Who is my neighbour?

You’d think God, Allah and Yahweh were three different creatures, wouldn’t you, the way the monotheistic religions bicker? One is vengeful and cruel; another is gentle and loving and, through his “only begotten son”, urges us to love our neighbour.

There’s this geezer who used to be a Muslim (therefore followed the god known as Allah: vengeful, hateful, if you believe some verses in the Koran) and is now a Christian (following the god called God: loving, all-knowing) who’s slamming Muslims for wanting to build a mega-mosque in London.

Pastor Jonathan Oloyede is convener of the Global Day of Prayer in London, and has just said, “I used to be a Muslim. The Muslims don’t just want to build a mosque. They want to take over.

“If you want to roll over and play dead while the legacy of your forefathers is thrown in the dust and you can’t stand up and say enough is enough then you are not fit to be a Christian.”

He said the plan to build a huge mosque on the site of the London Olympics was “ungodly”.

“All that stuff about not offending anyone is nonsense,” he’s said. “I used to try to be nice to everyone but God said to me, ‘You cannot be my messenger by being nice to everybody. So are you going to just play nice or are you going to be a follower of Christ?’ ” he said.

Shades of the enemy-smiting Old Testament God there.

Ray Brocklesby, owner of the Bahá’í website linked to above – which relates this story – asks, “Whatever happened to the message of loving one’s neighbour?”

Well, quite, if you’re going to criticise the way this chap is talking (pitting Christian against Muslim, allegedly worshippers of the same god but of different names).

But I’d also add that loving your neighbour is something you can’t do if, by “neighbour”, you mean everyone – symbolised by the unknown chap from a perceived “enemy” religion whom the Good Samaritan of the parable helped – because the “neighbour” to whom Brocklesby is alluding by citing a Christian message is the neighbour cast in that much wider context by Jesus when he allegedly told this story.

You can’t allow a mega-mosque of these proportions to stick out like the proverbial carbuncle and at the same time love your culture and, by extension, the people who value it (your neighbours in the more conventional, geographical context).

I agree with Oloyede that there’s an element of taking over involved, and we’ve carried a fair few posts on this blog that would give that impression. Every kowtowing appeasement we make when Muslims moan, every concession we allow, the more Islam encroaches.

But it’s less to do with being Christian than with just being neighbourly to oppose this mosque (although Christianity is relevant in this case, since we’re nominally a Christian country if we ally ourselves culturally with any religion at all).

We’re certainly not a Muslim country, although that could be only a matter of time, since there seem to be many who’d like us to become one – including many non-Muslims.
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Related links:
You’re having a mosque whether you want one or not
You’ll learn about Islam whether you want to or not
Sharia: creeping ever closer
No sharia here