Islam and Jesus, Son of Mary | William Kilpatrick | CWR
Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Syracuse, New York, will soon be The Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary
Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Syracuse, New York, was sold in December to a Muslim group and will be turned into a mosque. The Muslim organization requested that six stone crosses be removed from the top of the century-old historic church, and the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board has complied. However, as Syracuse.com explains in an April 6, 2014 article, “Plans to turn a church into a mosque bring pain and hope to changing neighborhood”, everything evens out because the mosque will be named the Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary “to build a bridge between the old and the new”.
So that’s all right then. Or is it? The news story is written to the theme that Islam and Catholicism share much in common—two sides of the same coin, so to speak. A diocesan spokeswoman is quoted as saying that “the building is once again being used to meet the needs of a growing population on the North Side, just as Holy Trinity did as it served the Catholic faithful.” In this telling, immigrant Muslims are just like immigrant Catholics of a hundred years ago. After all, both believe in Jesus, the son of Mary. “The Muslims could not keep the crosses on the church,” the Syracuse.com report concludes, “But they chose the mosque's name to build a bridge between the old and the new: The Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary.”
Why do the crosses have to come down? The reason, as explained by one of the Muslim organizers, is that “crosses are not an appropriate representation of the religion of Islam.” Why is that? Because the Koran maintains that Jesus was never crucified and therefore never rose from the dead (4:157).
In short, there are reasons to wonder if the Jesus, son of Mary that Muslims revere is the same Jesus that Christians revere.
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