Differences between Islam and Christianity

Father Sidney Griffith is a professor of Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature at the Catholic University of America.

Father Griffith shared with us how Christians can better understand the Koran and how its teachings on Christ and Revelation differ from those found among Christians. The full article is in Catholic.Org site and is dated 2004.

Let me share just one question answered by Father Griffith.

Q: Briefly, could you explain the key differences between Islam and Christianity?

Father Griffith: The differences between Islam and Christianity are several; two of the most significant of them concern Christology and the theology of Revelation.

The Koran rejects the Christian confession of the divine sonship, that is, the divinity, of the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, as the Koran calls him. This denial in turn involves the rejection of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, on the grounds that it compromises the Christian profession of monotheism.

Furthermore, according to the Koran, the genuine, uncorrupted Gospel, together with the Torah before it, and the Koran after it, are on a par as revelations which God has sent down to human beings at the hands of the messengers: Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. In Chapter 33, Verse 40, it says that Mohammed is the last, or the seal, of the prophets.

But the Torah and the Gospel, in the form in which the Jews and the Christians actually have them, are considered by the Muslims to be textually corrupt and subject to distorted interpretations.

For most Muslims, the Koran is considered to be the uncreated word of God, whereas for Christians the Bible, under divine inspiration, is the word of God in the words of human beings.

Most of the other differences between Islam and Christianity flow from these fundamental differences in doctrine. There is also no clergy in Islam, comparable to Christian clergy; nor any authoritative, institutional magisterium, as in Catholicism.

You can read the rest on Catholic.Org.