Can you be both a Muslim and a Christian?

Question

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003751274_redding17m.html

Well this women did... She is a priest of Christian church yet she is a Muslim...
Please read the article its very enlightening.
Don't religions don't contradict each other unless you take Jesus divinity in bible literally!

Answer 1

1st of all a muslims by definations means "1 who submit his wills 2 Almighty God & Islam is the verb from the root "aslama" (a verb), meaning to surrender; submit; obey; sincerity and in peace.
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And chrisitans r those 1 who follow teachings of jesus(pbuh) & christianity means the religion based on teaching of jesus(pbuh)
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My purpose 4 telling these meaning was just that u can recongnize from there meaning that how much they r different from each other.
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Christians didnot accept Muhammed(saw) as a final messenger & consider Jesus(pbuh) as a son of God which we muslims called "SHIRK" the biggest & unforgiveable sin.
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I kno there r some similarities b/c islam & christianity but we cannot be both muslims & christian.Because as a muslims we hav 2 testify
(lailaha ila Allah; Muhammadur-rasul Allah. 'There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah)
while i don't think so christians do that.

Answer 2

can.t be, one believes jesus is God, the other not. That redding just recently embraced islam so that means the effect of her being christian can't just go right away. She likened her being an american and an afro, that's true, but can she be white and black at the same time?
she is now a muslim but continued "working" as a priest, well that can be, for not all priest are spiritually"christian" , so too of the other faiths.Just monitor her activities and one day, one of that religion will "excommunicate" her base on what she will preach.
when i was a new muslim, i also have that "experience", just hard to leave your roots in a short time.I blushed whenever a topic about christianity was discussed and all the mistakes about the scriptures exposed.

Answer 3

She's picking and choosing the things about the two faiths that she likes, which in essence doesn't really make her Christian OR Muslim. Christians believe in the divinity of Christ and that salvation comes through him alone; to them, Muhammad was a nobody that came six hundred years later in the game. To Muslims, Jesus was merely one of the more interesting, mortal prophets before Muhammad; they don't believe Muhammad is divine but they ascribe far more reverence to the man than non-Muslims do. Yes, there are similarities, and similar roots if you go back far enough; but there are too many differences between the two to be able to be "both". I suppose it's possible to be Muslim and take some Christian teachings to heart to enlighten your faith or your view of the world--or vice versa, for Christians--but that's about as close as one can be while still being either.

Being that I'm from Seattle, there are a lot of self-proclaimed "idealists" that like to come up with their own things and exclaim that they've thought of something original--I doubt this is the first person to fence-sit between the two faiths and ideally think of themselves as being "both".

Answer 4

Good question!

I believe, from an Islamic point of view, the original Christian was a follower of the miraculous Prophet of God Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), a true believer in the All-Mighty God, and one who distinguishes between the two.

This is not much different from what Muslims believe in today...so in a way, if Christians believe what Jesus Christ taught them to believe, they would be Muslims too.

But Christians are taught to believe that Jesus (pbuh) is either God or the Son of God, so this is definitely not in the teachings of the Qur'an nor the tenets of the Islamic religion.

So to answer your question, at one time, Muslims and Christians believed in the same God. However, it's not possible that a person can be both today, simple because of the fact that Christians do not believe in just one God, but a manifestation of three, where somehow, Jesus has become both the God and the Son at the same time...which, in my opinion, has become deviated from the "simple truth" of universal unity and the Oneness of God...

Answer 5

Most Muslims and Christians will say that it is not possible. Nevertheless, both religions are monotheistic, and both had early contact with Judeaism, more so with Christianity, that effected their founder's beliefs.

If you believe that both religions speak to you, then it is possible for you. But remember that you will catch a lot of flak and intolerance from zealots and bigots. Try reading "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong. She once was a Roman Catholic nun, but was deeply effected by Islam, especially the Sufis.

Answer 6

i agree that there is no contradiction unless you take certain parts of christian teaching literally. but i still can't help but to think that there must be some contradiction in calling herself both.

the biggest difference between christianity and islam is that most christians believe that Jesus is literally God's son. But christians also say that "we are all God's children," but they don't mean that in a literal sense of course, or else we would all be divine!

Jesus taught his followers what is now known as the "Lord's Prayer." the prayer starts off as "Our Father, who art in heaven..." -- Jesus told his followers to refer to God as their father, but he also refered to God as his father! this leads me to think that the idea of anyone being the child of God was not to be taken literally, whether it is Jesus or any other person!

Jesus also refers to God numerous times in the bible as "your father in heaven" when speaking to people.

i am muslim (used to be christian), but i read both the bible and the qur'an because i know that they are one and the same message so long as you don't misinterpret the teachings of Jesus. the lady in this article was definitely right about that. but there are many things i would like to know about her still.

for instance it said that she hung a cross in her car next to the arabic inscription "Allah." this seems like a definite contradiction. muslims don't believe in the cross because we believe that God saved Jesus from death...similarly, muslims don't believe that any human can take the burden of all the sins of humanity. Muslims believe that God alone saves people from sin. i wonder what her views are on this...

i would also like to know how she feels about leading the christians in church when she doesn't believe in Jesus' divinity, but the followers do. does she have to teach a message she doesn't believe in? this seems a little mixed up to me.

in the article, it says that she doesn't believe that Jesus is divine, but that he was a regular human being, and that she doesn't believe in the trinity (not literally, anyways). at the same time she says she is a christian. this may seem contradictory at first, but didn't the original christians take the same view? the qur'an says that God sent a prophet to teach "Islam" ("submission to the will of God") to every nation, and Christianity at one point was the message of Islamic monotheism. if she (while being a christian) chose not to believe in Jesus' divinity, it seems to me that she has chosen, in her heart, to be a "Muslim" even without formally taking shahada. and doesn't God know the heart of each person?

i believe in the teachings of Jesus because he is a prophet of God....but i could never call myself both a christian and a muslim! but that's just me...seems like she's satisfied with her dual faith.

i would like to quote some of my favorite passages from the bible and the qur'an: in the bible, Jesus says that the most important commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart." the qur'an says "Jews, Christians, Sabians, and all who believe in God and do good deeds will enter paradise." she does seem to love God, and she is a Christian...and she's a Muslim! (some people would say she gets a bonus, lol.)

i think her position, although controversial on both sides, is more acceptable from the islamic perspective than the christian one.

so my answer to your question is yes...and no. if a christian believes that God is One, has no children, and no partners, then they are a basically a muslim (and by many people's definition they would not be a christian). if she didn't believe in those things and said she was a muslim, then i would have serious doubts. personally i think that should be up to God because He is all-knowing.

and Allah knows best!

Answer 7

I don't think the answer is a simple yes or no. You can certainly take what is positive and speaks to you from both religions and apply it to your life. That however would not leave you able to claim both due to the restrictions each faith places on it's followers. Perhaps the best choice is to be who you are and apply knowledge and beliefs where they best fit into your reality.

Answer 8

No,Christianity believes in the Trinity and Islam does not
nor in the Incarnation of God and the Diety of Christ and His Crucifixion and Resurrection. Christianity rejects the prophethood claims of Muhammad and the scripture and inspiration claims of the Quran.

You can't be both.

Answer 9

the copies of the Koran that I own state that Jesus was neither the Son of God or God Himself, He was merely a prophet like Mohammed (pbuh)...

...and Christian faith is based on:

Jesus = God

&

Jesus = Son of God

...for us Christians:

being God, Jesus can be anything, including his own son...sounds weird, but God can do anything, including what seems impossible...

...so this seems like one major sticky point between the two religions…


and, also, about taking the bible literally, its been said:

.....that Jesus told the sarcastic rich young man to sell his stuff and follow him...

...to that young man Jesus literally meant for him to sell all his stuff and walk with him as he continued his ministry here on earth...

...to us today, Jesus implied that we should live with an inward detachment toward our belongings...

...BUT the key here is that we have no right to the implied meaning unless we are truly able to understand and be willing to believe and do the literal meaning since the implied is based on the literal...

...thus you can't expect to be able to live by the implied if you can't even abide (or understand and believe) the literal......

Answer 10

Absolutely not, because the Bible calls the Muslim God (Allah) DESTROYER in two languages.

Second, Islam claims to support Christianity, but the Quran says if you believe Jesus is God, the son of Mary, then you must be treated as an INFIDEL. That means: convert or loose you head below the inferior mandibular process.

Thus says my donkey, he has a large mandible.

Blessings, Balaam