Toward the end times

Toward the end times Featured

Lito Monico C. Lorenzana
LML Polettiques
29 November 2023
Comments:DISQUS_COMMENTS
Second of a series

THIS takes off from my past two columns on a hypothesis on religion being a driving force for wars and even more conflicts. "Toward a tragic prognosis" (The Manila Times, Nov. 15, 2023) and last week's "Religion — impetus for war and conflict" (TMT, Nov. 22, 2023) garnered mixed reviews and some vitriolic responses. Religion is a profoundly sensitive topic, and discussions on dogma and supernatural revelations are indeed delicate and tend to float up the best of arguments tempered by the worst of debaters and distorted insights of an assortment of ignoramuses.

What used to be a discourse exclusive to men — no women allowed — restricted to the sterile, sacred inner sanctums of synagogues, temples, mosques, cloisters and monasteries, overseen by rabbis, priests and imams jealously guarding the sacred arcana of their faith, is now out in the open.

The atheists, unbelievers and agnostics condemned these totalitarians of faiths, these people of the cloth, for claiming to possess celestial truths passed on from above, revealed and known only to them and not to us. Social media and the internet have democratized religious conversation and demolished barriers to dogmatic intercourse,

To precipitate further discussions, this column attempts to present the three Abrahamic religions in the light of their commonalities and points of contention that might negate or reinforce this hypothesis. (I leave that to the readers.) These three religions share historical and spiritual genesis, foremost of which is monotheism — abandoning the beliefs of their ancestors and the zeitgeist of idolatry and paganism.

Monotheism

First on the scene was Yahweh, the God of Abraham, who appeared to Moses as a burning bush on Mount Horeb (Sinai) approximately 3,300 years ago (13th BCE). "And God said unto Moses. I am who I am; and He said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you." (Exodus 3:7-8, 13-14)

The Christian Bible, on the other hand, is filled with passages of God's revelation to man as God, but not as dramatic as the burning bush, although the Christian Bible acknowledges this passage in the Old Testament. "Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.'" (John 14:9-10)

Last is Allah, revealing himself to man, not directly to his face, but through their belief in the specially appointed prophets or messengers of Allah throughout history. No theatrics but words and instructions to Muhammad through Archangel Gabriel for 23 years from 610-633 CE.

The Abrahamic religions hinge on this one true deity, as "all-knowing, all-powerful" in the New Testament, while in the Quran, Allah is described as "having knowledge of all things and being capable of all things."

More importantly, the Abrahamic religions share many moral principles encompassing compassion, justice and charity, which are all written and contained in their sacred books, the Tanakh, the Christian Bible and the Quran — providing ethical guidance to their multitudes, which comprise 60 percent of the world's population.

But is Yahweh, the Christian God, Allah the same one true God?

The Catholic Church, since Vatican 2, has taught that Jews and Muslims all worship the same God, with Pope John Paul 2nd declaring in 1985: "We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection." And in 2019, Pope Francis implied as much when the Declaration on Human Fraternity, together with the grand imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi was signed. Therein, the two religious leaders mutually declare: "We, who believe in God and in the final meeting with Him and His judgment." (Gabriel Said Reynolds, Notre Dame University, May 26, 2020.)

But the details of this communion were unresolved. This harmony of monotheism is marred by some complexity. Although Jews, Christians and Muslims alike know God not only through reflections and revelations and scriptures transmitted to prophets, Christians and Jews share scriptures of the Old Testament, Christians and Muslims do not. Islam judges the bible as muharraf — falsified — rejecting the Old and New Testaments.

Divergences

Dogmatic beliefs are something that is unbreachable and irreconcilable, striking as it were the very core of each faith. For Christians, Jesus is the Son of God. His death and resurrection are Christianity's foundation. For Jews, Jesus is not the Son of God and not the Messiah. Central to Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God, making the worship of Jesus a form of idolatry. Islam considers Isa (Jesus) an important prophet born of the Virgin Maryam who will return to earth before Judgment Day to restore peace and defeat al-Mash ad-Dajjal — the Antichrist. Isa is not God.

Other discrepancies are structural. Christianity has dozens of denominations, but the largest, the Roman Catholic Church, is hierarchical, tracing the papacy to St. Peter with bishops and priests attending to the flock with a huge bureaucracy in Rome attended to by appointed sinecures who elect Peter's successor in the event of a vacancy.

Judaism has a decentralized leadership of rabbis with no central authority. Instead, different Jewish denominations and communities may have their own governing bodies and leadership structures. In Israel's 6 million Jews, the people are united by homeland but have four distinct communities: the Haredim (the most devout), the Datiim (modern orthodox), the Masortim (the most diverse group), and the Hilonim (secular, the largest group in Israel).

Similarly, Islam is a decentralized clerically driven caliphate of imams, muftis and scholars of Islamic jurisprudence. Sunni Islam has no central religious authority, unlike the Shia, with a Grand Ayatollah reigning supreme but not encompassing the whole of Islam.

The Third Temple

But all these will come to a head if religious tenets are to be followed to the letter. The Jews must rebuild the Third Temple in fulfillment of eschatological prophesies anticipating the coming of the Messiah, at the very site of the First Temple destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, resulting in the Babylonian Captivity, and the Second Temple, razed down by the Romans in 70 CE resulting in the diaspora.

The Third Temple will rise from the remnants of the Second Temple, the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, encompassing the Temple Mount (Al-Masjid al-Aqsa), the third holiest site in Islam, the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, the spot from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The Messiah will bring about the ingathering of the Jewish diaspora, the final restoration of Israel and the ultimate redemption of the Jewish people. His coming will usher in an era of peace, justice and knowledge of God. Religion summons all protagonists to an eschatological confrontation in Palestine. The promised land!

The believers are arrayed, as they are now, around the dictates of their faiths. Hallelujah! God is Great! Allahu Akbar!

The end times!000
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