Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims Worship the Same God?

In December, an evangelical college in Illinois suspended a professor on allegations of “heresy.” Her crime? Declaring that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. After discussing Muslim and Jewish arguments to the contrary, which date back to the 1st century CE, Peter Berger argues in favor of the professor’s assertion:

If one steps back from the important theological differences among these three west Asian religions, one may look at them from the perspectives of south and east Asia, especially those of Hinduism and Buddhism. The similarities between the three “Abrahamic” religions stick out more visibly than the differences. To be sure, the religions that emerged from the Indian subcontinent, especially in their most sophisticated versions, also point to an underlying unity beyond the many gods. . . . But this unity, disguised by the illusions endemic to the endless wheel of reincarnations, rebirths, and re-deaths, is far removed from the view of all reality as created by the one God whose promise is eternal glory.

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? The present interfaith etiquette answers “yes.” This is certainly useful politically in the confrontation with radical Islamism, and I would not deplore this use against a dangerous and utterly evil movement. But one can also answer the question with a “yes” for analytic rather than political reasons. Muslim tradition has maintained that the Quran reveals 99 names of God. . . . But the 99 names of God do not belong to 99 gods. All of them refer to the one God, whom Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship (even when they don’t like the idea).

Read more at American Interest

More about: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Religion, Religion & Holidays

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF