too, some time ago. It created an uproar and strong objection from the Christians community all over.

In 2012, a Christian’s journal, ‘Christianity Today’, once wrote a cover story about it, “The Son and the Crescent”, whereby it received mounting protests on Christian websites and a petition to the translators by a consortium of Christian missionaries and leaders.

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) then officially rebuked Wycliffe Bible Translators' approach to translating the phrase "Son of God" for Muslims, where it replaced ‘God’ with ‘Allah’. The church recommended that the small denomination's churches withdraw financial support from such Bible translations if they remain uncorrected. Wycliffe was risking the support from the 3-million-member Assemblies of God that it eventually agreed to a review of its practices by the World Evangelical Alliance.

Two years before that, on January 9, 2010, Pastor Brutus Balan from the Baptist Church in Australia also stated that, the church did not agree with Christians using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to ‘The Lord’.

The fact is clear that Christians in majority, protest the word ‘Allah’ in Bibles.

Since the movie ‘Son of God’ will be coming to our cinemas soon, I just cannot help wondering how the Malay-subtitles is going to be. Will they translate it to ‘Son of Allah’? Would the Christians really go to that extend just to intimidate the Malays?

I’m not surprised if they do because I heard that there are calls made to start a Holy War. It looks to me like the Christians here have gotten the Crusades and the 13 May tragedy all mixed-up.

If this is true that some Christians are calling for a Holy War, then be reminded that there is nothing holy about politicizing religion. Leave politics to the politicians and racial provocation to the racists. Christians should just focus on being a good Christians.